The Seven Gates
There’s no question about it: the most fortified zone in the whole world is a person’s ego.
According to the dictionary, the ego is our “I” or sense of self. The thing inside us that distinguishes us from others. Our self-image.
If you read a little further down the dictionary’s definition, you’ll see that the ego can fall prey to something called “egotism,” which is an inflated sense of self-importance. That’s when we perceive, or wish to perceive, our “selfhood” as being of greater worth than that of other people’s.
Ironically, it’s not always the flaw of conceit that makes us willing to fight tooth and nail to keep our egos intact. It can just as easily be the opposite: a sense of inferiority. The less we secretly think we’re worth, the harder we battle to keep others from agreeing with that point of view.
Invulnerable as we’d like our egos to be, they are continually under assault. There’s more than one way to attack an ego. There’s the cutting remark, the belittling comment, the censorious lecture. Sometimes, instead of direct criticism, which is painful enough, someone can demolish our self-esteem simply by acting as though we’re beneath their notice. We all long to be seen.
All too often, the world around us goes on the offensive, either verbally or implicitly. It does so by hurling bullets of criticism at us, and mortar shells of rejection, and the occasional cannonball of a self-esteem crusher. It besieges the fortress of our ego and batters away at its defenses.
All this is not only hurtful, but also frightening. Because if the ego is shattered, what do we have left?
And so, we build defenses. We surround ourselves with circles of self-protection, each one with a locked gate sturdy enough (we hope) to withstand the assault.
Picture your ego as a citadel standing in the center of a fortified city. The outermost perimeter of defense is an invisible circle drawn widely around the city. That’s what we call our self-esteem boundary. Beyond this, none may step without becoming, in some sense, The Enemy.
The First Gate
Someone crosses your invisible boundary by making a comment critical of an action of yours or finding fault with a personality trait. They refuse to respect your right to keep your ego inviolate. They couldn’t care less that you want them to think you’re perfect. The arrow of their slighting opinion fires brazenly over the line of your defensive perimeter, and you react.
“Who does she think she is?” might be your initial line of defense. You try to defang the menace entirely by taking away her right to attack you in the first place! By virtue of ignorance, or insensitivity, or plain old bad middos, she has lost the privilege of taking you to task.
Refusing to recognize the speaker’s right to disparage you is one way of blunting her ammunition. After all, a nonentity without the proper credentials can’t possibly harm you.
Except that, sometimes, she does. You’re not always able to maintain the defensive perimeter as rigidly as you’d like. Reluctantly, you find yourself paying attention to the remark. And paying attention to it implicitly lends it credence. Now what?
The Second Gate
Once past the outer line of defense, the uttered criticism stands ready to batter at your city gates. Having gone so far as to recognize the speaker and her comment, you feel absolutely honor-bound to negate it.
“What she said? It’s not true!” You roundly condemn her opinion. You label her views as delusional, or at the very least terribly mistaken.
Everyone knows that you’re better than that! Why doesn’t she?
The Third Gate
Meanwhile, your innate truth meter struggles with your ego to get at the emes of the matter. The painful remark gradually bashes its way through the gates and into your city. Somehow, that critical comment has managed to get past your outer defenses.
Instead of ignoring or dismissing the rebuke and everything it implies, you find yourself in the position of actually having to consider it.
You stand suddenly vulnerable as you ask yourself: Could it be true?
The Fourth Gate
Someone intelligent enough and who knows you well enough to have the right to offer criticism has proffered an insight into the dark side of your character. You must now weigh that insight for accuracy. You’ve unwillingly accepted that there may even be some truth to it.
But… is it really so bad?
This part of the battle can be compared to an invading army not only breaching the city walls but marching steadily in the direction of your own neighborhood. There’s yet another wall around the courtyard in which your citadel stands proud. To defuse the enemy’s power as it approaches the place where you live, you scramble to find excuses. Rationales.
“Why is it so bad?” you bluster, insecure and belligerent at the same time. “Everybody does it!”
The Fifth Gate
Oops. The Enemy is no longer at the outer gates, or even marching grimly through your town. He now stands at the very entrance to your inner courtyard. It’s getting harder to excuse away your actions or character flaws. Hard as your ego tries to maintain its aura of immutable perfection, it finds its defenses crumbling in the face of this attack.
“Okay, so I did something wrong!” you admit at last. “But I do lots of good things, too! I’m a good person!”
By diluting the bad inside a whole lot of good, you hope to lessen the sting.
But the Enemy marches on.
The Sixth Gate
Finally, the Enemy is at your front door. There’s no escaping now. You’ve been forced to face something negative within you. Some fault or error which, for all your ego’s frantic machinations, you can no longer look away from.
Now, here’s the tricky part. Being able to stand unarmed and vulnerable in the face of your flaws should make you feel good about yourself. You’re doing a good thing! The admission of fault, bought with so much pain, is the first step toward becoming the best you.
But we don’t always understand that. Too often, by the time our ego lies shattered at our feet, we feel shattered, too. We’re ready to sink into a despair of self-loathing. This is a mistake.
If we can push aside the impulse to hate ourselves, and hate our critic, and hate the whole world that refuses to let us feel wonderful about ourselves one hundred percent of the time… if we can rise above that and use the Enemy’s incursion to help us understand ourselves a little better and to grow from that understanding… then the Enemy suddenly stops being one.
When that happens, even the most painful criticism becomes a tool you can choose to employ. A chisel to chip away at an ugly edifice you’d love to tear down.
A stepping-stone in the river of your life, to carry you to a more beautiful shore.
The Seventh Gate—or Doing It Right
What you once thought of as the Enemy has stormed your citadel, your fortress, your innermost heart. Instead of hating yourself, you love the self that feels sorry for mistakes you’ve made. You are repentant. Determined to do better.
Strangely enough, along with the hurt of remorse comes a blaze of wonder and even delight. Your ego wanted you to feel more special than anyone else. But you’ve been humbled enough to realize that everyone is special. Including you. You realize that we’re all struggling with the same Enemy. The one inside ourselves.
There’s no need to despair. All you need to do is listen with open ears and accept with an open heart whatever messages your loving Parent sends for your enlightenment.
When that happens, the fastness of your fortress becomes unnecessary. Let the bricks crumble! You step outside and, like Avrohom Avinu, become the master instead of a tent with four doors, open to the world. Open to people with differing views. Open to honest introspection. Open to and unafraid of necessary change.
Open, always and forever, to discovering the truths, both large and small, that the ego works so mightily to suppress.
