The Superego – Breaking Free Of A False God


Breaking free of the superego is absolutely essential for all of us who want to align with wellbeing, joy, love and freedom. Do you know how much of your life force and freedom to move forward is being subconsciously squelched by an internalized "parent"? We can be fooled into thinking that this voice is coming from God / Creator, but it is actually a voice we've made into a false god. 

It is shocking to realize that we may be unconsciously held back by this false god – and the fear it uses to control us – more than any other thing! It is my feeling that the inner conflict between the voice of the superego and our true heart’s desire is the source of all the variations of neurosis we human beings experience.

We need to bring awareness to this part of our psyche so that it isn’t running the show. Initially it may have been helpful for us in some ways when we were children. However, for most of us as adults, it is NOT serving our higher purpose, and it is NOT the wise voice of truth or God that it can fool us into thinking it is.

What Is The Superego?

Breaking free of this false god requires that we become conscious of it. The superego is your internalized “parent” voice. It is a composite of all the voices you heard as a child about what was and was not okay to do.

This includes all of the unresolved wounds from our parents and caregivers – their ideas about what was wrong, no matter how true or absurd that was. Even if our parents’ had the best of intentions for us in their parenting, our inner voice can still embody a confining and negative perspective.

As this part of our psyche is formed during childhood and continues on into adolescence and adulthood, this false god becomes a source of limiting beliefs designed to keep us fitting in and staying “safe.”

Below are some examples of situations that could have evoked negative feedback from our parents when we were children. This negative feedback became internalized into the voice of the false god. It is the voice that many of us originally heard as children from caregivers when we attempted to:

  • Speak what was true for us.

  • Take care of ourselves by making a choice that was threatening to the mindset of a caregiver.

  • Assert ourselves, even when we did it in healthy ways.

  • Reach for something we wanted that was beyond the status quo of those around us.

  • Express a strong (or in some cases ANY) opinion.

  • Do ANYTHING that our caregivers didn’t want us to do because it rocked their boat and triggered THEIR superego voice: “No, don’t do that! That’s bad!”

None of us had perfect parents. Every Soul you know came here to grow in some way. We all have lessons to learn and wounds to heal or we wouldn’t be here!

Usually the attitudes about “good and evil” or “right and wrong” that our parents passed on to us were passed down from THEIR parents’ unhealed wounds and what they were told not to do.

Therefore, the superego is often a composite of generations of unhealed WOUNDS that we then unconsciously believe is a correct “manual” to guide us about what is right or wrong to do. Shocking, isn’t it!


All the memories of times you were made wrong, ostracized or even punished when you reached beyond yourself or stood up for your natural, true needs are woven together to produce this superego part of your psyche. This reprimanding “parent” inside us tries to make us fit in so that we won’t get into trouble.

As adults, if this false god is still running the show, unconsciously we fear that the same thing that happened as a child – the same terrifying response – will come down on us.

We may fear we’ll be ridiculed, abandoned, hit, or reprimanded in some way if we don’t follow the dictates of the superego. And ALL of this can be unconscious! We just feel like we are being “bad” because this voice can sound like God talking.

Superego

When we were children and received negative feedback about our behavior we weren’t mature enough to discriminate about our caregivers’ perceptions. We weren’t able to tell if what they were judging as “bad” was truly bad for US.

Because we depended on our caregivers for ALL of our security – food, water, shelter, human connection – we didn’t have the luxury of questioning their rules. We NEEDED to fit in, and the only set of rules we knew as “right” and “wrong” came from our caregivers.

And so this "inner parent" part of our psyche is formed as a collection of the voices/rules from those authority figures in whose care we found ourselves. This false god becomes our inner “Bible” or “manual” about what is necessary to do or not do to insure our survival.

As the superego is born within us and grows, it fades into the background, just below our conscious awareness. We are no longer fully conscious of where this false god voice is coming from. It just becomes the voice of so-called “right” and “wrong” within us and for many of us, it never gets questioned!


Painful Ways The Superego Can Affect Your Life

Let’s say as a four-year-old child you danced naked in the living room with all the windows open. And why not?! It was delicious and free and it just FELT GOOD!

The sun from the windows warmed your body and the music was fun and it was so great to be free and alive and…. suddenly your mother is YELLING at you and she does NOT look happy with you. Terror fills your every pore.

Superego

Your mother is afraid someone will see you through the windows. She was told as a young girl that she was bad whenever she tried to do anything wild and free, and especially if she took her clothes off!

So HER internalized parent is freaking out about you doing something it sees as “bad” because it jeopardizes your ability (and hers) to stay “safe” and “fit in.” Her superego sees all the great fun you are having as “wrong” and reflexively tries to instill that belief in you. And this is all done unconsciously on her part because she is unconscious of the voice of HER internalized parent.

And so you, a naturally open and free, joyful four-year-old, unconsciously add this reprimanding voice to the superego inside of you. Zap! Another chunk of your natural exuberance and zest for life is squelched.

Then as an adult you think there is something wrong with you whenever you’re around a dance floor and you can’t quite bring yourself to dance (even with your clothes on!) If you do make it out onto the dance floor where people are moving freely and easily and having great fun, you feel very awkward, like you’re doing something WRONG. You feel fear or even terror.


“Courage is its own reward.”

~ Plautus


Your internalized superego/false god tells you, “No, don’t do this! It’s wrong. We could get in trouble!” And all this might be going on subconsciously. You might only be aware of a feeling that those people out there dancing so freely and deliciously are doing something wrong and you feel very uncomfortable being there.

If we continue to listen to the internalized parent and believe that this is indeed God, we can end up living narrow, unfulfilled lives and never even know why.



What Happens As You Follow Your Life Path

As we all follow our natural spiritual evolution, it is common to experience fear and doubt as we begin to follow our heart’s path and to speak up for ourselves and make honest choices about what is really true for us.

Whenever we reach into new inner territory the superego kicks in and says, “No, don’t do that! We could get into big trouble here! Let’s keep things limited and familiar. If we expand out of our comfort zone, who KNOWS what will happen!” Or maybe it tries another tactic: “Don’t even attempt this because you’ll fail! You don’t want to look incompetent. We’ll be ridiculed or ostracized!”


Poverty Consciousness Can Be An Aspect Of The Superego

In some cases, you might manage to break free from the superego to begin following your life path, but you charge so little for your services that you can hardly sustain yourself. Sound familiar? If this is the case for you, there is another layer of the superego you need to bring into your awareness.

If you provide a service or product for others, make sure you charge the full amount your service or product is worth. No matter what the superego says, you don’t need to self-sacrifice.

In this case the voice of the false god may sound like this: “People are struggling and you need to do what is ‘right’ and make it affordable for everyone.” Or you may hear: “You’re not good enough to charge more! Don’t get puffed up with self-importance.” Notice how tight and constricted you feel when you listen to the superego!

Don’t believe this voice in your head. It is NOT the voice of truth. It is the false god voice of the superego trying to keep you “fitting in” and staying “safe” but in actuality it keeps you feeling small, unfulfilled, resentful, dissatisfied, and far from safe.

Not only that, if you believe this constricted voice of the false god, you hold the energy of “not good enough" in your energy field and radiate that image of yourself out to others. By the Law of Attraction, two things come out of this:

  • Other people will treat you as "not good enough."

  • You will not be helping your clients or customers if you’re fooled by the superego and trapped in its dictates.

    Free YOURSELF from it and then you’ll live in a whole new, larger, expanded energy field. Now you will be helping others free themselves, just by radiating the energy you now live in, even if you never even say a word to them about it. This gift of reflecting expansion and freedom is a much higher gift you can give them.

Maybe you grew up in a family where you were taught that rich people were superficial. If you ever spoke about owning a nice home or driving a nice car you were laughed at or ridiculed.

So you grew up thinking that you were not only separate from those who had money, you also were taught to think you were morally or spiritually superior to them.


“It’s not doing what you love to do that breathes life into you; rather it’s who you are being when you do what you love to do.”

~ Amir Zoghi


Therefore, as an adult, unconsciously, the LAST thing you’d ever want to do is have money because then you’d be one of “them” and that would make you separate from your family. And you can still hold this unconscious belief even if you are at odds with your family of origin.

And so, you end up in low paying jobs and/or don’t charge enough for your services. Whenever you think about getting a better job or raising your rates you feel fear. Any thoughts of improving your situation are terrifying and you feel stuck.

Unconsciously you pull in your heart energy as you hear your inner superego preaching to you that it is “morally right” to be humble and small. You think it is God telling you that you “should” be happy with what you have and you don’t deserve to make more money.

This is the superego/false god who doesn’t want you to break the family rules, even if all the members of your family are deceased or estranged from you. This is a hangover from when your very security depended on fitting in with the family, when you were totally dependent on your caregivers for all your basic survival needs.

Most everything we received in terms of support came from them, good or bad. Therefore, in some cases, it was TERRIFYING to even THINK of upsetting them. So to survive, we internalized the prison of the small world we needed to shove ourselves into in order to not upset them.

So now as adults, either consciously or unconsciously, we feel like we’re betraying our family or violating some family law when we instinctively reach for our next evolutionary step spiritually.

This step may call to us in the form of reaching for something we want, or realizing our perspective expands outside of our family of origin’s views, thereby triggering the voice of the superego to try to make us small again and stay “safe.”

How To Tell If It Is The Superego Or True Inner Guidance Speaking

Superego

When You Hear The Voice Of True Inner Guidance …

  • The guidance is always illuminated. You feel or see light accompanying the revelation.

  • It speaks of best case scenario – the anticipation of the reality of WONDERFUL things to come.

  • You feel the inclusion of other people and things in your experience, and encouragement to look for common ground.

  • You feel a positive emotion. At the very least, you will feel a door to relief opening. The more you are in alignment with this “voice” of God, you may feel a sense of expansion, as well as excitement and eagerness to take the step you are guided towards.

  • You are lit up with creative ideas and feel energized by thinking about them.

  • You feel joy and wellbeing as you begin putting your inspired ideas into action.

Click here to explore ways to communicate with your True Source.

When You Hear The Voice Of The Superego …

  • You feel fear (or even terror) when you contemplate following your true heart’s desire.

  • It speaks in terms of worst case scenario and tries to convince you that the very worst thing possible will happen.

  • It generally speaks in terms of “right and wrong” or “good and evil,” and is quite rigid in identifying itself as “right” and “good” and anything outside it’s narrow perception as “wrong” and/or “evil.”

  • It speaks in a self-righteous tone.

  • It advocates separation and fear of others.

  • You feel small, held in, tight, constricted, censored and/or reprimanded.

  • You feel a sense of selling out on yourself and closing down your heart.



“I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.”

~ Rosalía de Castro


The Superego Needs Love Too

Even though the superego was born out of other people’s ideas of right and wrong, once it is internalized, it is now part of us. In breaking free of its grip, we need to bring love and understanding to this part of ourselves.

The superego is actually trying to take care of us the only way it knows how. When we understand this we can thank it for it’s attempt to take care of us. We can actually marvel at this self-preservation aspect of our psyche and see how cleverly it devised a tool to try to take care of us.

If we make it wrong or fight with the superego, this only increases the feeling of divisiveness within us. We simply need to bring awareness and love to it while questioning and investigating the reality of its dictates.

To complete the healing, we also need to bring love and forgiveness to our caregivers, and their caregivers before them, and to all the ancestors who came before us. We don’t even have to know who any of those folks were.

Now that we understand how the superego was created we see that none of this was anyone’s “fault.” That in itself brings forgiveness – to them and to ourselves.

We can visualize filling ourselves with light, love, healing and forgiveness and then sending it back through our ancestry on both sides, going back into infinity, blessing them and letting them go. When you do this with sincere intention, miracles of healing can happen for your whole family.




Breaking Free From The Superego

Superego

Since a lot of the power of the superego lies in the fact that we are unconscious of it, breaking free of it requires that we become aware of it and see how it operates in our lives. Then we need to accept its existence without blame for ourselves or others.

The next step is to CONSCIOUSLY make a different choice: to choose to follow our hearts instead of the constricted, wound-based perspective of the superego. Then we can move through and past our own wounding and get on with our lives.

Notice the superego when it arises. See it for what it is.

Check in with your Emotional Feedback Guide and be aware of how you feel. The more you do this, the more quickly you’ll be conscious of it. As you get familiar with all the different ways it tries to keep you “in line” with fear, the more you will be breaking free of it.

Then you’ll have the choice to follow it or not. Which choice feels best? Which choice brings openness, expansion, joy, creativity and love? Which choice makes you feel small and powerless?


“Our fears arise from things we don’t confront. Once we are willing to look fully and deeply at the source of a fear, it loses its power.”

~ Shakti Gawain, from Creative Visualization


Remember the tool that the superego uses to try to keep us “in line” and “safe” is fear. Be willing to feel the fear and release it to your Higher Power. Ask for help from your Spiritual Source. Ask for Higher Power to help you walk through your fear. You don’t have to be alone in the fear. Your Source will be with you as you feel it and release it if you sincerely ask It to.

DO NOT LET THE FEAR STOP YOU! Recognize the fear is just the superego’s control tactic and go ahead and do what you feel guided to do anyway. Imagine yourself doing what your heart is guiding you to do. Does that image have a sense of light and excitement about it? If so, do it!

I invite you to question this false god in your head. If you’re drawn to something and it is illuminated and gives you a rush of energy AND it triggers fear at the same time, do not let the fear stop you. Stand up and reach for what you want! Go for it! Whatever it is, it is the next step in your spiritual evolution calling you.

Your Freedom Is Calling You

Superego

If you don't follow the voice of fear and you trust your heart instead, your whole energy field will change. When fear arises and you let the fear be here as it is but without acting on it, you will be a much stronger person and much more self-empowered.

You will trust yourself more and you will experience greater freedom. You will expand into a new awareness and perspective of yourself, your life, and your world.

Let your true colors shine! You will literally free yourself of the prison of the superego. You can do this!! You have all the help and love in the Universe to support you. All you have to do is to ask for Its help. The Universe celebrates and supports every step you take toward freedom.


For More Help

Uncover Your Self-Concept And Free Yourself!

The Law Of Attraction – How We Create Our Lives

The Law Of Abundance – Learning To Receive

Attitude Of Gratitude – Turning Toward WellBeing Naturally
How To Love Yourself

Forgiveness Prayer – How We Can All Heal Together

You might also be interested in a WellBeing Alignment Session where you are guided and supported in discovering and resting in Awareness, and letting all suffering unwind on its own.


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