What's an ego death? (Jungian psychology) - Jordan Peterson

Fascinating stuff. Only the self remains, don't be afraid of loosing your ego.

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I curate content (edit little snippets of wisdom from the original material) and by giving it an original take and a coherent narrative, it adds value to the original content, plus makes it know to new people.

[mattxXx]

Ego death is the transition from thinking you are something to knowing you are both everything and nothing.

[Tarik]

Suddenly we have Jordan in Hollywood-movie camera-angles.

[mycommentpwnz]

I've endured an "ego-death, " and it took me 24 years to come-back from it. I was 6 years old, and my Mother asked my Father to choose between us (myself & the rest of my nuclear family) and the "party-scene." It was an ultimatum of sorts, his family or divorce. Anyways, he looked around, surveyed the family, and immediately left. Subsequently, for the next 25 YEARS, I DESPISED myself. I told myself (often subconsciously), "Even my own Father was incapable of loving me. I MUST be unworthy of love. I must be a worthless human-being."

At 18, I began turning my girlfriends into Father figures. Hoping they would care enough to stick around, and also set some limits on my actions. That obviously didn't work.
At 19, I began abusing hard-core drugs and alcohol. The drugs and alcohol reduced my emotional state to something akin of a cactus, which is exactly what I was aiming for. This lasted about eleven years.
At 29, enough time had went by in which the pain subsided & I could approach and analyze the past in a concise and objective way. I realized that my Father needed the "party-scene" (most likely) to alleviate some sort of distress he was experiencing. Animals in distress will do whatever is necessary to reduce the stress, especially animals without honor, dignity, character, and strength. And, most likely, he had none of those qualities.

I'm 37 today, I haven't done hard-core drugs in 7-8 years. I have an amazing job. I went back to college at 31, obtained a degree. Sure, I wasted half my life dealing with emotional pain that I didn't understand or comprehend, but we all get dealt a hand, and we just have to make the most of it.

[nadimahmad]

"When someone who loves you betrays you ". the way he said that . Damn. Peterson has known pain, his eyes .when he said that .

[stockholmcindy]

No point in asking. You'll definitely know once you get there lol. "To those who know, no explanation is needed. To those who don't know, no explanation is possible."

[Seeattle]

When someone you severely trusted in becomes untrue, everything else becomes under question as well

[kiratorres]

One must have an ego death to truly understand and an ego death. He definitely hits pretty close to understanding it with life collapsing. I had one from psychedelics and it was terrifying and changed me forever, but I chose to reconstruct my ego in a more positive and light driven way. But the first 6 months after it happened I was so lost. I lost my identity. I lost who I thought I was. I realized how meaningless everything in life is. And my true self wasnt nearly as cool as my ego or false self was. It’s like you have to grieve your old self.

Falling into chaos is correct. You realize everything the ego told you was a lie to protect you from pain. So when it dies, you see things how they really are, not how our ego made us think they are. Going threw your past is eye opening when u loose ur protecting egos lies.

For example when I had my ego death I realized my mom didn’t abandon me, she kicked me out because I was doing drugs and stealing from her. My ego made me believe she abandoned me and hated me and i held that belief from 16 until I was 30 when I had my ego loss. When the ego came down I saw my actions from stealing from her and getting high resulted in consequences of having no other choice but letting me go to figure things out myself because she knew she couldn’t save me. And now my mom and I have a wonderful relationship because i grew from what I learned and could let go of the hate and pain I once had.

Another was that my ego told me everyone is stupid they just don’t understand me. When my ego came down I realized I never learned how to communicate properly and my anger would tell me fuck them and cut ppl off that don’t get me. When the ego came down I was able to loose my anger and learn how to communicate in a way others will understand with out getting mad and pushing them away.

It was the worst and best thing I ever had happen to me. It transformed me in a way many will never understand. But it was the hardest thing I ever went threw.

[nickwilliams]

There's a great story Richard Dawkins tells (which I'll probably butcher).

Dawkins knew a respected researcher who was one day exposed to new research by a much younger scientist that pretty much demonstrated that the researcher was wrong. After the presentation, the older scientist walked up to the younger (in front of the whole audience) and _thanked him_ for proving him wrong. Dawkins says that the entire auditorium then clapped "until their hands were red."

It's one of the great strengths of the scientific method: accept the death of the ego (in this case a theory the older researcher had championed and invested much of his reputation in) so that the self may continue.

Our ideas die so that we don't have to.

[our.secret]

When someone you truly, deeply love and trust betrays you, you suddenly realize you are not protected on Earth, you are just like all other life forms, competing for the same reward and subject to the same dangers.
If you are anything like me, you realize that what others think of you doesn’t matter, all that matters is how successfully you mitigate suffering for yourself and your family.

[deims]

Having the chance to talk to professor Peterson, even for 20 mins, would be such a life changing event.

[Bassisi]

Almost went the entire 3 minutes without hearing about Pinocchio, good stuff!

[thegreatmpoyi]

My journey of ego death began nearly two years ago when I had eight pistols pointed at me. Long story. The journey was further continued when my younger brother, who I will always love very dearly, committed suicide last year. I’ve been set free to heal and create a new life, as these happenings have been rough, but they’ve helped me redefine who and what I am, while morphing into a better, happier and more authentic “me”. Crazy how life does

[bernlin]

He nails it before the video even hits 30 seconds in...it's betrayal, and it's deeply personal. When your ego is built around the idea of endless love (the love of family, friends, etc) and that feeling goes away (often due to breakups, divorce, etc), it can be very destabilizing for one's sense of self, including the ego.

[RyokoInk]

An ego death is a terrifying experience that helps you understand how small you are in the grand scheme of reality. *shrugs*

[ericfenton]

If you have experienced an ego death by way of betrayal, he’s right on with his explanation.

[alexpalmer]

I had an involuntary ego death 7 months ago after listening to a physicist talk about quantum mechanics and parallel realities. I saw the facade of perceived reality for what is. Nothing held any meaning, everything and everyone I had ever interacted with I now saw to be the same as a drawing on a piece of paper. I was living in a physic cage drawing images and allocating subjective meaning and beliefs to them when in reality they held none of that inherently. The illusion of self, the illusion of control, the illusion of freewill. All figments of my imagination. It was the most intense experience of my life by orders of magnitude. I could feel all my belief systems being dragged away from my soul and the natural pain of that. It never left me for weeks. I'd get attacks and the dread would fill my body and I'd feel like I was being sucked into the ground. I had a hard time separating dreams and reality, it was hard to stay grounded anywhere. My life's gone on as normal ( I've had some great months actually ), no one even noticed I was suffering with anything. But it's been 7 months and I still found it quite hard to write this. However, I am now starting to be able to use it as a tool to clear ego, even from the state of almost nothingness I can still focus on love and light. Peace

[jacobgeorge]

this is being recommended to me after I listened to Tys new song lmao

[Haseeebo]

My interpretation on this. (Shout out to Jack Jones for some of the wording on this)

Ego = concious core beliefs/identity/reality.
Ego death can come about in two ways.

1. Voluntary; through learned experience both intellectual and practical. However this requires one to sacrifice pride in order to accept that thier very idea of reality/self/core beliefs may be wrong...and in doing so it allows for transformationally positive experiences in life.

2. Involuntary; also through learned experience, however it comes in the form of betrayal. Or the notion that one was decieved (living a lie). Anyone that experienced "being played", understands this to some degree. You don't know what to trust anymore and if significant enough it can shatter your perception of reality itself! Devastating stuff.

So essentially when speaking on ego, Peterson is referring to fruedian concept of consciousness (super ego, ego, id).

[pacoelvato]

An ego death is one of the most beautiful things that you can experience. To be liberated from sense of self and all constructs of reality and just exist as iternal consciousness is absolutely life changing ♥️

[SuperGrinch]

I think I had an ego death when I got dumped by my girl friend a few years ago.. I was arrogant and I thought I had life figured out.. That event, which was one of the most emotionally painful events I had ever experienced, changed me completely, and significantly for the better I like to think.. I'm a lot more humble in a lot of areas than I used to be. The event killed off my old arrogant, entitled, ego based self, and a more humble and considerate person was born in his place.. I look back and although I still miss my ex to this day, as I loved her so dearly; I feel a much stronger, and wiser person as a result of losing her. I therefore accept the event as a necessary learning experience, and am hence grateful for its occurance..