Our Ego's Deepest Need- Appreciation

Our ego has a lot of needs.  It wants to be safe, it wants to be comfortable, it wants to be stimulated.  But most of all it just wants to be appreciated.  Appreciation is the deepest need of our ego- deeper even than love (at least what the ego thinks of as love).  The ego craves appreciation and it will go to great lengths to find it from outside itself.   If it isn't feeling appreciated in a job or in a relationship, it will soon start seeking a new job or a new relationship where it thinks it can find more appreciation.  We have the power to give our ego the appreciation it craves, but all too often we think that appreciation is something that comes from outside us- from others.   We neglect to appreciate our own egos- often because we've been taught and believed that our egos are part of our lower nature and need to be overcome and subdued.  On the other end of the spectrum, we may indulge in false flattery of the ego, trying to make ourselves feel important and better than others or desperately seeking the approval and appreciation of others and willing to overlook our own standards in order to get it.  I believe that a lack of appreciation for the ego combined with a lack of leadership of the ego by the Spirit is the root of most of our suffering and unhappiness.

First- let's just get clear on some definitions:

The Ego:

The built in intelligence of the physical body- that auto-pilot/subconscious part of us whose programming is to create, maintain and extend physical life. When you read about our "subconscious mind" you can substitute ego for subconscious mind- they are one and the same. Ego just has taken on a somewhat negative connotation. It is the part of us that operates autonomously- without the need for our conscious control. It divides our cells, oxygenates and filters our blood, digests our food, heals our wounds, and much much more. In essence it creates, grows, maintains and preserves the physical body and the separate self (small "s"). In addition it is the realm of the automatic- the habitual. Your internal autopilot is a great analogy for the Ego.

The Spirit:

Who you were before you came into the body, who you are now in your body and who you will be when your current physical body returns to the earth from whence it came. Eternal and immortal. Never born, therefore can never die, or cease to exist or be. Connected to God and All Creation and to all other Spirit. Both separate and unified with your body, both separate and unified with all others and all creation. Already contains great wisdom and knowledge. Motivated only by pure loving kindness and joyful creation. A deliberate creator in partnership with God. Your internal guidance system that can lead and guide you in this earth life.

The Ego has many needs- after the physical safety and security of the body are met, the needs extend to feeling part of a group or community, and then growing the self's power and influence over others and over the physical environment.  

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is probably the best summary of how the Ego works. However, it's deepest and often most unfulfilled need is the need to be appreciated. This need is deeper even than the need to be loved.

For example- if you ask divorced women if their ex-husbands loved them- most will tell you "Yes, I knew he loved me, I just never felt he appreciated me." I have a good friend whose wife left him and when I told him about this concept of appreciation, he told me "That's exactly what she said in our counseling sessions before the divorce! That she knew I loved her, but didn't feel I appreciated her!"

The Spirit doesn't need appreciation, love, acceptance or validation. It doesn't need anything. It already is all those things and more. The Ego, however, does crave, need and desire all those things. It ultimately can only really receive the love and appreciation it desires from the Spirit who has it to give in abundance. But the Ego looks for love in all the wrong places. Any place besides the Spirit is the wrong place. It looks for it in others- first parents, then friends, then spouses, then children, then the world at large. Always seeking outside what can only truly be found inside. "Ever seeking and never coming to a knowledge of the truth."

This external seeking nature of the Ego is where we tend to get into trouble. Because the need is insatiable when received from the outside. It is only satiable when received from the inside- from the Spirit. Even when the Ego does feel like it gets some love and appreciation from the outside- whether from parents, friends, spouse, children, work, money or the world at large, it is only temporarily satisfying, and it is easily lost. Like the man who thirsts and sleeping, he dreams that he drinks, but awaking finds himself thirsty still. So ever seeking and never coming to a knowledge of the truth, the Ego- if left un-managed, or poorly led, will continually seek love and appreciation and approval outside itself. If it doesn't feel like it's getting it in its current relationship, it will go seeking for it elsewhere.

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