Special or Not Special – Ego and Unique Self Distinction #1

by Marc Gafni  from  Your Unique Self

Your ego thinks that you are special because you are better or worse than other people. Your Unique Self knows you are special because you are yourself. For the ego, “special” means “better than.” For your Unique Self, “special” or “different” means distinct and free from any comparison or point of reference. Your specialness is your spontaneous experience of your essence.

For further discussion (by Kerstin Zohar Tuschik):

Everybody has his or her own way of feeling special in the sense of ego specialness – every type, every level of consciousness. For some it might even be the belief that everybody else is special except me. Basically all those patterns are based on the insecurity: Does my life count at all? Do I have a right to exist if I am not more or better than…?

Going through the spiral dynamics model we find a couple of those “specialties”:

1. Beige: I am more vital and physically stronger than you.

2. Purple: I am closer to the spirits and the inner circle of the family or tribe than you.

3. Red: I am more powerful.

4. Blue: I am more righteous and closer to the Absolute.

5. Orange: I am more successful.

6. Green: I am more sensitive.

7. Yellow: I am more knowledgeable and developed.

8. Turquoise: I am more connected to the Whole and the Evolutionary Impulse.

Consider:

Watch these tendencies in yourself today.

And also recognize when your Unique Self shows up: When firmly anchored in the inherent specialness of our own essence, our Unique Self, we can relax, sink into Being, and allow the other person to BE as well. Then we immediately fall in love and awe when we look into each other’s eyes and faces, really recognizing our shared essence as well as each other’s absolute unique specialness.

Please share your thoughts and experiences on this in the comment section – here or on our Facebook page.

For more information on Spiral Dynamics and Unique Self, see the dialogue between Don Beck and Marc Gafni.

This post was originally posted here as part of a series elaborating further on the 25 distinctions between Ego and Unique Self by Dr. Marc Gafni–including practical exercises and reflections on how to put them into practice in our everyday lives.

For the whole series, see here.