Master Your Emotions

If you accidentally cut yourself while chopping vegetables, your finger sends an instant, panicky message to your brain: Stop that! This lets you use sharp tools while also hanging on to all your digits.

Negative emotions work in a similar fashion. Like physical pain, they serve a purpose to tell us something is wrong. But they can also keep a powerful hold on us.

That grip is especially strong if your feelings reinforce your identity – the story you tell about yourself. To understand what is meant by this, meet your ego.

Ego is often used as shorthand for pride – like saying a star athlete has a huge ego. But it can also refer to how we see ourselves.

You see, Your identity isn’t a real thing, but something you’ve constructed. Everyone finds their identity in the things they own, their relationships, their gender, and their religious beliefs, and tell a story about who they are and why they matter. That creation is their ego.

Unfortunately for us and those around us, our egos are built by a self-centered narrative, and consequently, our egos are never satisfied. They push us to bolster our own self-worth by feeling superior to others – for example, “I’m important because I make $150,000 a year.” Then when someone threatens our self-image with insults or cuts us off in traffic as if we’re some kind of nobody, we can’t handle it.

Breaking free from your servitude to that self-narrative can make you happier and help avoid stewing with resentment.

The first and most powerful step is simply to realize what your ego is up to, and that it’s just a story you’re creating in your head. The more you wise up to its tricks, the less power it holds over you.