Lower ego vulnerability is reflected by an absence of awareness of one’s weaknesses and imperfections. This impacts relationships as this person is oblivious to how their weaknesses and imperfections are affecting others. They truly don’t recognize the small and large damage they are inflicting upon the relationship with their spouse/partner, children, parents, friends, and co-workers. In their case, “positive” emotional cues that most of us get—from love, anxiety, or anger—do not energize sensitivity to others and how they are treating them. They miss their callous thoughts, words, or deeds which often impact others, but they don’t realize this. Just as too much emotion can drown a relationship for those with higher ego vulnerability, too little emotion can starve one for those with lower ego vulnerability. Cold, aloof, and insensitive are often the words which describe them. The following excerpt from The Two Voices Within: Balancing the Energies of Ego and Spirit to Enhance Your Life presents the messages ego is telling the lower ego vulnerability person keeping them stuck in this energy. Messages they are listening to quite well but don’t realize.

Ego’s Voice

You have been led to live without emotion. Emotion is painful because it will let you know what you have done or not done and where you have failed. Without emotion, you need not know fear, guilt, or sadness. You need not know your earthly weaknesses, failures, imperfections, or vulnerabilities. Emotion is a doorway to them, so you must close it off to keep your distance from these enemies. The absence of emotion will make you invulnerable.

When desired, seek emotion only for your enjoyment. Let it be present in your thoughts, words, and deeds so you can be amused and entertained. Allow emotion to alleviate your boredom so you can know pleasure. Use it as a tool for this purpose. Allow it to be the maker of excitement or interest where none may exist. Make it a requirement of worthiness when forming your thoughts, words, or deeds. Abandon them when they do not provide the pleasure you desire and seek those that will.

Remain distant from those with whom you work or play. You need not experience emotion in your relationships with them, as it would expose your weakness and vulnerability to them. Both you and they are better off not knowing about your weaknesses. You must not let them know all of who you truly are. The absence of emotion will also make you less obligated to them. When necessary, use emotion to experience pleasure in your dealings with others. Be the maker of thoughts, words, or deeds that will bring forth feelings of love, anger, or fear from within yourself and others. Use them as tools for your amusement and to relieve your boredom.

You must be free of emotion in your dealings with those who are closest to you. They will reveal your weaknesses and betray you if you experience anger, sadness, or fear with them. In their absence you can keep others at a safe distance. Love and fear will bring you closer to others and lead you to need them. It will also make you obligated to them. You are safest and will survive best without these needs. Remain an island unto yourself. When necessary, bring emotion into the company of loved ones by allowing it to arouse, stimulate, and amuse you in the thoughts, words, and deeds you are choosing. Feel love, anger, or fear for the pleasure it can offer you. Emotion is safest when you are able to decide the terms of its expression. This will keep you safe and allow you to survive best.

Emotion will weaken you by forcing you to know yourself. It will lead you to see more of your vulnerability, which must remain hidden. In its absence, you can like yourself more, as you will not have to own or take responsibility for the darker parts of who you are. Allow them to remain strangers to you. Do not allow emotion to concern you with how others see you. In its absence, you can more easily, miss, ignore, or dismiss the weaknesses they are calling to your attention. Their thoughts and words can remain meaningless. This will keep you safe and help you to survive.

If the content from this blog resonates for you or someone you know, you may want to read further in The Two Voices Within (Chapter 6) to see if you/they are living any of the roles we discuss linked to lower ego vulnerability (Hedonist, Sociopath, Logician, Loner, Inattentive Person, or Sadist). It is when living these roles, some or most of the time, that we are damaging relationships with others and ourselves. Complementary material for those who would like to heal and bring your lower ego vulnerability into balance can be found in Ego Therapy: A Method for Healing Your Whole Self (Chapters 10 and 16) and EgoSpiritualism: Awakening to Your Human and Divine Self  (Chapter 7). All three books are available on the Shop page Here.