Deconditioning from homogenized spirituality, for defined egos
If you have spent time in spiritual communities, chances are you have picked up some conditioning around the importance of being egoless, and the value of selfless service.
If you have a defined ego center in your Human Design chart, I would love to empower you to throw that all away because IT IS SO INCREDIBLY UNHELPFUL FOR YOU.
It is damaging to your healthy sense of self-worth, and also to the strength, and correct application, of your willpower.
This is an area where I see a lot of defined egos making themselves wrong.
You mind thinks, “I should just be able to show up with the pure desire to be of service... what’s wrong with me that I’m always so concerned with what’s in it for me?” Or “Why do I only feel good about supporting people when they shower me with affection and stroke my ego? I should want to help people even when it goes unrecognized, simply because it’s the right thing to do!”
The thing is: this isn’t about right vs wrong. Nothing in Human Design is. It’s not about good vs bad. It’s simply about mechanics.
The ego center represents your relationship to the material world and your sense of self-worth. It is a muscle, it is your willpower, and it is not designed to work for nothing in return. It’s an ego! That’s not what it’s about and that’s not what’s healthy for it.
If you try to deny your defined ego’s need to be recognized and/or compensated for the work you preform, you get your not-self theme. You get bitterness, or frustration, or anger. There’s no way around this, it’s just how you are designed.
So, if you have a defined ego center in your design, my recommendation is that you accept this limitation, and surrender to your true nature. Be honest with yourself and others about what you need in return in order to show up and get to work, and feel good about it.
Your mind might try to tell you that this will make people like you less- and if does, that just means they’re not your people. The people for you will recognize your value and happily uphold their end of the bargain. This is how you create a win-win situation.