I insist, you resist
You insist, I resist
We spend our life insisting and resisting
What stops us from accepting?
Our ego quietly plays this game within all of us, a constant tug between being right and being understood. My need to look good and feel good has been my biggest hurdle. In an effort to win, to stay ahead, to prove myself, I have not only hurt others, but most importantly, myself. I lose my peace of mind, I lose the love in my relationships and I lose respect. Awareness of this pattern is the first step toward transformation.
The ego is not our enemy; it’s a mirror. It shows us where our fears live: fear of rejection, fear of being invisible, fear of losing control, fear of being irrelevant. This poem is a reflective piece to remind myself of the simple truth: the ego doesn’t protect us; it isolates us.The more we insist on being right, the more resistance we attract.
Ego isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s a subtle, small irritation when someone disagrees, a quiet pride when we get recognition, or discomfort when we’re wrong. Anger, jealousy, envy, greed, anxiety are a reflection of the ego.
I was hyper sensitive as a child, and fearful of being alone. I would cling to my relationships to feel secure and constantly seek validation. This attachment resulted in a fear of rejection and need for acceptance. Before I knew it, I fell into a vicious cycle of playing the game of ‘trying to be good’ and ‘be one up’ to feel perfect. To feel safe, I built a wall of indifference and denial and accumulated lots of noise of ‘right and wrong’, ‘good and bad’. I worked hard to acquire identities, I played ruthlessly to beat another, I reacted loudly to shut another. The scared child in me behaved like a bully whenever it did not have the courage to face up to my weakness. Till, I got so tired of myself and realised that all answers existed within. I have worked patiently on myself to peel the ego layer by layer to allow the love to emerge.
The ego is a persona acquired to protect ourselves from pain and fear. It feels powerful, successful and secure behind these identities and beliefs. Each time, the ego feels threatened, it tries to feel better by gossiping, complaining, comparing. The truth is that all this noise is nothing but a desperate attempt of the ego to survive.
True growth begins when we move from comparison to developing a relationship of trust with the inner self. The inner self knows its worth. It does not need validation, recognition, fight or aggression to feel confident of its existence and power.
Self-awareness allows us to observe our thoughts and patterns instead of being controlled by them. When we focus on doing the right thing, we make an effort to listen deeply. When we pause and ask, ‘what am I really trying to achieve’, the hold of ego starts to dissolve. In such moments, self-awareness becomes our compass. The next time you feel tension in a conversation, pause and observe: Is this my truth speaking, or my need to be seen? Am I hurting and projecting my pain on others? Am I scared, and projecting my anger and fear on others?
Building emotional intelligence helps us recognize these signals early. When we respond with curiosity rather than defensiveness, relationships strengthen and clarity deepens. We realize the goal in life isn’t to win. It is to take a journey of self realization of our truth. That awakening shifts our behaviour from reaction to reflection.
A spiritual coach often helps people realize that ego isn’t something to destroy; it’s something to understand. It serves a purpose to build individuality, but it must eventually learn to serve the soul, not the other way around.
Awareness is the antidote to ego. It allows us to see that beneath every argument or need for validation lies a longing for love, for respect, for acceptance. When we meet that longing with compassion, the ego softens. Awareness is not a rejection of the ego; it’s an integration of strength and vulnerability to exist together.
Ego thrives on separation; love thrives on unity. The shift begins when we stop insisting and start listening, when we let curiosity replace judgment. This simple shift in consciousness turns conflict into understanding and fear into flow.
When we honor both our individuality and our shared humanity, we move beyond the ego’s limits into a deeper sense of peace. This is how finding inner peace truly begins, not by rejecting the mind, but by guiding it with awareness.
Over time, as self-awareness grows, the ego becomes quieter. It no longer needs to win; it simply wants to learn. That's when love assumes its rightful position, not as an emotion, but as the state of being itself.
Living with awareness doesn’t mean we stop feeling or expressing. It means we start choosing our responses consciously. The more aware we become, the more freedom we experience. Awareness doesn’t eliminate challenges, it changes our perspective of how we meet them. Life becomes less about control and more about flow. Each situation becomes a teacher, revealing another layer of who we are beneath the mask.
This practice of self-awareness is not a one-time act; rather, it is a lifelong journey—a path of returning home to ourselves again and again.
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