You're Not All That

In a world where navel-gazing is almost a cliché, psychiatrist Mark Epstein proposes a new, very old way: Curb your ego.

- Louisa Kamps

In this age of unbridled braggadocio and deep anxiety, it’s easy to wonder who we really are. But that’s why Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself (Penguin Press), by the psychiatrist and author Mark Epstein, MD, a longtime scholar of Buddhism and author of the best-seller Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, feels like a godsend. Weaving insights from psychology together with Buddhist philosophy, Epstein shows us in this warm and riveting book how following the Eightfold Path—eight clear steps of meditative practice designed to deepen self reflection, behavior, and action—can reduce stress; reboot our natural human empathy; and help curb our egos’ gnawing desire to make ourselves “bigger, better, smarter, stronger.”

ELLE: You write that our human egos can be very tricky and persistent, making us feel arrogant and entitled, or embittered and less than, depending on the day or even the moment. But you also say we can slip free of our egos’ grip by taking what’s known in Buddhism as “the backward step.” Please explain.