Humility has always been a virtue of high value for me. Even when I was in grade school, I was always disturbed/disgusted by people who treated others like they were better than them.
I've since learned to have some compassion for people like that because if they are treating others that way it's often to compensate for their own insecurity of some kind. However, it still doesn't make bullying, mistreatment, or putting down of others acceptable acts.
I'm quite sure I got this trait from my Mom, but I always wanted to root for the underdog (probably because I wished someone would champion for me). My mother was well known for pulling over on the side of the road to roll her window down and put a couple of punk youngsters in their place for picking on another unfortunate kid on their walk home from school! (She'll laugh when she reads this because she'll remember the names of the kids involved and everything!)
I've ranted before about injustice, so I'll attempt not to repeat myself too much here. It took me up until the past couple years of my life to have enough confidence to stand up for myself in too many circumstances. My inexperience with this was pretty apparent, however, the first few times I decided it was worth a shot to try it out! I made a few unpleasant messes that had to be cleaned up, but that's part of dealing with life.
I was allowing myself to feel anger for the first few times in my life. Not that I'd never been angry, but I denied myself the ability to express anger or acknowledge and process it for most of my life. I stuffed negative emotions like bad habits I was determined not to let anyone else see.
This meant I had pretty poor skills for processing negative emotions like anger and frustration. This became quite apparent when I was pregnant and experiencing what felt like uncontrollable rage heavily influenced by hormonal changes. One of the worst things about stuffing is that it allows pressure to build, and when all the circumstances are right (or wrong) the pressure gets released, sometimes in a seemingly involuntary manner, somewhat explosively! That has potential to cause a lot more damage in the long run than just learning to have a pressure release valve built into your normal daily habits as preventive maintenance.
I learned that the hard way, but it's part of my journey and story to tell. We all have issues of some kind, and we don't always get to hand select which problems we get to face in our life. Some of them come built in from environment or genetics.
That brings me back to the topic of humility. You see, many of my transgressions and flaws in life we're not always overly obvious from the outside (unless you lived with me, of course)! However, the hidden darkness like resentment, self righteousness, and pride can be equally, if not more, devistating to one's life. Unlike illicit drug use, alcoholism, violent outbursts, slander, or having a foul tongue, to name a few, which are more easily identified externally, these internal areas of strife can cause cancers in your soul, sometimes more difficult to treat than going to rehab or through a twelve step program.
If you're anything like me, you do everything you can to prevent others from seeing these secrets of darkness within. What I would challenge you with is to...just "STOP IT," as one of my counselors recently said to me. I wasn't taking the subtle hints of gentler encouragement or correction to address the struggle inside. The secret for me, regardless of the pain it brings, has been to start bringing things into the light!
You don't have to air your dirty laundry out for the whole world to see! Trust me, I have secrets very few will ever know! But identifying someone safe to tell has been one of the most liberating things I've ever done. Vulnerability is fun for no one! But it can be ever so worth it!
What I've found about sharing the things that were hardest for me to admit is that those things are very much like everyone else's "hard" or "dark" things in their life. And I'm very much not unique or alone in my struggle. None of us are free from something ugly being apart of our life or past that we desperately wish wasn't there.
So, if you are able, learn a lesson from another stubborn, hard-headed, hate to admit my own faults or weakness kind of a person, and choose humility. The untreated, underlying problems are much more likely to bring you humiliation somewhere down the road if you don't!
As one of my other favorite online writers likes to say, "I'm sorry, and your welcome!"
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