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In this episode, we talk about believing the lies about the concept of humility. We talk about how this impacts our lives and what real humility looks like and how amazing it can be. It’s a way of being and thinking that ripples throughout our lives. It is a mindset that transforms our lives. I have been working on this, and will keep working on letting go and embracing more and more about my imperfection, while I own my “stuff” and seek growth. I hope you’ll join me today in wrestling with these ideas. Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT:
The problem that I want to talk about here, or opportunity rather, surrounds the idea of Humility. For me, humility has hit an emotional trigger inside of me for a long time. And I think this is true for so many people, especially perfectionists.
For the majority of my life I related the word Humility to a flawed idea of living in shame of unworthiness… almost like I had to know I was not good enough in order to be a good enough Christian, or person, or whatever. Whether you believe in God or not, I believe the problem with the idea of Humility has to do with the misunderstood ideas of what humility is. I believe it’s this disconnect that causes a lot of struggle and strife for people today as it causes so many people see humility as, again, something it is not. Humility is NOT: self-Loathing, degrading oneself, denying our capabilities, timidity, inferiority and hiding in any sort of shame or unworthiness. So let’s get into it… and feel free to disagree with me, as this is a collection of the thoughts I believe about the matter and you are free to accept or reject any idea, as with anything.
I have struggled with this a lot. From what I can remember, when I was a teenager I was presented with the idea of humility and the supposed definition of it at a small church in my hometown. I have no idea how this idea was presented to me. Now, just because my idea of humility was skewed from what I now believe it to be doesn’t mean this was what I was told (whether I was or not); but rather that this is how I interpreted what I was presented with, which has to do with the way my brain processed what I saw and heard and experienced, despite the intentions behind any of it. Anyway, I already struggled with my own personal shame stories and so I resonated with the idea that this was sort of an explanation and affirmation of falling short and my own unworthiness of love and acceptance.
I really took this idea to heart, the definition I clung to as its meaning. This idea that I was to be less than everyone else; that I was to put others first always or I was being selfish. The extreme way I looked at this concept made it so that I did not take care of myself or think of myself as acceptable and lovable. I felt like I was beneath everyone and just taking up space was something I needed to be overly grateful for. I started clinging to what I could get, until I hit a breaking point and just became angry. The shame was too much. I couldn’t handle all of it, and yet even though I clung to my shame on the inside and the way I had morphed this idea, I masked it all under anger and hated the world for a time. This caused me to be too absorbed in my shame, which ironically causes us to be so self-focused, even though in loathing, and unable to truly love others and connect authentically. It caused me to cling to ideas that appeared to offer a security of some kind… any scrap of an idea that gave me a glimmer of worthiness, while living under imposter syndrome of not feeling good enough. I tried to appear tough, hard core, the perfect girlfriend, intimidating, and fearless until that stopped working and I sprung for another set of ideas of who I was and where my acceptance could come from… I was none of those things that I tried to portray… I was just me, always me hidden beneath a blanket of fear and shame and pain. The moment we cling to ideas, white knuckling them in fear of losing part of our identity or a part of our worth, we cut ourselves off from growth. We cannot grow when we are reacting out of fear and clinging to ideas. This is what I believe that the common view of humility does as it perpetuates shame and fear.
Just so you are aware, in me talking about this, as with usual topics, I am sharing because this is an area I am working on. I myself am not always humble. It’s a way of being, it’s a virtue we live in or not, and I am still workin’ on healing layers of pain and triggers that I don’t want to be controlled by anymore. Thoughts and beliefs that I am not even always aware that I have which cause me to become defensive and offended as they trigger something in me that says this is a threat to my worthiness or identity. So many people think that the problem with humility has to do with pride, and sometimes it does, but pride is often a mask. It comes from the liar. When we don’t really feel assured of our unchanging value in our imperfect “being-ness”, we can so easily cling again to ideas as a part of our value and necessary for our worthiness, like I said before, that we have this false sense of self, and therein lies our pride. The pride often can accompany imposter syndrome, a fear of losing this identity or being found out. I will talk more about the mask of Pride in another post/episode. When being or becoming good at something makes us great, rather than just growing, we cling to it and we need this pride to feel worthiness and love, to ward of the shame in essence of being enough without all of these other things we think make up our identity.
Believing in this distorted view of humility harms us in several ways: It causes us to compare and judge; to have pride; a false identity and source of worthiness. It causes us to be consumed with either this false sense of identity or consumed in self-loathing. It causes us to feel threatened and inferior, if not for the roles we try to play to perfection, then for the roles we think we should be doing better in but aren’t. It causes us to cling to relationships and perceived acceptance, even if contingent and conditional in ways that can lead to acting in co-dependent habits. It causes us to get stuck in the lies that cause shame and fear. This leads to pessimism and makes us behave competitively sometimes and think with a scarcity mindset.
Stick with me, as we don’t have to stay trapped here. Just becoming aware of the way we think about, and flipping our understanding of, this concept is a huge part of the process of changing our thinking.
First, we need to talk about what humility really is… Humility really is living in truth. It’s accepting what is beyond our control; it’s accepting who we are with all that makes us imperfect and embracing that completely; in today’s lingo, it’s essentially authenticity. It’s about knowing we are not perfect and seeing that in a positive light so that we can keep growing. Humility is realism. It’s about finding peace with our unfiltered selves and valuing that person. We have limitations, and that is necessary to be human. That doesn’t mean we are not powerful. People who live in a mindset of humility are constantly working to accept themselves, and others and circumstances beyond their control so much that they find that they are incredibly free people. They don’t need other people’s acceptance and applause and approval, because they already have it from their core. They aren’t hiding flaws or trying to be anybody else and they can laugh at all of it, because there is no clinging. People who are humble are freely loving themselves as a way of accepting God’s gifts and as a result they aren’t stuck thinking about themselves in pride or loathing, and are free to make a difference in the world. Humility is a sort of silent confidence lifting many burdens of the lies. A knowing and accepting of real and unconditional love so much so that none of the stuff in their world needs to be boasted about.
I am not always a humble person. I don’t say that to slam myself. I am just stating facts. I still struggle with letting go of shame and pride and all of the other things that go along with that. But I am seeking every day to live in a way that is more and more honest and accepting of both my strengths and my struggles and failures so that I can find more and more peace and growth. This is a constant practice of proactively working towards this way of being, messing up and trying again.
I can think of several instances just off hand where I was not humble even recently. Where I was lead by pride, with a false sense of security in assuming that I was worthy if and when I lived up to some standard. As I was writing notes for this my husband and I got in an argument, and I jumped to defense, assuming I was right initially and instinctively. A lot of my pushing and striving has been to prove something to myself; me seeking the false security in pride rather than seeking growth. That doesn’t mean I have not grown from those experiences; but it was with a lot more wrestling and pain than there could have been. There have been several times where a friend, my mother, my mother-in-law, husband, or other people, have given me advice or feedback that I adamantly and reflexively refused, almost repelling on auto-pilot because I wanted to learn it for myself. Because I wanted to be able to rely on myself, to control it all and to prove something maybe? I don’t know all of the why’s, but I do know that this is a place where I am starting and continuing to do the work. This doesn’t mean that I need to accept everyone’s advice; this doesn’t mean it’s all good advice or that I was wrong to decide what I did in each instance.
It’s a posture and a process and a mindset that I am talking about. It’s about shifting my perspective from trying to be right and from trying to control things or emit a perception of controlling things to a mindset and a posture of my heart to accepting that I won’t always know right and that I can accept the people behind the messages with love and gratitude regardless of my choice. It’s knowing that it is not black and white and someone else having great ideas doesn’t in any way invalidate or lessen the value of my own ideas or mean I have to cling to those ideas as truth. It’s a posture that is receptive to what God wants to teach me from any and all of it, despite any preconceived notions. The truth is, there is so much I don’t know and understand and I realize now that so much of the resistance I have had to accepting more of what comes or what is rests in my fear and the lies that propel me to fear. It lies in my fear of what my thoughts say “It” would mean and thinking that I can’t handle more perhaps.
The idea is that when we get to a place where we are living in humility and hard things happen, instead of fighting and running from them, we are able to stop and say, “Wow that was humbling”… we are able to see lessons and find growth and beauty and connection because we accepted the truth in our circumstances and our humanness during the whole process. There is a lot of pain I could have avoided had I been in this posture, but I offer myself grace knowing that I was not aware of this and I was doing the best I could with the beliefs I had and didn’t know I had; I was doing my best with the way those beliefs and thoughts that I clung to ran my thought world, my emotions and my actions in life. I also will continue to offer myself grace knowing that even though I am working on this, I will still not get it perfectly and it won’t be easy and that’s ok. I don’t want easy, I want amazing. Amazing doesn’t come from easy 😊
So, How can we work toward humility in our lives? There are a lot of things I am working to change in the way I think which have started to make a huge difference. This is what I will share, as usual:
I believe one of the first steps in this process is to stop shaming ourselves. To help with this, we can reflect on areas where we struggle with self-loathing; areas where we struggle to accept and love ourselves and which we have thoughts that result in shame. I know for me, the idea of loving myself felt far too arrogant and conceited that I felt a pang of shame at the very idea of self-love. That was a huge clue for me in the understanding I had about humility. Seeing who we are and loving ourselves doesn’t mean we have zero areas of weakness or areas of struggle or that we are void of failure; rather, like humility, real love sees all that is, with open acceptance and grace. It’s not about justice, but about grace. Real unconditional love involves grace. It involves incredible amounts of acceptance; because it is there where we are able to see the whole picture more clearly. When I accept myself fully, then I can accept others fully. Then I am not focused on flaws and hiding and shame and fear; then I am focused on connection and development. So, first, focus on where you are struggling to accept yourself. Start to write out this idea of humility, from this new perspective. Write about the areas of your life that you don’t accept keeping in mind the idea of acceptance. What do you believe is unacceptable about you and why? Where did you get that idea? Can you see why you started believing it was unacceptable? Can you imagine how you would feel if you didn’t believe that thought? If the answer is something you’re struggling to forgive yourself for, why don’t you believe you deserve forgiveness? Can you see how this might make it hard for you to forgive others and not judge yourself and others regularly? Think about how it would feel to fully and completely accept all about yourself, your circumstances, your actions, your thoughts, your body and everything in-between. Think about how it would feel to forgive yourself for anything you are still carrying the weight of from your past? Now consider asking yourself for forgiveness for holding yourself hostage for so long. And accept your own healing and grace, or the grace of God for all that you carry. All of the pain and weight. Doing this in writing will allow your brain to be free to actually process it, to take it from the side of the brain that is just replaying it and actually process it and find insight.
Now reflect on areas of pride, judgement and competition. You have hopefully wrestled with and worked on at least reflecting on the idea of accepting total forgiveness for anything you hold against yourself. Naturally from this we will start to see where we need to forgive others and find ourselves processing what’s beneath our pain. Now that you’ve done this, can you see what you might be trying to prove with any pride you feel you have? And to whom? Why do you think you need to prove anything to anybody? If you realize and really absorb the idea that you are accepted with all of your flaws, mistakes, imperfections and not only accepted but that you are incredibly loved, uniquely designed, and absolutely precious… then would you need to prove anything? Does that change the way you feel about these areas?
It’s likely that you, like me, will still have a lot of work to do on these areas, but just like unplugging the drain, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your brain starts to let go of the beliefs it’s been holding onto that have been stuck for so long as you think about and process in this way regularly.
Now, can you sit back and think about, without shame or judgement, where you need to and want to grow in life? Can you think about what has been holding you back? Can you see how if we were living in humility, or in a mindset where we see ourselves as imperfectly beautiful and completely acceptable, we are able to reflect without fear and shame on where we need to or want to grow? We start to drop the expectations of those around us, we stop consuming valuable time and energy judging and or shaming others and ourselves, and we can see our lives with more gratitude and clarity.
For any Christians or non-Christians, or whatever you believe, if you believe that Jesus walked the earth in any way remotely close to what is told in biblical history, Jesus was the ultimate example of humility… but if humility was about shame and being inferior and timid… if humility was about self-loathing and denying what one is capable of as many of us have been led to believe; then Jesus was not humble at all. But that is all a lie. In essence, humility is living with the lens of Christ, where we are not consumed with ourselves and our worthiness at all; where we are aware of who we are and accept what is fact about our circumstances and our lives, but where our thoughts and world is focused on love, period. We wouldn’t be distracted by lies like shame and fear and hate and other lies that spread pain. Yes, I know he was infallible, but he was indeed still human. He suffered bumps and bruises and heartache… He still tripped, slept-in, spilled coffee, and made mistakes. He likely forgot stuff and experienced accidents. You get the picture… But he didn’t believe the lies and he didn’t act out of those lies. So, that is humility… it’s essentially living with love at our very core and as our everything until it consumes everything about the way we are. And guess what,.. Jesus still disappointed people. Yep… He didn’t meet everyone’s expectations, and he didn’t care. Not because he didn’t care about people, but he didn’t care about what they thought about him, because he was focused on Love and knew who he was. But do you think a perfect God who made imperfect humans expects us to be perfect? No, because that’s not the point. The point is about loving and growing through all of it, not about perfection. It’s about outgrowing habits of judgement and offend-ability and comparison and loathing growing out of acting out in shame and fear and pain; we outgrow these habits slowly, bit by bit, imperfectly and over time as we start to see through the lies, believe the truth and then our life follows suit.
So, let’s work to accept all people with a real unconditional love. Let’s forgive ourselves when we don’t do that perfectly and apologize for any pain we cause, starting with the pain we cause in our own lives. Together we can work to own all of our stuff; our outcomes, our actions, our emotions and our thoughts; Not our husbands, parents, boyfriends or friends stuff… OUR OWN STUFF… owning it and accepting what is beyond our control; those other people’s stuff is all beyond our control. This will help us to see things through a lens of love which becomes a source of quiet confidence, courage, freedom, gratitude, and real compassion for the world and for ourselves. As I think this through and put my thoughts out there, I do this as an act of intention, as a commitment that I will work to hold myself accountable more and more every day in my life. I will work to see all of the people in my life and the experiences I go through as my teachers. What do you think? Are you on board? Would you like to join me? We are inevitably connected through this work that we are doing together. I hope you will join me in experiencing the incredible freedom that we have the opportunity to unfold before us; and I hope you will share with me how your journey is going. Tag me with #theradicalimperfectionist or #radicalimperfection or send me a message on Instagram. I want to connect with you through all of this. I know I’m not alone here and sunshine, as I say every single time, you are not alone either. I hope you have a week that opens your heart and your eyes to all of the truth and heals parts of you that you thought were hopeless. Write your story and rewrite your story so you can see it clearly and with all the depth and beauty that is unique to you and your life alone. You’re enough and you always have been.
Sincerely,
Holly Ann Kasper
The Radical Imperfectionist