My Biggest Enemies Are Within Me. Pride And Self-Abasement

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

A person will gain his power and strength when he says to himself: "My main enemies are within me."

A long time ago, only omnipotent Gods lived on Earth. They knew how to achieve any goal and lived for their pleasure. But one day a Man appeared on Earth and began to develop so quickly that the Gods were worried: would he become as omnipotent as they are?

It was decided to hide the secret of omnipotence where Man could never find it: they carried him high into the mountains and lowered him to the bottom of the sea. But the Man was curious, persistent, and learned quickly. The Gods became even more worried, realizing that Man is able to find and comprehend whatever he wants.

Then the smallest God proposed to hide the secret of omnipotence in a place where Man would never seek - inside Man himself.

And he was right - since then, many are looking for this secret and cannot find it, although for this you just need to look inside yourself."

But even this turned out to be insufficient, the Man eventually realized that the most valuable thing for which he aspires and seeks outside is inside and began to engage in spiritual practices, meditations, and then the Gods got scared in earnest - the secret of happiness will be found by man.

And then they called the enemies for help and put them inside too, so that they would do everything possible to take a person away from the treasures that are inside.

The gods pondered for a long time what kind of enemies to send to a person so that they could cope with their task as much as possible, and they decided that pride, greed, envy, impatience, laziness and stubbornness would do the best job with the task.

"The greatest enemy lurks where you least search for it."

Guy Julius Caesar

A man from the ages strives for happiness and on his way always comes across people who supposedly hinder him in this, mistaking them for his enemies, wasting all his strength on fighting them and does not suspect that the enemies with whom he needs fight are within himself.

"The warrior of the spirit has no external enemies"

Abu Bakr

The most dangerous of all enemies is pride or arrogance.

This enemy begins to grow from 1 to 3 years old, the most fertile ground for him is criticism of his parents. Parents are also infected with this ailment. They dream that their child will be able to do in life what they failed to do. They dream of a successful and outstanding son or daughter, they want to be proud of their children, they want everyone around them to admire their children and secretly envy them. At the expense of children, they want to have some superiority over others, since they did not succeed in this.

With regard to children, they always have their own expectations, which must certainly be justified. In case of unjustified expectations, their children receive information that they are not good enough, and they very painfully perceive the fact that they could not please their parents, that they could not become what their parents wanted them to be.

Children try their best to achieve what their mom and dad dream of.

People prone to the ailment of pride always compare themselves with others and very painfully experience the fact of the superiority of others, in communication with people they always have an assessment of people in the background: they evaluate their appearance, financial situation, success achieved and much, much more. In communication, they always consciously or unconsciously try to find weaknesses and vulnerabilities in others in order to feel their superiority against their background.

They try to make acquaintances with successful people and are very proud of such a society, secretly feeling their importance, since such people are next to them.

The greatest fear in people afflicted with pride is to experience a sense of shame.

The roots of this fear began to grow between the ages of 1 and 3, when the mother was constantly concerned about not feeling ashamed of the child.

She kept reprimanding him with or without reason, she criticized his behavior if he became very noisy, started crying, indulged or showed aggression. She was constantly ashamed of the child, and in fear of experiencing shame, she tugged on him all the time. She was ashamed if the child was dirty or unkempt, laughed loudly, showed his emotions spontaneously.

She too often compared him with other children who, in her opinion, were more obedient, smarter, neater, more assiduous, she gave him examples of others. Others - could be siblings, who were better in something according to their mother.

Such a child was constantly in fear of doing something wrong or saying something superfluous. All the time there was a fear of upsetting my mother, making her angry or displeasing her, and there was discontent all the time. The child became so intimidated that the only way to survive and somehow meet mom's expectations was to forget about his desires and needs, and turn all of himself to understand what mom wants. Fear became a constant guest, gradually turning into a master. Such children usually begin to fear a lot of things - the darkness, people, animals. Inner fear is looking for objects all the time to attach itself and somehow manifest itself outward.

In such an atmosphere, the formation of an opinion about oneself is inevitable - as about bad, unworthy, insignificant, helpless and weak. Constant vigilant control leads to shyness and shyness. In order to somehow hide this flawed child inside oneself and the desire to be what the mother wants to see, they are pushing to develop opposite qualities - pride, arrogance, vanity.

The child very quickly learned to compare himself with others, he always needs confirmation that he is better. Seeing the best, he immediately tries to turn this best into a disadvantage or find disadvantages, because to admit that someone is better, more successful and more successful is simply unbearable. So two enemies begin to grow, or rather one enemy with one head, but two different faces - pride and humiliation (inferiority).

This duality is very clearly manifested in relationships, a person inside himself sometimes feels unworthy of attention to himself and love, then begins to treat the same partner as unworthy of him. Or feeling that the partner is unworthy and will not enter into a relationship, knowingly choosing people against the background of whom they feel their clear superiority. Being with people who are better than them and more successful, they feel their worthlessness and inferiority, and with people who are worse, they feel their unprecedented superiority.

Adults tormented by these enemies practically do not know how to feel their desires and needs, or feeling them, they do not know how to talk about them at all. Inside them sits a deep sense of shame for their feelings and desires. For them, sparkling recognition and honest open conversation are very difficult, only with an ideal relationship can they open up with great difficulty.

It is very difficult for them to talk about their true feelings, true experiences, they try to hide their problems from people, they cannot stand to ask for help, if they do this, they do not leave the feeling that they are bored or imposed on a person, that their request is inappropriate and is not important. It is difficult for them to ask for help because it can confirm the superiority of another, and for them it is unbearable.

These people have a very distorted idea of freedom. Their parents, and most often the mother was quite domineering and controlling, then there could be no question of any child's freedom. Parental control, pressure, the desire to see your child the best very much limited freedom and took on a stifling character. Subsequently, such children, becoming adults, are very sensitive to any pressure, to a rigid schedule and to all kinds of frameworks, restrictions that others think they are trying to establish in relations with them. On the one hand, they resist all kinds of pressure, on the other hand, they create all the conditions in order to deprive themselves of freedom. They choose such a job or such bosses, where they fall into total dependence, or they choose such partners who will restrict their freedom.

They all the time find themselves in situations where their freedom is limited and they are forced to fight for it again, defending their rights.

On the other hand, when they conquer freedom, they do not know what to do with it because freedom exacerbates their feelings of loneliness, helplessness, abandonment and uselessness. The issue of freedom and the fear of loneliness contributes to the fact that in relations with people they are inclined to merge, at first they strive to merge, then they themselves begin to suffocate from these relationships, pushing the partner out of their space, they soon begin to feel loneliness and that the partner has left him.

Another problem of people afflicted by the enemy of pride is not the ability to have fun, not the ability to relax. Inside them there is a strict prohibition on any pleasures. In these minutes it seems to them that they are wasting time, spending it uselessly and in vain, that they are simply wasting it in nowhere. They do not know how to relax, and if this happens periodically, then afterwards they experience feelings of shame and guilt.

Another very familiar feeling in whom this enemy lives is pride - this is the disgust that they can periodically experience in relation to the actions of other people, or people, as well as in relation to themselves and their bodies. They are very sensitive to criticism, because it exacerbates their sense of shame, a sense of their ugliness, and these are unbearable feelings.

Two poles: I am better than others and the feeling of my own ugliness and inferiority very much interferes with achieving success in life.

They can very successfully begin to move towards success, as a rule, there are always people ready to help them, but at the first failure they do not know how to quickly rise and move on. On the way to success, it is not enough to be able to move, you still need to be able to rise, and having fallen, people struck by pride begin to feel their worthlessness, timidity, lack of faith in themselves and their own strengths, inability to continue what they started.

Conditional love is a fertile ground for nurturing the enemy - pride - it also interferes with building ordinary human relationships later, because all the time in relationships there is a perception of love and respect for another for Something.

Words are simply strange for them.

Remember the cartoon: And for what ??? … And just like that … Just like that ???

Pride simply does not understand how it is - to do it just like that …

Depression is a constant companion of pride. Pride gives rise to another equally dangerous enemy - envy.

Pride condemns a person to loneliness, on the one hand, a person needs the company of others to maintain his significance, on the other hand, he shuns and is afraid of close relationships, because any intimacy involves sincere communication with the opening of the soul. Pride cannot allow someone close, because there is a danger that the veils and masks will be removed, and behind them that which causes one's own disgust and rejection, how can you show another that which you are ashamed of yourself.

How can you defeat the enemy within yourself named Pride

The very first thing is to discover this enemy within yourself, to recognize its existence within yourself.

The second is to understand that it is not you as a whole, it is only your enemy, with whom you need to fight.

We need to be able to fight, if we openly try to fight something, then the enemy can only get stronger from this, feeding on the energy that we spend on fighting him.

To defeat the enemy, he must first succumb.

Thirdly, to succumb to pride - to admit that it exists and to accept the presence of this vice in oneself.

Accept all your behavior and all your thoughts, let them be.

Having accepted their behavior, their weaknesses, their inferiority, it becomes possible to accept these manifestations in other people.

Fourthly, you need to learn to speak directly, without roundabout ways and hints about your desires, feelings and needs, not to be ashamed of yourself and your real feelings.

In dealing with people, give up the habit of comparing yourself to others, allowing yourself to be what you really are.

Do not look for shortcomings and weaknesses in people, learn to accept a person as a whole in all his manifestations.

Do not rush to build relationships with people where you will be deprived of your own freedom, do not impose obligations on yourself, which will then choke you and dominate you.

Do not limit the freedom of other people, recognize their desires, allow people to do what you allow yourself to do.

In case of failure, do not immerse yourself in self-accusation, self-deprecation and criticism. Avoid doing things for which you will later shame and scold yourself, and if you do so, do not scold yourself. Be condescending to yourself and others.

There is also another universal remedy against all enemies - discipline, and when it comes to your internal enemies, then self-discipline.

If you plan to do something, then try to do it under any conditions, so your shy, timid and flawed inner child will begin to grow. There will be more and more reasons for self-respect and self-pride.

Self-pride and pride are completely different things.

Pride is when you are proud of your real achievements, of your qualities in front of yourself. And pride, when you, at the expense of others and against the background of others, by comparing, magnify yourself.

Learning to accept people unconditionally.

Reduce your expectations from life and learn to enjoy what you have.

Learn to enjoy life every minute.

Learn to enjoy communicating with people, getting to know their world of feelings and their lives.

Sincerely show interest in people, learn compassion, empathy and empathy.

Open up your soul and heart.

Do not be ashamed of your shortcomings, your vulnerability and sensitivity, do not try to carefully hide them from others.

You must also understand that this enemy is strong enough and cunning, sensing that you have started a fight with him, he will become even more cunning and dodgy, he will take all steps to stop you, his task is to prevent you from reaching your power, your a force that will be stronger than all enemies combined.

It is very often very difficult to defeat these enemies alone. Here you need an assistant who will help you cope with them, but Pride is the most dangerous enemy because it does not allow another to approach you, does not allow you to accept someone's help and admit to someone that you need help. Be vigilant with your enemy and do not let him gain victory over you.