Humility…..this is where our power lives” ~ Bev Pugh
I am thrilled to be writing about this! For me, humility carries the essence of true self-empowerment.
It is an aspect of us that is not talked about a lot. But it is important for all of us to do our own understanding and self-inventory around this one. As I focus on my self-growth, humility is an aspect my being that I keep close tabs on…it tells me where I am at.
Reflect on when you find yourself competitive with others, or wanting to look better than someone else. Reflect on when you are wanting someone else’s approval. The braggart in us can come out, or we can overextend ourselves because we are trying to impress someone, or we can just be a pain in the you know what. And then there are the moments for all of us where we can remember feeling humiliated.
I would describe humility as a quiet confidence – an ability to celebrate our gifts and accomplishments, but not to acquire outside approval or validation.
Many of us wants others to be impressed by who we are or what we can do. If people are impressed, it means we are a person of value. If we do not believe in our own value and feel disempowered, we often turn to wanting others approval or adoration as a means of feeling powerful. It is a false power because it is dependent on others people’s reactions.
Humility does not mean low self-esteem. It means the opposite. It holds the essence of believing in ourselves and our value…with all our strengths and vulnerabilities. It’s called being human. As we practice humility, we don’t use self-judgment as a way of assessing ourselves…we turn to compassion and self-forgiveness.
The opposite of humility is often described as pride. That means our ego is hungry for other people to see us different than how we feel about ourselves. Again it is false power. For many of us, while growing up we experienced humiliation. I know I did. With that comes the fear of humiliation. We begin to low ball ourselves for fear of failure and mistakes, or we high ball ourselves from arrogance.
Humility doesn’t mean we hide or are quiet or don’t celebrate ourselves. It means the power we have is within us, and we move through life from that inside place rather from worry about the outside.
I would describe humility as a virtue. It is a virtue that I hold in my awareness. Every day I check myself to see how I am doing with this one
It is a great way of catching yourself in moments when you stepped away from believing in yourself and moved into being needy on some level. When this happens to me, I pull out my journal and I write. I write until I’ve got it. I write how I was feeling, what triggered me, the behaviour that I want to extinguish, and then I sit with the feeling of being enough. If my personality has forgotten that feeling, I remind myself by sitting with it. I recall a moment when I felt enough, and I go to that feeling and fill myself with it. I can then step into humility from a place of self-power.
I invite you to build some muscle around this one. It is a wonderful foundation from which to live your life.
Celebrate yourself from the inside out rather than the outside in.
