Pride is useful and necessary for a person. It allows you to follow your beliefs, maintain internal balance, maintain self-esteem, not allow yourself to be humiliated, and teaches you to value yourself. But what to do if pride develops into arrogance - a cocktail of pride, selfishness, arrogance and arrogance. Believers consider it a mortal sin. Psychology will say that pride interferes with personal development, building relationships, and career advancement. People always have to pay dearly for pride. Loneliness is one of the payment options.
What is pride?
The topic is not easy. On the one hand, pride is often confused with pride or self-esteem, on the other hand, the meaning of pride is understood too narrowly. Few people can see and admit their pride. It can be even more difficult to transform it. This requires: honesty with yourself, awareness and the desire to change something in yourself.
Pride is a very insidious thing. Often it manifests itself in all its glory not in those moments when a person feels bad, but, on the contrary, against the backdrop of growing success and well-being. Pride is often clearly manifested in people engaged in self-development and spiritual practices. And in such cases it can be extremely difficult to recognize.
Types of pride.
Pride is a fixable matter, why is it needed if there are no friends or loved ones left nearby? The simplest thing you can do is start to notice the uniqueness of the people around you. That not only you, but everyone around you is unique and inimitable. And thank those who are nearby, accept them out of a sense of gratitude, and everything will work out.
Many people walk around with their heads held high and think that they are very important people. Consciously or unconsciously, they increase their importance and the importance of their personality. And pride is a sin, or let’s say that it is dark arrogance.
Pride comes in two different types:
- The first type is material pride , when you have achieved some success, acquired material wealth, benefits, and now you show everyone how cool or tough you are. You want to tell everyone and show off your brand new watch, the latest iPhone model, your cool car, clothes, and so on. You consider yourself better than others. You are arrogant towards other people. There is also material pride in the career ladder, sports, at school, in a high position, in the government, and many other places, when because of your “status” you do not see “ordinary people”. As a result, you upset the balance; you resort to lower passions and vices and go over to the side of evil and darkness.
- The second type is spiritual pride , when you have achieved some certain results in the development of yourself, or you pretend that you have achieved something, on a subtle and spiritual plane. It's good to develop, but you also shouldn't be arrogant. If you have achieved or learned something, then well done. You can tell it, share it with people, but you shouldn’t pretend to be a “mega-super sage” who knows everything better than anyone else. Inflated self-esteem and arrogance will not lead to good things.
Therefore, we must fight pride and not allow it to exist. You can be proud, but the main thing is to see the line between pride and pride. Then the balance will not be disturbed. For everyone who upsets the balance will receive a “click on the nose.” You should not increase the significance of your importance. You are still a small grain of sand in space who has an excessive and false ego. We must understand that we are all equal. All people are cut from the same cloth. We are unity. You need to consciously abandon dark thoughts, feelings, words and actions. Consciously move towards goodness and light
Common Causes
No one is born with the pathology of pride. This is an acquired quality during life's journey.
The most common reason for the development of pride is improper upbringing . When parents instill in their child that he is better than all his peers and never punish him for mistakes, the child does not learn to accept criticism and analyze his actions. Such children do not understand that they have shortcomings, like all people who need to be worked over. work. They consider themselves special, celestial beings.
You need to praise the child, but you should not convince him that he is better than everyone else. Superiority over others is a source of pride and high self-esteem. A child entering adulthood is faced with a wall of misunderstanding. Those around him cannot tolerate his consumerist attitude. For the actions he has committed, he throws off the burden of responsibility and places it on the shoulders of others. Such a person turns out to be completely unadapted to life in society.
In addition, arrogance and arrogance, accompanying qualities of pride, develop for the following reasons:
- Special status or innate talents. There are people who are born with bright talents, thanks to which they quickly achieve success. Some of them, having gained fame, big day, begin to consider themselves better than others. People who do not have great talents, but who are overwhelmed by fame and money, can come to the same conclusions. And this is often enough for pride to appear.
- Defensive reaction. Low self-esteem can become a provocateur of ostentatious pride. The fear of being ridiculed leads a person to start being smart and ostentatious. Often this maneuver looks stupid and funny.
- Aristocratic. Expressions such as “white bone” and “blue blood” indicate that there are individuals who consider themselves ideals descended from heaven. They are proud of their lineage or the social standing of their parents.
There are many reasons for the development of pride. A person can become proud even of the little toe on his left foot. Pride is visible both in powerful and high-ranking people and in the poor and disadvantaged. It is not surprising, because for the most part, the ambitions and conceit of a proud person are unjustified.
But whatever the reasons for the presence of this negative trait, there is only one way to combat it, requiring maximum and daily efforts. To get out of the strong snare of pride, it is important to want it.
What is the difference between pride and arrogance?
Because of pride, we do not allow others to wipe their feet on us and use us as they please. Pride is a trait of a full-fledged personality, love and respect for oneself.
And pride is excessive pride, boasting, arrogance and flaunting one’s wealth and well-being. Disdain for those who, in their opinion, are not good enough. But behind this pride there are inferiority complexes. Pride is a mask, an attempt to compensate for complexes. An attempt to prove to yourself and the world that you are a worthy person.
The reasons for this behavior? The person has not experienced true self-love. For example, they were disliked in childhood, humiliated by peers, or abandoned by one of their parents. Not everyone has this reaction to childhood trauma. It happens on the contrary, that a person tries to please everyone and everything in order to be loved. As a result, there is a lot of disappointment that not everyone responds to kindness with kindness or basic gratitude.
The price of pride.
You have to pay for everything, and pride also has its price.
If a person does not work on himself to overcome pride, then there will be consequences. Unfortunately, many people realize this too late and have to pay a high price for their carelessness. What is the price of pride? In family. Pride has no place in a loving family. Pride in the family manifests itself in the unwillingness to give in and take into account the opinion of others. Also, a proud spouse can generally make decisions without even informing his companion. The pride of one spouse encourages them to think only about their own needs, for example, physical, emotional or sexual. Children who have adopted the proud behavior of their parents then behave the same way in their families and are often not grateful to their parents. Thus, the price of pride is quite high for those who wanted to have a strong family in the full sense of the word. Such families are not truly happy and this is visible to the naked eye. In society.
Pride is often the cause of even world clashes and conflicts. Reluctance to help, give in and value natural resources provokes wars, which only aggravate the situation. However, even on a mini-scale there is a different price list of pride. For example, a proud person may not have real friends. Pride can generally prevent a person from calmly communicating with others. At work, it is difficult for a proud person to listen to the leadership of his boss and therefore interpersonal conflicts are inevitable. Health. Pride makes a person irritable, constantly dissatisfied with something, and this negatively affects his physical health. The nervous system becomes shaken and very sensitive to the slightest irritants. The digestive system can malfunction under stress. The endocrine glands (thyroid, pancreas, adrenal glands) suffer from stress and this aggravates their already difficult work. The cardiovascular system also suffers from stress and frequent conflicts. Often such people become hypertensive. Agree, how high the price of pride is! Therefore, it is worth thinking about whether there is inappropriate pride in your character and how to overcome pride? But it is possible to overcome pride!!!
How to pacify pride?
Start your day with gratitude. Gratitude for what you already have in your life. Make this effort on yourself, silence your pride. Because all this torment is not mental, it’s your brain again playing games with you, it’s neurosis looking for a way out, it’s the fear that has settled in you and doesn’t allow you to breathe freely.
There are two ways to live life: with love or fear.
Love for yourself, individual people, your business, life in general. As long as a person is ruled by love, he lives and enjoys life, and will always find a worthy explanation for what is happening, without making himself a nonentity. A person with love in his heart has adequate self-esteem and a sober outlook on life.
Troubles and difficulties happen to everyone, regardless of their financial situation, career success or happiness in their personal life. And a person who has let love for the world in which he lives into his heart understands that everything is temporary. Temporary happiness and temporary difficulties.
“Don’t wait until the rain subsides, learn to dance in the rain.”
If fear occupies the heart, love is in the shadows. Fear will explain everything from its bell tower, find excuses for everything and make you or the surrounding reality insignificant. And you will get suffering.
Why did we say gratitude? It allows you to bring love back to the forefront and save you from torment, kick pride in the horns and breathe freely again.
Start your day with sincere gratitude, silently, out loud, on paper. List what you are grateful for in this world, a specific person or event.
Thus, you will change your attitude towards the situation, and it will definitely change for the better.
Practice: Take small steps. Every day.
- If you did or thought about something and it has already happened, just think about the situation and how you could have done it differently? This is stage 1.
- At the moment of thought or action, stop yourself, do it differently. This is stage 2.
- Before committing an action or thought, stop yourself, do it differently. This is an absolutely conscious stage 3. Reach it and the world will become different for you and your health will definitely increase.
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Expert opinion: how to get rid of pride?
Natalya Kondrakhina – psychologist, psychotherapist. Calls himself a “designer of soul and spirit.” He runs his own video blog on YouTube. On her channel you can find various meditations, reflections, practical exercises and much more.
She released 4 videos on how to get rid of pride.
In part 1, Natalya tells how to work through pride. She also examines the concept of pride and its two components: a sense of superiority and resentment.
In part 2, she shares a list of conditions that form pride, and also tells how exactly she understands the meaning of the concept “Envy”.
In Part 3, practical classes begin. She talks about the first two steps on the path to getting rid of pride, and also shares how to transform one of the states from destructive to creative.
She devoted part 4 of this block to the last two steps on how to get rid of pride.
Section VIII. The passion of pride and its overcoming
It should be noted right away that pride is a spiritual disease. And we see its manifestations on the mental level only indirectly.
An Orthodox psychologist can see that behind anger, resentment, a passion for condemnation, a passion for people-pleasing, a fear of public speaking and many other things, there is a fear of receiving painful blows to one’s pride. A person tries in every possible way to protect his “ego” from these painful experiences.
I don’t remember a single case in practice where someone complained that their pride was preventing them from living.
The task of an Orthodox psychologist is to gradually build psychotherapeutic sessions in such a way that a person realizes the root of his problem and sees that all the negative manifestations in his life are mainly associated with the “seed of Satan” that has infected all of humanity. The most important thing here is to come to the realization of the fact that “I am one of everyone, and this disease has not escaped me.” From this moment it is possible to begin healing.
2.3.1. The difference between the approach of a secular psychologist and an Orthodox one in working with a proud person
A proud person often experiences a state of loneliness. This may be the reason why he sees a psychologist.
Many neurotic conditions are associated precisely with the presence of this passion. The joy of being, the joy of communication is lost, love leaves the heart...
We have already said that pride manifests itself as a person’s inadequate self-esteem. A sign of adequate self-esteem is a person’s state, which is called authenticity - the ability to be oneself.
Orthodox psychologist L. F. Shekhovtsova, in her article “Self-esteem, authenticity and self-love,” examines these concepts and analyzes the approaches that have been developed in Western areas of psychotherapy [see: 17].
She writes that secular psychotherapy, which, like the entire Western civilization, has experienced a crisis of humanism, does not have clear criteria, based on which it could offer a person to regulate his self-esteem in such a way that it does not go to the extreme poles, not “ would go off scale.” Spiritually oriented therapy, namely Christian and Orthodox therapy, can help a person maintain self-esteem in an average state between two poles - high and low.
Constant vision, that is, observation of one’s personal sins (self-control, “vigilance”), remembering that a person is a “worm”, a “slave of earthly passions”, protects a believer from overestimating his personality.
The other pole of ideas about man helps a Christian not to fall low in assessing his worth. The Creator made the originally created whole man master of the Universe and subordinated every creature to him. Such a person is called upon to harmonize the Cosmos and save all creation in it that groans and suffers. For the sake of man and his salvation, God, the Creator of the visible and invisible world, incarnated into an earthly, material body, suffered torment and was resurrected, making man capable of deification. Secular scientific thought, in the concepts of evolution and the role of the unconscious, places man at the center of the world (an anthropocentric picture of the world in humanism, promoting the development of human selfhood and pride), but deprives man of his original god-like dignity. The Church elevates a person to the highest moral dignity, with which responsibility and vocation are connected.
Thus, the antinomy of Christian theological ideas about man, “from the worm and the slave to the master of the Universe and the one for whom Christ suffered the death of the cross,” allows us to keep man’s own ideas about himself in the middle channel, guided by a sense of proportion.
...Let us imagine the result of our reasoning in the form of a cross. The middle of this scale, when a person does not evaluate himself extremely negatively or positively, but soberly, sensibly sees both his negative and positive sides, has adequate self-esteem: this is the zone of authenticity (the goal of psychotherapeutic work). Through it passes the vertical of a person’s spiritual ideas about himself from “I am a worm, I am a slave” (the lower end of the vertical) to “I am the image of God, I am the master of the Universe.” This vertical of assimilation to God, deification, theosis, spiritualization of the entire human trimerium is the goal of human spiritual growth in ascetic Orthodox practice [see: 17, p. 28].
I will give one example of how secular psychologists, focused on nurturing leadership and personal development, “increase a person’s self-esteem.”
In the early 90s, Lifespring training appeared, brought by specialists from the USA. He was very popular. His idea in itself is not bad: to discover in a person his potential, his unrealized abilities, to free him from neurotic shackles, but all this happened along the path of strengthening the self. During the training process, the feeling of superiority and opinion about oneself was “sublimated from scratch.” Just like that, without any internal work, just consider yourself a leader. And you will be. And everything will be as you planned. At first glance, everything seems to be correct - work is underway to raise self-esteem. To an inexperienced person attending this training, everything seemed surprisingly simple. In practice, this meant that everything depends on you and any person can easily build his life according to his own wishes. There was no place for God there. The result of the training was the removal of sexual barriers, feelings of guilt, and responsibility for others. This was accompanied by a “sublimation of feelings” to a state of euphoria. People intoxicated by the belief that “everything depends only on themselves” cannot remain in this state for long. The euphoria could not last long. In some cases it gave way to depression. Suicides also happened after this training (the organizers of the training, by the way, took a signature from the participants that they would not make any claims against the specialists, no matter what happened to them). Later, the organizers of the training added a psychiatrist to the staff, who was supposed to identify borderline states in those who wished to participate in this work. In addition to lifespring (by the way, very expensive and also prestigious for this reason), there are a lot of other personal growth and leadership trainings that are very unsafe for the soul.
Isn't this a clear call to pride - be a leader?! True leadership is service, it is responsibility for those around you. This is constant attention to your inner life. And examples for us are Christ, the apostles, saints, simply highly spiritual people...
Here is the difference in the meanings and attitudes of the work of a secular psychologist and an Orthodox psychologist. If for a secular psychologist the goal of therapy is to remove the interfering symptom and to adapt the person to worldly existence as much as possible, then the Orthodox psychologist relies on the Christian worldview. In this case, the symptom may be a “useful formation” from which a person’s spiritual growth begins. After all, the meaning of a person’s life does not boil down to acquiring all possible benefits on earth. Each symptom carries some important information for the development of the soul. The occurrence of symptoms cannot be random. The correct attitude towards them allows a person to discover the path of spiritual growth and take the path of acquiring grace. And these are completely different feelings that come from a fundamentally different source than the feeling of euphoria.
An Orthodox psychologist, based in his work on the Christian worldview, considers the questions of human purpose and the meaning of life in a completely different way.
According to Archpriest Alexander Men, “the meaning of life is for man, created in the image and likeness of God, to approach his Prototype. It is both meaning and purpose. We discover this Kingdom within us, and Eternity begins to speak within us. And then we rise above the vanity, we cease to be slaves of everyday life, we know how to courageously resist the misfortunes that befall us” [10, p. 67].
Whether a person knows it or not, the meaning of life is given to him by the Creator. And if we shy away from realizing this meaning, then we create opportunities for various problems to arise, seemingly of a psychological nature. However, their roots are in the spiritual sphere, namely in pride - a person’s voluntary decision to settle in this life without God.
Humility, according to F.M. Dostoevsky is a terrible force. Those psychologists who work with addictions (drugs, alcohol, gambling addiction) are convinced in practice of this truth again and again. When working with addictions, which are essentially passionate attachments to something or someone, we clearly see that results are only possible if we rely on spiritually oriented methods of work.
This is the first and main condition - to admit your powerlessness over the disease, to accept that you are frail and weak and that you cannot cope on your own. Here is another paradox of Christianity. How so? I admit powerlessness - and only then is healing possible! But God tells us through the mouth of the holy Apostle Paul: My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Only in the hearts of the contrite and humble does the great mystery of God’s power take place.
The main method in Orthodox psychology and psychotherapy is introspection, that is, self-observation. To do this, it is proposed to keep a diary, the features of keeping it are explained, and what you should pay attention to. As we remember, self-knowledge is interpreted in patristic literature as the science of sciences. An attentive and sober attitude to your thoughts, feelings, and intentions is simply necessary to heal from a symptom or solve a problem.
Here is another small exercise that “cures” “pride”. For 21 days (psychology believes that a habit can be changed no earlier than three weeks), write twenty points of gratitude every evening, answering the question: what do I thank myself, people, God for. Let it be the simplest things, maybe even very insignificant. Perhaps the next day something will repeat itself. It’s okay, the main thing is to continue and allow yourself to grow a feeling of gratitude inside.
2.3.2. Examples of psychotherapeutic work with pride
Judgment of one's neighbor. In psychology there is such a thing as projection. Without going deeply into the description of this process, it should be noted that it is formed as a protective mechanism. The essence of projection is that a person begins to attribute his internal states, feelings, thoughts, motives for his actions (not fully realized) to other people, believing that he perceived this from the outside, and not from within himself. This mechanism “protects” us from seeing our own sins; it often manifests itself in us as condemnation of our neighbor. Judging another is a typical manifestation of pride, according to the holy fathers. When faced with the inevitable temptation to judge someone, we must remember this mental phenomenon. It is necessary to know: it is precisely the passionate desire to condemn someone that tells us that what we so condemn in our neighbor, we do not want to see in ourselves.
Judging our neighbor is a sin that we have been struggling with for years and cannot stop ourselves from repeating. Let's stop judging, therefore, we will gain purity of heart.
The Gospel directly prohibits judgment: Judge not, lest ye be judged (Matthew 7:1). This prohibition applies to the area of our personal relationships with others. Christ expressed this with the words: And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not feel the plank in your own eye? (Matt. 7:3).
Having succumbed to the sinful desire to caustically expose and criticize bitterly in order to please his pride and pride, the whistleblower begins to acquire other negative character traits, allowing his soul to slide into the abyss of evil. Losing love for his neighbor, a person gradually and imperceptibly moves away from God.
We are able to notice condemnation as an external manifestation of pride in ourselves, no matter what spiritual stage of our development we are at, and, therefore, we can begin to work with it. It’s very simple to start - look for something in ourselves that we so want to condemn others for. We must remember that our entire being will initially resist this. We find ourselves on the front line of spiritual warfare.
By what means can we practically combat the manifestations of condemnation in ourselves?
Here are some psychological tips.
First of all, we must make it a rule not to speak or think badly about strangers, with whom we have nothing to do, with whom our lives do not intersect in any way. A typical situation: friends, judging someone in our presence, invite us to take part in the condemnation and cannot calm down until we agree with them. And we, wanting to please them, often join in the condemnation.
You can prepare in advance for the correct behavior in such a situation, think about what words and thoughts we will use to remove the sin of condemnation from ourselves. These kinds of words, which have worked well in practice, could be: “Well? He who sins is responsible”, “And I am a sinner too”, “Yes, we will all have to answer for our deeds”, “He sinned today, and we will sin tomorrow.”
Experience shows that it is more difficult to refrain from judging those people with whom life circumstances confront us at home, at work, in stores, or just on the street. In this case, it is useful to control ourselves: do we wish the sinner to receive admonition from the Lord, correction and salvation, and if so, then wish him this in the form of a short prayer.
Remembering one's own sins cools the heat of condemnation. Let us remember that when they brought a woman caught in sin, the Lord said: He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her (John 8:7).
No one threw a stone at her. A good lesson for us who consider ourselves Orthodox Christians.
If we perceive the actions of our neighbors as an action of God’s Providence and as a cure for our pride, then we will gradually begin to treat such situations with gratitude. The Lord does not forget us, He allows us situations for spiritual strengthening. It is also important to remember the spiritual law, according to which God allows the condemner to fall into the same sin for which he condemns his neighbor, especially if the sinner was tempted beyond his strength or has already repented of his offense.
Let me suggest a psychological exercise that helps us see how often we judge others: give yourself the task of not judging or complaining about anyone out loud for three weeks. To control this process, it is recommended to wear a bracelet on your hand. The essence of the exercise is that as soon as we have judged or complained to someone, the bracelet is changed to the other hand. And the countdown begins again. The exercise is considered completed when the bracelet remains on one hand continuously for 21 days. Starting to do this exercise, you will see that during the day you will switch this bracelet from one hand to the other very often. The bracelet can be replaced with something else. It is important that it be a tangible object that reminds us of our inner work.
Let us add to what has been said that a person who is in a repentant mood and is busy experiencing his own sinfulness has no desire to notice and sort out the sins of others.
Algorithm for overcoming pride. Saint Theophan the Recluse, in his book “What is Spiritual Life and How to Attune to It,” based on patristic teaching, described algorithms for combating passion and acquiring the opposite virtue, in this case, by cultivating a humble attitude towards what is happening. The essence of this approach lies in the development of awareness, that is, observation of our internal processes and understanding of how this is projected onto our actions, words, and relationships.
Before you begin to work with passion to overcome it, you should clarify your intention (motivation) and pay attention to the fact that you cannot resist this struggle without God’s help.
Below is an example of how this can be done:
1) think about how good it will be when I overcome the passion of pride (“My relationships with loved ones and colleagues will improve; anxiety and tension will go away: I will be happier, internally freer...”);
2) understand why we don’t want to fight passion (“I’ll have to devote time to this, I don’t have much, I need to pay attention to my inner life, but I don’t know how to do that...”);
3) describe the consequences of passion (“Fear, loneliness, health problems have already begun, I’m nervous a lot...”);
4) feel whether we are firmly determined to fight (see: point 1: “Yes, we need to decide, but can I cope?”);
5) mobilize your will and ask God for help (“I can’t handle it on my own, but with God’s help I can handle it…”).
We remember that passion is not born in a person’s soul right away. The process of developing passion cannot always be traced to a person who lives by external impressions and is not accustomed to carefully observing his internal states. The Holy Fathers say that it begins with an adjective, or an attack; “to be infected” means to collide with something, to become infected.
The holy fathers divided this process into four stages.
The first stage is to see the emergence of a pretext in yourself.
The pretext arises in a person’s mind from the impressions of what he saw, for some other reason, or as an image imposed by the enemy - the devil. But the excuse comes against the will of a person, without his consent and participation. A person himself is free to accept the pretext in his heart or reject it.
The second stage - the preposition has been accepted, it is already being thought about, becoming one’s own. The Fathers also call this a combination or conversation with a thought.
The third stage is inclination to thought, or surrender, when the will has so fallen under the influence of a sinful thought, has become so close to it that a person is ready to move on to action. The sin is already half committed in thoughts.
A sinful thought that has settled in the soul and heart will definitely someday turn into action (deed, words). This will already be the fourth stage - captivity by thought.
In reality, for an inexperienced person, infection with passionate thoughts occurs much faster. The initial stages of the development of thoughts (adjective - combination - addition) go completely unnoticed, and only at the level of captivity, having realized everything, can a person begin to fight passion.
Anyone who wants to free himself from passions must learn to cut off bad thoughts in the bud, to “break their babies against a stone” (see: Ps. 136:9). And the germ of a thought is (as mentioned above) a pretext - something that does not belong to us at all, but like some kind of harmful insect trying to fly into the slightly open window of our consciousness. It should also be added that Orthodox people know very well that unclean, sinful thoughts can come from one more source, and this source is well known. Of course, these remarks concern only thoughts that have not taken root in consciousness; if a person accepts a thought and begins to think about it, he already becomes close to it, it becomes his own.
When we understand that our thoughts are not always ours, but come from the “enemy,” we begin to sort them out, without being afraid of them, without becoming despondent from our own sinfulness. This is one of the moments of spiritual warfare. With God’s help, we install a certain “filter” in our consciousness. At the same time, we ask which thoughts correspond to God’s commandments, and which ones should not be allowed within the range of a cannon shot. You don’t need to be afraid of thoughts, but you don’t need to talk to them either.
It is necessary to perceive thoughts as something external that has nothing to do with us. We begin to observe ourselves as if from the outside. This technique in psychology is called “decentration.”
Saint Theophan says that it is necessary to begin the fight against thoughts with prayers to the Lord, the saints and the Guardian Angel. So that we attribute the successes of spiritual warfare not to our own efforts, but only to the help of God.
Below is an example of working on this algorithm with the thought of pride.
In this case, two options are given: A - modern woman and B - modern man. Schematically it might look like this.
1. Exposition:
A - “I did a good deed today...”
B – “I completed a difficult task at work...”
What needs to be done to prevent the thought from developing further: “I wouldn’t have done this if God hadn’t helped me. He created the conditions for this. All for His glory."
2. Combination:
A - “In general, I often help her (my friend), and not only her, but also many others...”
B - “I did it great... I’m capable, not like Ivan... And who else besides me would have done it so well...”
To prevent the thought from developing further, you need to shift your thoughts to something good:
A - “But they often help me too... Perhaps she still needs my help...”
B - “Perhaps Peter could have coped with this job...”
3. Composition:
A – “Among our friends, I’m the only one who does good deeds, what would they do without me!!!”
B – “I am the best specialist in our company! The rest can’t do anything!!!”
Here it is necessary, before the onset of captivity, to be able to look at yourself from the outside, with humor, that is, to remove the sense of self-importance: “And why am I proud?.. I’m swelling right before my eyes, I’m about to burst with pride...”
4. Captivity:
A - “Well, what can they do, helpless mediocrities, they will die without me!”
B - “You should ask for a bonus, and in order to get a raise, you need to drive out these slackers... But I can solve not such complex problems.”
All these stages are quite difficult to track. When we write down our thoughts, we gradually begin to grasp what follows what, and our attention to inner life is trained.
The holy righteous John of Kronstadt advised both pastors and laity to keep a spiritual diary. The director of his museum-apartment, Archpriest Gennady Belovolov, believes that this feature was one of the reasons explaining the “secret” of John of Kronstadt. The pastor himself considered this form of working with the diary as a constant confession.
Examples from the experience of psychological counseling.
To get an idea of how the work of an Orthodox psychologist is practically carried out, I consider it appropriate to give two examples from the experience of psychological counseling. The cases are not fully described. The main task is to demonstrate exactly the Orthodox approach, when the client, together with the consultant, in dialogue mode, gets to the root of the problem, which lies in the spiritual sphere. In these examples – in pride.
The client was a young woman. She has been attending church for quite some time. He regularly goes to confession, receives communion, and has a confessor. The consultant was L.F. Shekhovtsova. A client complained that she needed to write an article on a certain topic. But she can't start work. It’s hard for her to pull herself together, it’s hard for her to find the desire to do this. I keep thinking that many articles have been written on this topic.
“...And she doesn’t understand how you can write something new here. This will not be the best article... and why write it in that case? And yet you have to write, because you were instructed to..."
During the dialogue, similar cases were recalled when the client experienced negative feelings about herself because everything she did was not the best.
“...And is it necessary to do this in this case?”
Her description of the problem clearly shows, as psychologists say, a desire for perfectionism, that is, perfection. This desire is expressed as follows: “...Either I will be better than everyone else, or I won’t do this.”
Isn't it a rather familiar situation? When we theoretically examined the problem of low and high self-esteem, we said that, in essence, low and high self-esteem are two sides of the same coin. Perfectionism is a phenomenon that a secular psychologist will interpret as erroneous and harmful. But an Orthodox psychologist understands this differently. Man is called to perfection, called to deification. But only this process is built through falls, mistakes, the ability to bear sorrows without criticism and condemnation of the people around us, etc. This process is built on two sides: through the efforts of the person himself and at the same time with God. The main reason for resistance in the process of improvement is blows to our pride. How painful and unpleasant it is for us to experience this process of formation! And a person often refuses to do something. After all, the result does not come immediately. In this case, perhaps you need to work hard on this article, humbly listen to comments, correct it, and finish it. Yes, this may not be the best article. But we must continue and continue with God’s help, with prayer. Using this seemingly rather simple example, a person can go through the school of his spiritual formation. He learns to transfer the pain from hurt pride to the background, concentrate on the task at hand, and continue this process. The consultant, with his questions, managed to bring the client to the realization that pride lies behind her reluctance to deal with the article. This served as a reason for the client to create internal motivation to complete the work assigned to her, since a person belonging to the Church recognizes the need to work on his passions. It should also be noted here that an important moment of change in motivation (intention) occurred. When the motivation was external, that is, the writing of the article was given from the outside, it was perceived as compulsion. But when the intention (desire) became internal, that is, it began to come from the client herself, then the strength and desire to solve this problem appeared. The fear of failure and making a mistake has also decreased. And this opened up the possibility of a creative approach to the matter and relieved the stress of waiting for the result. Once vanity was recognized, it reduced anxiety about how the paper would be judged. The client’s attention began to be occupied not so much by the result as by the process itself. The consultation took about an hour. But it gave some fruit.
Almost a year has passed since this consultation. The article was written and published.
The second example is a case taken from the practice of family counseling. A few months ago a woman approached me. The reason for the appeal is incredibly complicated family relationships. Let's call these people Elena and Ruslan. Both of them enter into a second marriage. Elena asked for family counseling; she identified the reason for the request as increased quarrels between her and her chosen one. These people started attending Church quite recently. A family counseling session revealed Ruslan’s personality traits as a rather self-confident person who believes that his opinion, his feelings, his desires should prevail. He formulated his goals clearly and clearly.
Elena came to me for consultation several times alone. A little more than three months passed, and Ruslan called me. He asked to be accepted as quickly as possible. It is this consultation that I would like to pay attention to.
As I said, three months have passed since our first meeting. Ruslan bought an apartment. They began to live together. But the relationship began to deteriorate more and more. This time Ruslan was already talking about himself, realizing that the problem of his difficulties was in himself. It was very important for him to realize and admit his powerlessness to influence the situation. Whereas before, on their first visit, he had no doubt that he was able to cope with all the difficulties that arose on his own. It is quite possible that for some time he was quite successful in this. A psychologist, even having his own point of view on the situation that has arisen, should not indulge in discussions about sin and morality. The task is different. In this particular case, it seemed to me to be to bring a person to an awareness of the reasons for the difficulties, to be ready to agree that if they want to save the relationship, they will have to begin work on transforming their personality. This time we more boldly touched on things that most likely would not have been heard by them at our first meeting. He was ready to talk about himself more openly. His level of honesty deserves respect. He told how, when he doesn’t like something, he can flare up, offend Elena, can not speak for three days, torment her with his silence. How jealous he is of her ex-husband, how everything should happen as he imagines. And if not, then he expresses his attitude quite directly and not always correctly. He also had to remember that he almost always behaved this way. And this model of behavior suited him. She allowed him to achieve a lot in life. But at the moment he sees that his relationship with the woman he loves is collapsing, and he wants to do something to prevent this. At the same time, Ruslan does not look like a person who is unable to control his emotions. Most likely, this is really a strategy of behavior aimed at optimally achieving results, which he once (consciously or not quite consciously) began to follow. He has a fairly successful business and achievements in the field of chemistry. His foreign partners value him as a specialist. After some time, we began to talk about those spiritual distortions of personality that are based on pride.
Apparently, much was new and surprising to him. How is it that he was raised as a leader, a fighter, a successful person - and now he has to reconsider his values?! At the end of our meeting, the question literally burst from his heart: “How can I cure myself of pride?”
In this situation, not everything is simple. But there are two important points. These people began to turn towards the Church; they want love to be present in their lives. Maintaining the relationship is very important for them. There comes an understanding that you need to start with yourself - to free your heart from passions.
There are many more examples that can be given. As a result of the secular upbringing that most of us received, we are taught to rely on ourselves, to make efforts, to achieve results, putting our self first. But at some point, according to God’s Providence, events begin to occur that are beyond our control and management. We usually perceive such a situation as a crisis. In any crisis there is always a new opportunity hidden. The crisis is the starting point from which the spiritual revival of the individual can begin. This is a call to take the path of repentance, the path of self-knowledge and finding the Truth.
And may the power of God and the grace of God help us! Therefore, let us pray that the Lord will teach us humility and destroy our pride. And then His mercy, His wisdom, His joy, which He gives to all who love Him, will be revealed to us.
