virus: Ego Tearing

Tadeusz Niwinski (tad@teta.ai)
Sun, 23 Mar 1997 13:55:20 -0800

Dan wrote:
>It requires /killing/ your ego, your "self"; a ruthless attack where you slice
>here, cut there, but mostly just tear apart, to see where it tears most
>easily. If you gear up to do this, and you don't have a panic attack, you don't
>have a visceral understanding of what's required. When it's over, you dissect
>the pieces, methodically, dispassionately (if it's not dispassionate, it's not
>dead yet; you, you're ego, in a desperate bid for survival, has tricked "you"
>into believing you had the nerve to do it properly), spread the bits out and
>examine all the pieces, then look at them all at once.

Great idea. (Reed would call it "pimp psycology" (just testing you ego :-) )).
How do you practically do your "ruthless attack" ? Belonging to this list
is one method - for sure. It is a wonderful ego-tearing psychotherapy group.

I know another very efficient way which I use when I teach seminars in
Poland. It follows Nathaniel Branden's theory of self-esteem. He uses a
"sentence completion technique" where you start with a given stem and
quickly, without thinking complete the stem to make a grammatically correct
sentence (it does not have to be true, it does not have to make sense). You
can do it in writing. You complete one stem 6 to 10 times, and you take
another stem. Do it for a week and you can see the patterns of your ego and
what sits there deep inside. It's a good way of getting past your own
defenses. You -- kind of -- trick your ego and then consciously look at
what you have written. This is a great way to find out why you hate your
boss, man/women, and all your wonderful examples.

I am looking for someone who either tried this method or is willing to try
it and to discuss his/her findings. There are good examples of Nathaniel
Branden's sentence stems in most of his books, and in particular "The Six
Pillars of Self-Esteem".

Dan, can you give some examples of your ego-tearing techniques? (Please,
don't say it's just a "flip" in your mind and you become a Level-3er...)

Regards, Tadeusz (Tad) Niwinski from planet TeTa
tad@teta.ai http://www.teta.ai (604) 985-4159