The Defensive Ego

Electric Energies: We don't feel particularly safe with ourselves, though it may not always be that obvious. We often are protecting ourselves, in one way or another, from some kind of hurt. Psychology calls this self-protection "defense." We perceive threatening events or feelings as "attacks" that we need to "defend" from. It is the ego's primary activity.That we defend ourselves from feeling hurt is obvious during conflicts, especially when these escalate into quarrels and fights. It seems more noticeable in others than in ourselves that this self-protection can be more important than the truth. The other person often seems to be saying things that we are convinced aren't true. It seems that the other says these things just to defend himself, and should know that they aren't entirely true. But everyone feels the need to defend from emotional pain, and parties do make efforts to inflict it onto each other during fights. The truth is the first thing that is out of the window, for the ego, then. Blaming is often a part of conflicts. When someone blames us for something, we may get to blame the other person instead. Sometimes, the other person is really accusing us unjustly. But sometimes what's happening is that we just can't bare to feel the guilt, and blame the other person just because of that, on the belief that one of the parties has got to be blamed. Telling the other person that he's only defending himself, and because of that not accepting the truth, will usually have the effect of the other person defending himself even more. The need to defend is quite compelling...read more>>>...