Top 10 signs by which you can recognize pride in yourself. Article. Self-knowledge. Self-knowledge.ru

Updated January 11, 2022 924 Author: Dmitry Petrov
Hello, dear readers of the KtoNaNovenkogo.ru blog. Nature has rewarded humans with a variety of feelings and emotions, which we are accustomed to dividing into “good” and “bad,” hunting for the former and avoiding the latter. However, if it were not for this conditional division, we would not be able to fully experience our existence.

How to know joy if you have never experienced grief (love - hate, pleasure - suffering, etc.)? Everything is relative.

Today I want to talk about pride - how it is born, what its manifestation and absence entail. Let’s also touch on the feeling of pride – how it differs from arrogance. Since the verbal forms of these two concepts have identical roots, they are often confused, passing off one as the other.

Essence of Pride

Pride includes 2 main elements that are tightly connected and together provide energy to maintain its existence:

Feeling of complete superiority over others.
In the usual understanding, a proud person is someone who is confident in his exclusivity, the uniqueness of his abilities and appearance, experience, and knowledge. His desires and needs are higher and more important than others.
Without a twinge of conscience, he claims your time, money, location. These are people with the motto “Everyone will die, but I will stay” or “I can.”
However, this feeling can manifest itself in different ways. Pride is not only about arrogance or the straightforward “I am the best, and you are so...unsuccessful attempts of nature.” She often hides in the most unexpected places. For example, when a person who is such a good-natured person loves to give out advice, sincerely wanting to help.
It seems to be the right thing. However, if you look inside the desire to help out, save, put everyone on the right path, it turns out that at the very center of this intention lies that same superiority: “You can’t cope without me,” “Who else, if not me,” “I’m smarter, I know better,” etc.
Feelings of inferiority – the second element, at first glance contradicting the first. But there is no mistake here. The first point follows directly from the second.
A proud person doesn't like anyone, people irritate him. He is always angry and dissatisfied with those around him, showing censure, condemnation and even disgust towards others in various ways. Why is that? In fact, it is not people who irritate him, but their “shortcomings,” which irritate the proud person in himself.
If I hate myself for being overweight, then people who are overweight will cause me a lot of negative feelings. But this is my attitude towards my weight, what does it have to do with others? But my life is easier this way: my auto-aggression transforms into aggression. This way I don’t realize my imperfection and won’t “eat” myself alive. This is a defense mechanism.

So, what is pride in short and simple? This is an inflated self-importance against a background of low self-esteem as the only available way to feel one’s worth.

Pride in psychology.

Psychologists say that there is no personality without pride. It’s just that this feeling is revealed so subtly that we don’t even imagine how permeated we are with it. You can notice pride if you regularly devote time to working on yourself.

It is difficult to list all the signs of pride. Here are some of them:

Confidence in one's own rightness and infallibility (excellent student syndrome).
Feeling of personal significance and importance.
Boasting, thoughts of one's own superiority.
Reluctance to take responsibility for one's actions.
Treating others condescendingly.
Indignation towards braggarts.
Feeling worthless and expecting praise.

To discover these qualities in yourself means to recognize the enemy by sight. To pacify them or use them for one’s own development is everyone’s personal choice.

When does pride stop?

Pride is insidious. On the one hand, it makes a person dependent on other people's opinions. On the other hand, it poisons social and personal life. A proud person refuses to believe in equality and tries with all his might to remake the world according to his own understanding. Considering himself better than everyone else, a proud person stops developing and sometimes even degrades.

What to do with yourself if pride interferes with your life?

The first and most important thing is to face your shortcomings. Until we recognize our negative sides, we will not make them disappear, we will not find harmony.
Love yourself. Pride as a defensive reaction arises from self-doubt.
Learn to listen. Pride does not tolerate competition; it is deaf to the desires of other people. The skills of empathy and compassion will take a significant toll on her.
Gradually remove the crown of pride. Learn to do good anonymously, so that no one knows about your good deeds. Start doing simple, everyday work: washing dishes, caring for animals, digging beds.
Learn to sincerely praise other people.

Many of us are spoiled by the phrase: “Never ask for anything, you must have your own pride.” We silently wait, get offended or begin to demand. But it remains unclear - where is the line that cannot be crossed? Often we simply don’t know how to turn our shortcomings into our strengths.

Psychological causes of pride

We have learned that feelings of superiority stem from feelings of inferiority. It’s easy to guess where the latter comes from. “We all come from childhood” is a hackneyed phrase, but you can’t erase the words from the song. Self-esteem is formed before the age of 7. And if during this period the child’s personal dignity was constantly attacked - insulted, humiliated, shamed, beaten, God forbid - then a large hole is formed in the center of his self.

Next, the psyche - a smart thing (I always say this) - turns on protective mechanisms to keep the personality afloat and prevent it from collapsing (going into psychopathy).

Humiliated children , as compensation for the feeling of their inferiority, begin to invent fairy tales about their super capabilities, thereby, as it were, patching up the holes of their wounded soul. Having convinced himself that he is not like others, reveling in his fantasies (and children have very rich ones), the baby does not feel mental discomfort.

Rejection by a parent(s), whether physical or emotional, is the worst thing for a child’s psyche. Feeling this, the child will bend over backwards to be “better, higher, stronger,” thus cultivating pride. All for the sake of being loved and accepted. This will become his leitmotif for the rest of his life.

He will crush weakness, helplessness and other imperfections in himself at the root, praising his successful sides. He does the same in relation to others, criticizing them for the slightest “mistakes” and inconsistency with his picture of the world.

Main features

So, what is pride, what are its main signs?

There are main factors that cause the sinful essence in a person, namely:

Consider yourself to be the only one right, constantly proving this to others;
The need to give advice to others, even if they do not need it;
Consider yourself an unshakable value of ideal life on earth;
Incredible responsibility for everything that happens: in the family, at work, in the country, in the world;
Victim syndrome. Whatever you did despite yourself, you gave it to the world. Let everyone see how I suffer for your sake;
The desire to force people to do everything the way you want, the way you taught them;
Be deaf to the advice of others. What can they advise ME?
The desire to condemn the actions of others because they do it differently from what is accepted in your ideal world.

Anyone who behaves this way gradually becomes weaker. Ultimately, such people live the last minutes of their lives in complete solitude, filled with pain and suffering.

Consequences of excessive pride

Briefly about what will happen if you don’t pacify your pride in time:

pride does not allow you to develop - how to grow if there seem to be no mistakes and nothing to correct? I know everything, I'm the smartest, I have nothing to learn. This very perception will lead to a dead end in any field;
As a result, the notorious proud man will remain alone . Who wants to be around a toxic person (there's no other way to put it)? It is unpleasant to be friends with such people, loved ones leave them, their own children do not want to communicate. And that's not the worst thing. It’s scary that pride does not allow a person to truly get close to others, so inside himself he is constantly alone. He himself pushes people away from himself, because he does not see those worthy of himself;
pride kills humanity – empathy, the ability to empathize, kindness. The soul becomes callous over time, losing all sensitivity;
Over time, this insidious feeling narrows one's horizons . If you do not allow novelty into your life (learn from others, listen to other people’s opinions, etc.), act in patterns, think in stereotypes, then the person becomes ossified and narrow-minded;
a person loses touch with reality and cannot distinguish the truth from his false beliefs. He lives in his own world, which prevents him from achieving what he wants.

Pride is a sin. How is it different from pride?

Pride is a sin. This is exactly how most religions interpret this trait of humanity, calling for work and getting rid of it.

It is worth understanding that pride is a feeling of negative orientation that can ruin a person’s life once and for all.

Few people will associate most of the theses below with pride. Although, these are the signs that allow us to assert its presence:

self-centeredness;
consider yourself better than others;
think that your interests are the most important;
self-confidence;
boasting;
using manipulations in relation to other people, as a result of which they become at a disadvantage;
refusal of help;
taking on an exorbitant load, working without measure.

We often confuse pride and pride. But the main difference between these meanings of concepts is that pride is something that always carries a negative characteristic. Pride, on the contrary, has a positive connotation.

How to get rid

In addition to the reasons described above, for believers there is another compelling argument in favor of the need to get rid of pride. This feeling is considered a sin in all religions . In Christianity, it is among the seven most terrible mortal sins.

It is believed that God hates them (sins) for the reason that a sinning person loses contact with him and does not hear him. The proud man worships himself, because he considers himself the author of his own merits, and not the Heavenly Father, who takes care of him.

So, what you need to do to pacify your pride:

The first point is the most important, fundamental, since without it the implementation of subsequent ones is impossible. You must admit that pride lives in you . See it, examine it, track where and how it manifests itself. It is impossible to fight the enemy if you cannot see him.
The first point will be supported by asking your loved ones to give you feedback about your behavior . How do they see you? Which one? What you like and what you don't. A proud person does not see himself from the outside, and someone else’s gaze will allow him to look at his own portrait without embellishment.
Start doing good deeds , don’t tell anyone about them and don’t expect applause with fanfare. It will be difficult at first, but pretty quickly you will learn to enjoy simply the fact of good deeds, and not the praise that follows them. And it will be pride. This is how it differs from pride: I am good here and now because of my specific actions, and not always, everywhere and for no reason.
Stop “catching up and doing good” by giving unsolicited advice and expressing your opinion. If someone needs your help, they will definitely ask you. As a last resort, you can offer to help and not do it if the person refuses.
Learn empathy . Be interested in people – their feelings, their vision. There is a simple way: try to imagine yourself in the place of your interlocutor. “Try on” his age, gender, experience, clothes, situation in which he is, etc. Mentally pretend to be him.
Work on your own confidence , since it is its absence that fosters pride. You can read books on this topic, undergo psychotraining, consult a psychologist, etc. This can be adjusted if you want.
Ask and accept help . Realize the absence of your omnipotence and the presence of helplessness in certain situations, which is periodically characteristic of all people.

In Indian temples, there is a practice in which students do dirty work (such as cleaning toilets with their hands) to curb pride. Work ennobles, so you can use it as another means.

How to help a person overcome pride

But it often happens that with all the immense desire to get rid of pride, a person cannot overcome this feeling himself. If such a moment comes, it is very important to listen to people who want to help you in your difficult struggle with pride. Many of them have come into contact with the problem of pride and many have effective advice that will help you too.

If you decide to restore balance in the soul of a proud person, then only by constantly talking through the problem and correct “sawing” can you achieve a result. But don’t forget about the “no more than two times” rule. Repetition more than twice causes irritation, rejection and rejection of information in a person. If a person wants to hear, he will do it even after two times.

Sometimes it is worth becoming a guide, taking your neighbor by the hand and opening doors for him to another world that is not typical for him. Show a proud person that even with his inaction, the world will not collapse, and the universe will not change its cycle; that people can live by their own “imperfect” rules and still be happy; that you don’t need to sacrifice yourself, performing super-tasks, while destroying yourself and your life.

How to get rid of pride, how to help others - there is a wide choice of methods, but it is worth remembering that the main thread should be service - to other people, society, the universe. And so, by trying every day to become better, you will change not only yourself, but also the world around you.

Advice from psychologists

To help with the fight against pride, many psychologists advise to humble yourself and understand that a person is not ideal, he must constantly improve and become better.

One of the main steps on the path to getting rid of pride is to understand the goal with a detailed description of the losses that pride has brought you and the gains that you will have without it.

The next step is to learn how to communicate two-way with people. Hear them. Let them describe you. And you, in turn, will adequately evaluate this portrait and accept it. This is how you appear to others.

Psychologists also recommend the same work that you considered beneath your dignity to do. Only by plunging into another reality will you be able to compare and understand whether the edges of your world are ideal.

And, of course, say thank you. Even psychologists advise this.