You’ve heard about an adrenalin rush. I’ve seen ego rush. I see it in in groups, teams, and in classrooms. I detect it rumbling in me. Perhaps it’s natural and part of survival.

Symptoms of an ego rush occurring:

• Authentic conversation – the give and take and the sharing and building on ideas of others – seems impossible. It’s verbal arm-wrestling or nothing.
• Perceived insults, rebuffs, refusals, or dismissals are stored. They lurk in awareness, crouched for attack when the timing is right.
• What a person knows must be known and he or she will nudge and provoke until you share his or her belief in his or her superiority.
• The ego will win by winning or it will win by losing but humility and backing down are not options.
• Actual loss, perceived as humiliation, is temporary – a matter of perception. The “loser” will circle around and get even.
• Everything spins around hierarchy and real engagement, the wrangling, is delayed until the hierarchy is figured out.
• Conversations are calculated and are a means to advance an undisclosed agenda.
• The presence of authentic humility escapes or confuses those caught up in the ego rush as much as witnessing or trying to engage in a conversation using a totally foreign language.

Posted on December 3, 2017 at 11:05 am in Anxiety, Blended families, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Long distance relationships, Manipulation, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Shame, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Victims, Violence, Voice   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL