I would say you are giving way too much attention to a word and in doing so you are creating a monster.

Ego is part of us, it is not good or bad. You say yourself you are making presumptions and that is the real truth here.

I had some rich and famous lives and was heavily scrutinized... and I know the social cost of losing your cool in such lives. There are carryovers from that... but any more it is getting too difficult to do anything but go with the OCD. Well it is something to do I guess, another thing that would seem to make an interesting hobby EXCEPT that socially it makes me a misfit. And I desparetely don't want to be a social misfit. It is horrible having people be mean to you. Absolutely, totally horrible! But it is getting so DIFFICULT to be trying to fight it! Sigh.

You care about self image so much because you don't have one - at least not a constructive one. Been there, done that.

It is all about how you see yourself - depressed, having a personality disorder, not being a 'normal' person whatever one of those is. You are a victim of your own circumstances, or at least you think you're a victim. Deep inside there's a part of you that doesn't want to feel that way, that wants to feel as though there's even one little thing you can feel good about yourself for. Everybody is looking for something to feel good about themselves for, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant that is. Perhaps you think that because of your being a nobody your deeds and actions are suspect and you want to redress that balance. Someone with a healthy self image would act more rationally, wouldn't they?

Spend time on yourself, find a way that works for you in whatever form that takes. If you have a personality disorder it might be worth seeking professional counselling, do things that you know you're good at and recognise your own achievements - anything that will help your self development. Stop ruminating and let it all go because in hindsight everything looks different, a first step would be to realise that you're doing it and make a conscious effort not to. Recognise that a part of you wants to be recognised and nurture it like a hungry child.

Look in the mirror and ask yourself "Who loves you, baby?"

You are somebody who thinks they're a nobody that wants to be a somebody.

Energy flows where the attention goes, and all you look at is all you see. Words create worlds and your words seem to be creating your world. If you could just harness that energy you have and direct it more constructively your words and your world would look very different.

Look behind the mask.

What is your image of yourself that doesn't exist?

It sounds to me that you're being very hard on yourself, you have expectations of how you think you should be versus who you are. Its not so much about ego I would say, but what you've been conditioned to think...a kind of world view of what the perfect person should look like. It creates a war within yourself, forever putting yourself down because you don't meet expectation. There's the you that was created by the influences of those who took care of you when you grew up and there's the you who came to enjoy a unique perspective and wanted to explore...those are the two who are in conflict.

What I've learned is we are all unique individuals, not one of us is the same so why try to conform to a particular world view? Be yourself, relax and follow your instincts...or better still, follow what excites you in the moment and trust where it leads. There's no one in the world like you and that makes you important because you have a unique perspective that Source wants to explore that no-one else can fill. You are certainly not Nobody. Source loves us all or we wouldn't exist.

Hi Windbreeze,

Yes, I resonate. We care about our self image because it is natural for where we are at the moment. Please don't start with the premise "I am a nobody" - this is not technically accurate and it can cause some confusion. ("I am nobody" is still a somebody)

Take care of yourself :smile:

Snow Goose - I find your post to be particularly thoughtful and helpful to those suffering with depression and anxiety. The quote by Lao Tzu hits the nail dead center on the head.

I've kinda not been chasing a woman who had some issues with depression and this has gotten me quite interested in the subject. My dad was a depressive for years and took lots of anti depressants, not a good look, and watching him, wondering why he was where he was, intuitively I learnt to keep away from depression as my own sensitive nature became apparent. So with this woman I'm not chasing I've been able to watch her and also be somewhat on the sidelines and throwing titbits her way that I've learned along the way.

Now without getting too telly, telly, as I don't think that helps, first off depressives are usually very intelligent except thought patterns aren't as useful as they could be and that's because they're normal thought patterns and normal thought patterns don't suit intelligent people.

Creative though is better, and therein creative outlets are a good start... not because you make artworks, have finished products... that in itself might bestow a little confidence but it's really the kind of meditative process that helps, seeing and creating patterns, finding patterns etc, making connections between ideas, thats the stuff that works then with that its quite simple to realise what mindfulness is. Starting to see how thought patterns work for and against us.

Then diet. Diet is really quite important and diet is about knowing what healthy food is and how it promotes good body chemistry through having a healthy gut...

With all of this going ones intuition should start happening to lead to even better choices, as it were, which when this gets going the inner trust is happening... and that is really what it's almost always about. Trust.

With talk about ego here, I was thinking about asking something interesting as I am curious. We are talking about people's ego, but what about ego of source/universe? We all have interests, so why source/universe can't have? If source/universe is all about expansion and we are part of it to help it expand, doesn't that make source/universe selfish? It might not sound right because source/universe apparently doesn't have ego, but source/universe has interests in expanding through everything, specifically through people.

Why doesn't it ask people if they want to be incarnated to live life and serve its interests? Especially people who are suffering on this planet and make them go through all that because of expansion interests?

Nature has no ego.