One of my learning edges the last few weeks (years) has been discovering and facing the places in life where I’m still more interested in being right than being…
- present
- fully alive
- authentically connected
- surprised
- awe struck
- undone by love
- playful
- open to learning and growing
In my experience, these are the things I’m trading off for the need to be right and to prove I’m right.
The Ego’s Grip on Certainty
At times, my ego is so fixated on its need for certainty, control, and safety that it takes me over, and I fight to be right.
I don’t think I’m alone with this pattern. I see it in everyone I know. Sometimes they see it in themselves, but often not. The need to be right is so natural and normal that it really is like the water we swim in and the air we breathe. But as we wake up, we start to see it—and once we see it, we see it everywhere.
Invitation to Self-Awareness
Do you see it?
Do you see what it’s costing you?
If you don’t, ask yourself if you’re willing to become more self aware.
If you are, try these practices:
Practices for Seeing the Need to Be Right
1. Movie Method: Catch Yourself in Conflict
Bring to mind a place in your life where you’re having conflict. Actually, visualize the situation. Play the movie in your head. As the movie plays, let yourself become reactive. Intensify your reactivity. Now pause the movie.
At that moment in the movie, ask:
- What are you wanting to be right about?
- Try writing it down: “I want to be right that…” or “I am right that…”
Look for the shoulds and shouldn’ts:
- “I should…”, “He/she/they should…”, “It should…”
- “I shouldn’t…”, “He/she/they shouldn’t…”, “It shouldn’t…”
Now, really let yourself feel how important it is to be right. Feel how strong the attachment is.
Go deeper by going into your body.
Where do you feel the need to be right in your body?
It can feel like gripping, bracing, pushing, holding, contracting. The feeling can be very specific, at a particular point in the body, or it can just feel like a general cloud hanging over your whole self.
2. Advanced Practice: Conscious Fighting
If you’re still stuck, try a more intense practice: Invite the person you’re having conflict or drama with into a conscious “fight” with you. Agree together to intentionally spend a few minutes going below the line, becoming unconscious and letting it rip.
(Word of caution here: this person and you need to be able to see that you’re intentionally going to allow your unfiltered reactive selves to come out. You need to be able to trust yourself and them to be OK if you take the gloves off for a few minutes.)
I did this recently when a friend invited me to get messy with them, to stop worrying about being below the line and just let it rip. We did. It was wild, energizing, adrenalizing, and actually fun. We went back and forth for about 10-15 minutes.
Then we took a break.
The Deeper Realization
Once my system quieted down, it was easy to see how maniacally fixated I was on the need to be right and the need for them to be wrong. It wasn’t subtle. I could tell exactly what it was I was holding onto for dear life. My ego identity was staring me in the face.
I could see clearly:
- I’d rather be right than open.
- I’d rather be right than growing, close, connected, present, or loving.
- I was choosing righteousness—and I could see what it was costing me.
- I was so afraid to let go of the need to be right.
And underneath it all? I was afraid to let go of being right because rightness felt like armor, keeping my vulnerability protected. It served the purpose of self-protection, an adaptive strategy to stay safe. But here’s the problem: I’m never fundamentally safe as long as my safety depends on being right. There has to be a deeper safety—a safety beyond right and wrong.
Rumi’s Field: Beyond Rightdoing and Wrongdoing
This realization draws me back to Rumi’s poem, A Great Wagon. For years I have loved these lines:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
Recently, I’ve been meditating on the next few lines:
“When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make sense.”
When we let go of right and wrong as our basis of security:
- Concepts relax.
- Language and ideas lose their grip.
- Direct experience replaces mental concepts.
- Oneness replaces separation.
When the soul lies down in that grass, there is no “other.”
And when we stop othering, we are finally, truly safe.
Stay Awake: The Final Invitation
I love Rumi’s warning as the poem continues:
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you,
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.”
Don’t slip back into rightdoing and wrongdoing.
Stay awake.
Stay present.
Stay alive.
Stay in the fullness.
And if you find yourself slipping — if you notice yourself reaching for rightness again — just smile.
That, too, is part of waking up.
You’re already closer to the field.
I’ll meet you there.
