Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. Thank you. During the past 24 hours I have been thinking about the topic of humility with regards to asking for help. As I reflected I had several spiritual awakenings. For many years of my life I bought into the notion that I had to first perform before I could ask for help. Upon reflection, I believe that my perspective of humility was consequently skewed by the antithesis of humility — humiliation
Because I confused humility with the demeaning aspects of humiliation I had a hard time humbling myself, much less asking for help.
In my attempts to quiet the dispersion set forth by humiliation I strove to be perfect. I strove to disprove the chidings that I experienced because I confused humility with humiliation. Through my experience and by my process I found that I attempted to muffle humiliations decries through extremes. At times I pursued grandiosity in an attempt to mask my insecurity and at other times I found myself buying into the notion that I was the victim my circumstances — over which I was helpless.
In my experience I found that my attempts to be more than many time left me feeling less than because I rarely felt as though I was enough.
I continued to be tossed here and there — through grandiosity and by my low self-esteem / low self-worth — until I reached a point in my life when I reached an emotional and spiritual bottom. Through my process and by working the 12 steps I discovered that humiliation kept me mesmerized through shame. I also discovered that my shame — not feeling as though I made mistakes, but that I was a mistake — reinforced my low self-esteem / self-worth and convinced me that if I just tried, then I would be…
Please read Part 2 for context. Thank you.
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