#102 Elaine Martini on reclamation of the ego
“I see the ego as the concept of self, of who I am. It’s about what relationship do I have with my ego and how is my ego helping me with the concept that I have of the self and what I’m here to do.
I find that intuition and ego need to work together. Intuition is receptive - it’s how you receive the information, it’s how you get guidance, how you connect to yourself. When you start getting the clues about what’s the best path for you, the ego is what makes it possible for you to actually take the actions and do something about it.”
In a dominant culture that consistently extracts from, and weaponises, the power of the ego, how can we begin to repair our fragmented relationship with the ego to give direction and purpose to the nurturing energy of the intuition? What can breaking out of unhealthy relationships with the ego offer for bringing about meaningful change?
This month, we welcome back to the show Elaine Martini, a writer, speaker, and storyteller whose work explores what it means to live a life that is truly our own. Elaine is the bestselling author of Truly Connected: Create a Life and Work Guided by Your Inner Wisdom, Authenticity and Soul and founder of the Connected Life Path, a community exploring authenticity, intuition, inherited patterns and the deeper layers that shape how we live.
Elaine is the bestselling author of Truly Connected: Create a Life and Work Guided by Your Inner Wisdom, Authenticity and Soul and founder of the Connected Life Path, a community exploring authenticity, intuition, inherited patterns and the deeper layers that shape how we live.
This episode is a continuation of our previous conversation with Elaine on finding intuition in a head-centric world, this time focusing on how to work with our intuition and ego to deepen our sense of self and purpose.
What will be covered:
Outgrowing “negative-positive” duality by embracing complexity of emotions and understanding purpose and our relationship to emotions
Ego and intuition as intertwined with different purposes
Ego as the concept of self and the relationship you have to self
Intuition as receptive, ego as taking actions towards what your intuition guides you towards
Rejecting guidance on “killing” or “transcending” ego - if the ego exists, it must have a purpose
Ego as giving structure and guidance to intuitive energy to bring about change to world
Working with ‘inner critic’ instead of being controlled by it
Ego and rage - both help us identify what is wrong and encourage us to act on this
Words as important tools for relating to one another - need to shift away from language that reinforces feelings of guilt and self-depreciation to one that nurtures ourselves
Using the ego to reinforce boundaries so that you can also prioritise your own needs
Not taking things personally and respecting others’ boundaries helps put this into practice
“Coming from the place that you are at”: becoming aware where ego is coming from through deepening self-awareness, removing judgement and through playful practices mentioned in the episode
Episode resources:
Connect with Elaine on Instagram @elainemartinicreate
Join the Connected Life Path community here
Receive Elaine’s offering of the first chapter of her book Truly Connected here!
Explore Elaine’s work on her website here
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Mind Full of Everything is a podcast calling for the radical healing of the self and community to outgrow the broken dominant culture of radical individualism and disconnection from our place as interdependent beings, so that we can collectively re-envision a safer, healthier and equitable world. Each episode takes a healing-centric approach to explore the embodied ways in which we can collectively restore and transform our journeys as stewards of community and earth through conversations with writers, researchers, coaches and educators, as well as reflection episodes with the host Agrita Dandriyal on her journey navigating the world as a deeply conscious, culturally-rooted and relational being. Learn more here.
