Ego Death & Rebirth Doula

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In short, it is someone that helps you navigate the complexities of a psychospiritual awakening that causes a significant change in how you see your “Self.” As neurodivergent individuals, we are aware of the “masks” we wear in social environments. Masks are analogues for “ego.” In Jungian psychology, the ego is the interface for the conscious mind; it is the persona we maintain as our primary mask with the exterior world and is also often an important part of our self-conception as well. When our ego is wounded, we feel shame. We navigate the complexities of our social environments (work, family, friends, romantic relationships, etc.) through our egos and, consequently, we spend no small amount of time maintaining them in various and sundry ways.

We bring up neurodivergence because we believe that the experience of being on the spectrum, either as autistic or ADHD or both, makes the mask or ego more conscious than with neurotypical people. Because we ALL wear masks, even if we refuse or are reluctant to see them – ego is often another name for a blind spot. Neurodivergent folks just have the good (or mis-) fortune of feeling the mask more consciously – either in our direct awareness of it that comes as it breaks down or in the ways our symptoms torment us following social interactions. Our ego is the primary mask we wear; the big one that fits over any and all other masks. We may take on a lot of identities or “wear many hats” as people say, but the nodal point of those identities/masks/hats is the ego as a collection of values, perceptions, beliefs, opinions, behaviors, personality traits, and personal narratives we have collated from within and without to provide us with a stable sense of self.

These egos can cause us a great deal of pain as well. There are many experiences and developments in life that can bring about this pain or ego dissolution. Traumatic events that challenge our understanding of the world and our place in it. Major life changes, such as divorce, moving, losing a job, losing a loved one can rock our foundations to the core. Aging and growing as people can cause us to alter or shuffle off our ego entirely as we grow into a new version of ourselves like a snake shedding its skin. 

Our world and the demands it places on us does not slow down for these changes nor does it recognize and accommodate them as they come. This creates a great deal of stress as we navigate an “ego death.” Carl Jung’s own “mid-life return” is a good example of this sudden onset of change due to personal growth. At 38, Jung suddenly quit his work as a scholar and started building small stone castles on the shores of Lake Zurich as he attempted to get in touch with his inner child. Jung’s breakdown, or breakout if you prefer, was a catalyst for significant personal growth and the development of his later work on the collective unconscious as well as his therapeutic methodology for his patients; he was a practicing psychoanalyst after all.

An ego death and rebirth doula then is someone that has been through the process of ego death before and works with you as you undergo these radical transformations of Self. Our particular perspective is grounded in Jungian psychoanalysis as well as the belief that the process of ego death and rebirth puts us into connection with our authentic self as an expression of our personal divinity. Ego death is a provisional step to developing a more holistic and stable conception of “Self” that is embodied and aligned with your soul. Ideally, the ego death is a form of spiritual chiropractic work that cracks the misaligned joints of ego (our shame, our shadow, our spiritual and psychological pain) into alignment, so that touching on our ego wounds can no longer send us spiraling into negative cognitive patterns and self-sabotaging narrative loops. A bonus is that people can no longer manipulate us or poke at our ego wounds to herd us – after an ego death and rebirth, that no longer works for motivation.

The idea is to liberate the Self from the prison of the ego, and, in so doing, unlock the creative potential of each individual soul in full expression of its unique piece of divinity. As Jung famously said, “Life really does begin at 40. Up until then you are just doing research.”  

"A man cannot get rid of himself in favor of an artificial personality without punishment." 

             — Carl Jung “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious”