The Ego Staircase
How our human brain “operating system” traps perception
Image Credit - Endless Stairs by Mike Horvath
If you look into the eyes of a baby or very young child what do you see?
Most people will answer with words such as expansiveness, curiousity, purity, wonder.
What happens to these as we grow?
As we start to understand and develop language, the part of the mind which we could call the ego construct starts to develop the ability to use words in our mind. With words in our mind, we start to internally comment on everything we experience. We develop a program of thoughts, assumptions and judgements about ourselves and the nature of the world and people around us (the ego structure). The ego is an inner roadmap or model of the self. We are not born with it because babies do not understand or have words or thoughts. I think of it like a computer operating system that tells our mind how to respond in any given situation. And like computer operating systems, they can become outdated, clunky or contain bugs (like a MAC system from 20 years ago). This mind software is shaped, formed and reinforced by every experience you have had up until now.
Most people can recall an experience of being in a psychological or energy state that seems devoid of thoughts for a brief moment in time. Like when you are immersed in a beautiful view, or an experience of deep peacefulness, connection or awe. This is the beautiful experience of being, outside of the ego operating system. Sometimes we experience this space outside the mind’s “computer program” while meditating, while being immersed in a state of flow or quite profoundly for many people, via consciousness widening psychedelic or plant medicine therapy.
But the operating system that comments on everything comes back online very quickly. And we need this operating system to function day to day - think about this, avoid this, consider this. The operating system is almost purely focused on physical survival and it comes from the threat focused part of the brain. It is impossible to have a human experience without having an operating system.
The challenge is that the ego construct wants to maintain control at all costs - it priorities survival over happiness so it will always be negative biased or threat based. This is the part of the mind that can never be happy no matter what and that will always find something to fixate on.
I have come to picture this part of the mind as like a metal box which contains a staircase inside with a bottomless pit of the mind’s fears at the very bottom. Once you are drawn into the box you are on the staircase and the further you go down the staircase the darker and heavier the walls become to sometimes land in a place of almost complete darkness and despair below. For most people the types of fears that arise in that space are fear of being alone, of not existing, of emptiness, of deep hopelessness. We develop ways of getting by, of operating in life that become ingrained patterns and reactions. It feels like a lot of the time we have a mild gnawing anxiety or dis-ease, like we exist going round the upper levels of the staircase, getting by but not truly connecting with the expansive, peaceful and often joyous space outside the staircase box. And when we are deeply triggered - something that for us personally is particularly painful or threatening - circumstances, a comment, a reaction - can fasttrack us to that space at the bottom of the staircase - the awful space of fear or darkness that feels intolerable and so alone.
So it is understandable that the ego develops certain defense mechanisms (programmed reactions) to guard us against coming into contact with these deepest shadow fears. Psychology has lots of different ways of describing these “programs” that get activated by triggered situations. For me these programs are most similar to what we call “parts” in family systems therapy, in ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) we refer to becoming “fused” to this content. In CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) we talk of having rigid core beliefs. When our “program” gets activated you can feel your body physically starting to close in, hunch and withdraw or brace, you can notice your thoughts and emotions become almost entirely fixated on what has triggered you and you can feel yourself being stucked into that dark staircase on a downwards descent.
It is so easy to get sucked into the staircase or the program - it is like the walls to entry are nearly invisible and before you know it, you are on the spiral. Here is a common type of ego program example…
You get an email from work. Someone is not happy. Your mind starts to activate the program (and this is just one version of the thousands of unique formats depending on your life experiences so far which make up your own unique program) -
Feelings emerge - stress, frustration, anxiety
Thoughts start to run through your mind like SBS subtitles round and round the staircase, descending deeper and deeper as the thoughts become consuming
“I can’t handle this”
“No matter what I do it never seems to be enough”
“I don’t know what to do”
“I am so sick of this person”
“ I hate this job”
“I have no choice”
“I am stuck”
Right down to the deep hopeless space at the bottom of the staircase which can feel like a bottomless pit of despair or emptiness but just about always connects to feeling completely hopeless and/or completely alone.
“There is no point”.
It is so easy to get sucked into the staircase but so hard to get out again. It is like a gravitational force that wants you to stay in the program and efforts to try and switch it can feel like wading through mud or quicksand. It is like the mind’s ego program wants to self maintain and keep you in that space where you will withdraw from the world and not take any risks (so be physically safe but energetically in a black hole).
“
You are not the program.
If you can look “at” something - you can’t “be” that thing.
Experiencing being outside the ego program is learning to see clearly.
You can’t delete the program - we need an operating system or program to guide and physically survive this human experience. But you can explore ways of connecting with the self outside the ego program and the more you can do this, the more detached you start to feel from the contents of the program.
It will still trip you up but you will notice and be able to notice that a part of you is stuck on the staircase and as you do that, the staircase can start to dissolve. Ultimately the staircase or ego program is an illusion but that is a whole other discussion!