Chapter Four: Role-Playing: The Many Faces of Ego

This week’s webclass focused on the many roles we play. I know that when I question clients and workshop participants about who they are, they list their roles and titles. We have become so attached to the many roles we play in a lifetime. Yet, who are we when those roles are no longer valid? This is part of the retirement or downsizing crisis – the job is gone and so is the title or role; and our identities were wrapped up in those roles. The roles, the job has become our sense of self.

"What really matters is not what function you fulfill in this world, but whether you identify with your function to such an extent that it takes you over and becomes a role that you play. When you play roles you are unconscious. When you catch yourself playing a role, that recognition creates a space between you and the role" (p. 90).

“So people who are out of touch with the power within or the place where all power resides, the aliveness itself, consciousness itself, then they feel a sense of lack. Why are they not in touch with it? Because they are not present. They are not in the present moment because the present moment is that entry point into that place of power within. If you are not present you don't realize that there is a source of power within and then you feel that you need to get secondary power from someone or some situation or other people. Then the ego plays roles to manipulate the environment and other people to get what it thinks it needs not realizing that all the thing it thinks will give it the power that it seems to lack, all that is already within you, if you could only be present in the now.” ~ Eckhart Tolle, from “A New Earth” WebClass

Common roles people play, especially women, include working woman, stay-at-home mom, female seductress, nonconformist artist, cultured intellectual, world traveler, etc. You also assign roles to others and then treat them accordingly. (How you speak to the janitor may be different from how you speak to the chairman of the company.)

~What roles do you play at work, home, or in the world?
~What roles do you assign to others?

My question to you is who would you be without those roles?

It is not too late to join in the conversation and create a new earth. Go to Oprah.com and join the webclass. If you have not read the book, you can still join in the class. At Oprah.com there are resources to help you in remembering who you really are, letting go of your ego identity and creating a new earth.

Also, if you are new to the webclass, you can access the archive of the previous classes -- on video, audio, or written transcripts.

Next week: The Pain-Body!

We are spiritual beings having human experiences!