Healthy Ego

Ego was the topic of a 12-step meeting this weekend. And a question that came up is if we should have an ego at all, as if it were a bad thing that we should try to get rid of..

For many of us, this writer included, our ego got us in trouble. We maybe thought we were really important.  And when the rest of the world didn’t agree – our feelings were hurt. And when my feelings were hurt I knew what to do. I immediately prescribed myself a liberal dose of alcohol or drugs to feel better. And of course a little was never enough and I ended up in some kind of mess.

But a balanced healthy ego, one built around strong self-esteem, is a good thing. A healthy ego lets us express who we are without thinking we’re more important than others. With a healthy ego we don’t take offense at every little slight because we realize that everything’s not about us.

A healthy ego recognizes that - while we may do some things better than others – it doesn’t make us better than them. We all have a different set of skills. A healthy ego lets us fit in with the ebb and flow of life.

A healthy ego says we aren’t special, that now that we’re sober we need to earn our place in the world – the world we rejected by our self-centered addictions.