PDF Version: Episode 22: The Freedom & Power of Humility

Episode 22: The Freedom & Power of Humility

Welcome to ConneXions Classroom Podcast. We are so excited to introduce to you the opportunity for you to join us in a classroom setting where you will be taught the principles of connection. For those of you who have already joined us on the podcasts, and for those for you who have not, you are now ready to step into an extensive, hands-on, all-star classroom experience to better understand why you are experiencing and interpreting life the way that you do.

You will be introduced to the foundational principles of personal integrity, which are: how to live impeccable honesty, rigorous personal responsibility, humility, vulnerability, openness, willingness, transparency, and boundaries.

This is a 12-week intensive course that consists of meeting one time a week for two hours. You will be given six workbooks. In each workbook, instruction will be given to you on core concepts of how to live your life from a position of emotional honesty,Reality, Truth, boundaries, validation, being able to recognize your distortions, and how choice plays a central role in all of your experiences and emotional outcomes.

Some of the concepts covered inside of the classroom include: what validation and vulnerability are and how to animate those principles your life; how to live in Truth rather than distortion; how to recognize your distraction and your controlling behavior in your relationships; and how to live a life of peace rather than pain. Powerful concepts that change lives, beginning with yours.

Hundreds of people have participated already, and have drastically transformed their lives by living and being in Truthful, emotionally honest relationships. They report experiences of personal empowerment and emotional and mental sophistication being introduced into their relationships.

So, now it’s your turn to come and participate. This classroom experience will change the way you interact with yourself and others in powerful ways, giving you the tools and emotional sophistication to connect deeply inside yourself and invite other in your life to do the same.

Come and experience connection. Go to www.connexionsclassroom.com , and hit the “Go to Academy” button and sign up. I look forward to meeting you and connecting.

[00:02:47] The Freedom of Power and Humility

Good morning. It is August 30th 2014. This morning, we’re going to be talking about humility and its counterpart which is pride. Living humbly creates an experience of personal freedom—freedom and liberation from the illusion of being in control of my external world and from the illusions of hatred and bigotry. That’s a powerful statement. Living in humility creates a type of freedom, and the freedom that it cultivates and actually creates is freedom from illusion. The illusion that I somehow can force or control things that are external to me, and also from the illusions of hatred and bigotry.

Now, I choose those two words not because those are the only two words that humility gives me freedom from, but there is so much anger and hatred in the world, and a lot of it is coming from a place of unawareness or disconnect if you will. You know, we are all connected as a human family. All of us are human beings, and it’s that soul connection, it’s that central connection of being a human being that ties us all together. And when we are not humble or we live in pride, and there’s lots of other words to describe pride but I’m just going to talk about it from that vantage point.

When I live in pride, then I’m in an illusion and I cannot see clearly, 1) what’s happening around me and 2) who everybody is and the power of everyone and the goodness of everyone. Now, sure, there are those of us out there in the world that are doing inappropriate, and selfish, and really destructive things, and that does not eclipse the fact that at the core of them, they are good, and they deserve to be loved.

Now, love does not mean that we tolerate inappropriate behavior, but what love does mean is that we understand that they are of infinite worth and infinite value, and that every human soul, every human being deserves—and I don’t like that word, I’m trying to find another one, but for the sake of not being able to find something quickly—every human soul deserves to be loved, and cared for, and valued, and nourished, and nurtured, and shown compassion towards, just by the very fact that they are breathing.

So, it’s a fine balance because like I said, there are those of us out there that are doing things that are destructive and are self-serving. And so, it’s a hard balance to strike. What do we do with people who are behaving badly? But what I can tell you is as you live a humble life, answers will come to you about how to interface with people who engage in acts that are unbecoming of them. And so, you will not be caught in this illusion of hatred and bigotry.

Humility grants me the opportunity to live in a space of internal awareness of my motives, my exceptions, and perceptions, so I may learn how to respond to my environment in mature and emotionally sophisticated ways. Emotional and spiritual sophistication and maturity means for example, I can show humility by validating a person in their particular position—whatever it may be—while remaining connected to my own moral and value system. While holding boundaries for myself, I’m able to strike this balance in every aspect of my life, which requires a great deal of personal awareness and emotional maturity. In humility, I’m able to be transparent and share openly with myself and with others.

So, it’s this balance that I’m looking for, this emotional and spiritual sophistication which, as I develop that, it will mature me spiritually and I can stay connected to what I believe in, and what I value, and what is of morality to me, while I also reach out to others who may not share similar values or beliefs. But in humility, we have that common bond which is, we are human and we are souls, and that’s where we can connect is right there. We don’t get hung up on the things that people do or the things that people believe in; we recognize that they are a beating heart and that all life deserves respect.

Now, again, respect does not mean agreeing with things that people are doing. Respect means I respect you at a soul level, and I would not intentionally do anything that would be offensive to you as a spirit.

So, when I engage or exhibit humility, I acquire emotional and spiritual sight not previously obtained or experienced through my five senses. This type of sight provides me access into myself and others via a non-physical channel. I am then open to information that is not being gathered through my senses.

Let me describe that again. When I am humble, I am available to receive information not through my five senses, and this information talks to me as far as, it tells me to be loving, and to be patient, and to nurture and validate. It doesn’t send a message to me that, “Well, if they’re not doing what I want, then I have permission to … whatever it may be, to attack, to be judgmental, to tell them they’re wrong.” That is living in more of a prideful state. This state of humility gives me the fortitude and the maturity—the spiritual maturity—to see them spiritually.

Humility means I learn to connect with myself and others on and emotional and spiritual plane by doing these three things:

Number one: I listen for the emotions behind the words or expression of others as I speak, even if no emotional words are directly spoken in order to appreciate and empathize with their emotional experience. So, this is how I can become a humble spirit. I listen to what they are saying. Even though they may not use a word that I would connote to an emotion, I listen for the emotion in their presentation, because there’s always emotion in presentation. Always, always. And as I do this, I learn to appreciate and empathize with their emotional experience.

Number two: I listen as others emote non-verbally or in other ways such as crying, facial expressions, body movements, etc., in order to appreciate and empathize with their emotional experience. So, what I’m doing is I’m listening with my ears and I’m watching them. I’m watching how they move their body and I listen for their word choice, and I notice what their tone sounds like, so that I can appreciate and empathize with their emotional experience that they’re disclosing to me.

Number three: I am conscious and recognize my own faulty core beliefs and change them into Truth as my faulty core beliefs surface in my life. Being able to change my faulty core beliefs is key in connecting, first with myself and secondly with others.

So, this is really important. It’s actually core important. If I am not aware that my shame is operating inside me—and again, if you don’t know what that means—shame—I encourage you to listen to the podcast on faulty core beliefs and the one on addiction and shame and guilt; that will describe what shame is—

But if I’m not aware that my faulty core beliefs are present, then anything that I’m taking in through either my five senses or my sixth sense which is my spiritual sense, as soon as it comes inside me if my faulty core beliefs are present, they will distort it. And it will be contaminated, if you will.

And so, when someone shares something with me, I will have judgments already made about them. I will not be able to open and listen freely to what they are saying, because I either have fear going on, and my fear tells me to protect myself, I could be controlling, and controlling would show up as being judgmental, or wanting to prove them wrong, or tell them that they don’t know what they’re talking about. My point is, they’d run into a resistance in me, and I would not, in that space, be a humble or safe person for them to be interacting with because I am not really available to hear—spiritually hear—what it is that they’re saying.

And so, if you’re in that space and someone is sharing with you, and you are not open to what they’re sharing without judgement, then you are not in a safe place to support them or really hear them. And consequently, most often you will harm them because you’re in a space that has some pride in it or has some shame in it.

So, shame and pride are coming from the same source. And pride is on the other end of shame. So, if there’s a continuum, shame’s on end and pride’s on the other. But pride manifests itself as appearing self-assured, connected, powerful, self-aware, and it can tip into some obvious manifestations of arrogance. But at the end of the day, pride is just a masquerade for shame. And shame is this place of self-denigration and feeling afraid, and unworthy, and not enough.

So, when a person lives a life of humility, they are full of gratitude and pure love. And when I talk about pure love and it sounds kind of you know, like it’s a movie line or something, I don’t intend it to be. Pure love is learning how to live without conditions. So, it’s this unconditional kind of love that the Savior portrayed very accurately when He was here on the planet. Unconditional love is really living a life of humility, because it connects at that very deep soul level.

Now, the Savior was very clear about boundaries and how people need to behave, and He held people accountable. But He did it without conditions. So, what that means is, He didn’t attack their spirit, He critiqued their behavior and boundaried their behavior. And we need to do a better job as individuals on the earth to recognize what is behavior versus what is coming from the spirit—the person’s soul—and be able to kind of sort all that out.

So, when a person lives in humility, they’re full of gratitude, pure love, wisdom. And there is the key in sorting that out, is having wisdom between what is behavior and what is not. Compassion and emotional and spiritual sight towards self and others. When someone lives in humility, they know how to be emotionally connected with the human race, and they share that connection in deep and profound ways.

When you interact with a soul who lives in humility, you are affected by their power for good and their light of compassion and love, and you are forever changed because of their wisdom and generosity of spirit.

So, what that means is, is you are affected and when I say changed, it means that the interaction with this person, because they live in such a real and authentic and loving space, that as you meld with their spirit, it’s full of power and it affects you, and it changes you for good.

So, if humility means being open and willing to interact with myself and others, and being willing to learn, change, develop and mature psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, it also means adherence to commitments of my own moral laws and covenants.

Humility means faith to trust God or my Higher Power and appreciate all that I have been given. Faith includes relinquishing or surrendering my belief that I should or can control anything and everything in my life.

Humility means modesty: modesty in language, in tone, in attitude, in attire, sexuality, presentation, etc. Modesty includes simplicity, discreetness, purity, quietness, reticence, thoughtfulness and reverence. Now, I would encourage you to look those words up if you’re not quite sure what they mean, because they’re powerful. Each one of them is very powerful. I could have a whole series on each one of them. And it’s modesty in these things.

Humility means respect for myself and others. And again, respect does not mean agreeing with behavior. Humility means becoming aware of my unawareness, living in the present moment,and being open to feedback because I recognize I’m imperfect, limited, human, and do not have all the information, and I also recognize that I may be perceiving experiences in faulty or incomplete ways.

Humility means vulnerability to recognize where my limitations are, to acknowledge my humanness, to allow myself and others to risk, to be exposed with me, to know I am in a safe place physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc.

Humility means meekness, teachableness, and willingness to recognize when I need support. Willingness to ask for help. Also, wisdom to know when not to give feedback. So, what I am suggesting there is when you’re interacting with another adult, you need to be very humble and always ask if they’re interested in the feedback that you so willingly are wanting to give them. If it is not wanted, do not give it. Everybody has free agency and just because someone is connected to you, whether they’re your spouse, or an adult child, or a cousin, or some kind of good friend, does not give you permission to give unsolicited feedback to someone.

So, I would encourage you, if there’s anything that you practice out of this podcast, I would practice that particular skill because 1) people don’t know that that’s inappropriate. And 2) because we live in distortion—so many of us—we are so willing to “help” other people and tell them what they need to be doing and what they should be doing. And it really is none of our business unless they ask for it.

Humility means submission of my will to someone else’s. Now, you’ve got to be careful with this one because I’m not suggesting that you just turn your life over to people. But what I am saying is giving the “steering wheel” to someone else in my life for a period of time, so they can teach and share with me something that I want or need to know, which will then benefit me.

So, you have to be very selective and very careful of who you hand the steering wheel to. Now, when I say steering wheel, it doesn’t mean that they own you. You’re just handing them the wheel; you’re not giving them your whole car. And so, what you’re saying is, I’m going to humble myself and sit in a teachable, open position because you are living in a way or you have something that I want, and so I need to be humble and allow you to teach me what that is, how you created that or received that, and how I can do that in my own life.

And so, it’s a very select choice that you make, that when you hand that wheel over to a very select person, you must know that you are safe with them and you must know that you can trust them. You must have trust, not just safety, but you must trust them, because without trust, you don’t know if they’re going to exploit, or manipulate, or use you.

Now, they may not do it intentionally. However, when people are unconscious, oftentimes that is the outcome, because of the nature of being human. Being human often equates to being self-centered and it’s always something that we are learning to outgrow or step out of—our selfishness—so that we can be available and live in this humble position.

[00:23:25] The Attributes of Humility

So, the attributes of humility are: unconditional love, desire to support and help others, acceptance of personal limitations and weaknesses in myself and in others, self-awareness and willingness to look at myself, gratitude, curiosity and a willingness to be taught, being able to see the big picture, which is a view of my environment and situations not focusing on a single perspective of the situation or the environment. Connectedness to others and self, which means sharing empathy and validation, and being vulnerable emotionally, spiritually, physically, sexually, etc.; recognizing my own vulnerability and validating myself and others; recognizing my own and other’s boundaries, and honoring and respecting the other person and my own by following those, honoring those.

These attributes of humility, it’s like you look at yourself and say, “Okay, do I have any of those?” And I think I read probably eight of them. “Do I have any of those in my life?”

Another attribute is recognizing your fear and turning it into healthy fear. And so, healthy fear means that it’s accurate fear. It’s not coming from faulty core beliefs fear.

So, I want you to look at yourself. Is it difficult to humble yourself? Do you know why? Chances are that you’re afraid. And so, when you think about fear, how do you perceive that statement? Does that statement feel threatening to you, annoying, accurate, relieving? What? What does it feel like?

You must know and understand what’s driving you in order to be willing to humble yourself. If you don’t understand it, you will have resistance to humbling.

[00:25:31] Some Questions to Consider

So, let me read you some questions and you’re welcome to rewind this and listen to it again. I’m going to read these questions quite quickly, and you can ask yourself these questions.

Was humility modeled for you in your home? Was it modeled for you in your childhood?

Was humility talked about but not shown by example? Like, do I say but not as I do.

Do you view humility as being a weakness or having no power?

Do you see humble people devalued or treated with disrespect? So, whether it’s during childhood or current.

Are you afraid to show humility? What does your fear say to you? What does it mean to be afraid of showing humility?

Do you feel regretful that you have not been humble or lived a humble life?

What do you need to do to become humble? Do you need to let go of resentments? Forgive yourself? Forgive others? Stop controlling? What? What do you need to do?

Is there someone in your life that you wish would humble themselves?

Who models humility? Who would you like to emulate?

During your childhood, was it okay to be humble and ask for help if you needed it?

Is it okay to be humble and ask for help now in your life?

Are you afraid that if you humble yourself, someone is going to take advantage of you?

If you were to live in humility, what would change in your life?

Those are some powerful, powerful questions, and I implore you to think about those and answer those. Even if it’s just a cursory response, because as you start thinking about those types of questions, because of the depth of them, your soul is going to connect and want you to know the Truth about those answers, so be brave, be courageous and just take one of those questions and just kind of sit on it for a day or a week or however long you feel like you need to come up with some answers. And then, whatever answers you get, if you’re satisfied with them and you enjoy where you at, then stay there. If you’re not, then again, be courageous and bold, and start changing, and if you don’t know what to change or how to change, you’re welcome to contact me. I do coaching internationally, or I would get connected with someone that you know, that you feel safe and you have trust with, and sit with them and ask them these questions, and say, “Can you help me understand how I can heal this particular issue? I want to live a humble life but I have these resentments, and I don’t know how to let go of them.”

So, there are people on the planet that absolutely can walk you through that process. Find them. If you don’t know where they are, again, contact me and I will do my best to get you connected to someone or a group that can support you.

[00:28:42] Pride

Let’s talk about pride for a moment. Although pride is destructive, deceitful and creates confusion and irritation to all who engage with it, pride has been present since the dawn of time. With good reason, pride also—known as shame—is often conceptualized in terms of its destructive and secretive nature. Pride has been the destroyer of many great individuals, families, civilizations, religions, ideologies, traditions and so forth.

Pride is the great violator of the sanctity of self and relationships, including marriages, families, friendships, business partnerships, and all other unions where two or more people connect with one another on any level.

Pride has also been a great violator of destroying self. Pride always has and always will present itself whenever people gather for a common goal or a common good.

Pride is seductive on many, many levels. It seduces my senses, my body, my mind, my emotions, perceptions, my expectations, my sense of responsibility, my sense of value, my sense of worth and who I am, and my willingness to engage in things that are positive, powerful and for the good of mankind.

Pride looks like this: it is arrogant, not teachable, conceited, focused on self, vain, it’s boasting, it’s condescending, it’s insolent, it’s obnoxious. Pride is a reaction to feeling afraid, feeling insecurity, feeling shame, feeling not enough, feeling grief or sorrow, believing that someone is going to hurt you and that you’re in danger. It’s a reaction to entitlement, wanting control and power.

When we are not conscious, our pride triggers us to distort our emotions and perceptions of our experiences with a handful of feelings: feelings of I’m better than others, or feelings that I’m less than others. Pride deceives us to experience perceptions that are not based in reality.

For example, I visit a third-world country and see the conditions they live in: no running water, small homes made of mud, cement or dirt, dogs and cats running all over the streets, half-dressed children who have not been bathed in weeks, body odor from the people of the country, etc. I think “I am so glad I don’t have to associate with these people. They smell and they’re so poor. I am not like these people, and I feel bad for them, that they have to live in these conditions.”

This is a good example of how pride creates skewed perceptions. I’m feeling better than these people and telling myself a story that they’re disadvantaged and that they need someone to take care of them. I’m telling myself that they need to be pitied and that my conditions are the ideal. So, can you see that distortion?

I have a personal story that I’ll share very similar to this, where I was in a third-world country and I was there for a couple of weeks. I was there with a dentist and I was pulling teeth with him. We went up into the jungles of Guatemala. These people had never seen a plane, a camera. It was amazing as I would show them the video camera, they just were in awe. They thought the Great Spirit had captured them and it was reflecting back in the camera. It was very interesting to see their reactions. Anyway, as I was there, there were very large rats running around their village. These rats were the size of small kittens and I’d never seen rats that big. Obviously, I did not plan for them and so I was in a very thin tent. We were inside the only building that was in the village and that was a school house. And the school house was constructed of mud walls and metal siding that was thrown up on top with rocks to hold it down, and so there were large gaps in between the wall and the roof.

This is where these rats would enter. So, at night they were out looking for food, and we had some really good food in our suitcases. Like I said, we were there for a week and we had several suitcases not only with the equipment to pull teeth but we had food in these suitcases. And then, we had two tents and it was just myself and this man, he was the dentist and I was there assisting him. So, he was in a tent and I was in a tent, and we were inside this school house and I would hear the rats drop in. I can even feel the reaction inside my body as I’m even telling this story. I could hear them, they were moving around in this room, and they were ripping our suitcases to get into the food. They’re very aggressive animals. I was just sitting there in terror that they would come into our tents. It was just tent material, just this very thin piece of fabric that was separating us from these rats.

The next day, I got up and I went to the chief and I told him in alarm, there are these rats that are eating your food. Because right next door to the school house, it was adjacent, it was connected, it was just a wall that separated it—was where they would come and have rice dumped into this space, and that’s what the villagers would eat. And you could hear the rats. It was just a big heap of rice on the ground, and I could hear the rats moving around in the rice just right next door.

So, I thought I was warning the chief so that he would be able to protect his people from disease, and germs, and possible infestation of who-knows-what from these rats. And I was telling him in a very excited tone, he calmed me and said in his language that the rats are our friends, and the rats bring us luck, and the rats live among us. It’s fine, we need to share our food with them. And I remember thinking, “What? No, no, you don’t understand.” And I attempted to tell him again about disease and people can die, things like that. And I remember feeling very animated about trying to warn him. And he again, very humbly, informed me that that was not the case, and that these animals are sacred to them, and that they’ve been living among them for centuries.

Though I did not agree with him and at some level still don’t agree with him, it was a good example of humbling me, if I was open to connecting where he was and where the people were. And that those people have been up there for centuries living just fine without my help, without the help of the first world awareness. I remember the rest of my trip being very humbled as I was invited to live among these people. And it really helped me to “swallow my pride” and really connect to where they’re at.

[00:36:51] Outcomes of Pride

So, outcomes of pride: pride is caustic and self-reinforcing. If we choose not to humble ourselves and get into Reality of our present experiences, pride will reinforce our faulty perceptions of ourselves, our expectations, our realities, our experiences, other’s motives and everything we interact with—by believing that this tainted faulty perception called pride is the Truth of the situation and the Reality. And that’s exactly where I was when I was in that village, like “Wait a minute, I have the Truth here, you don’t.” And really, I was in a prideful stance thinking that because I came from America, they’d be so thrilled to know what I know. It was very humbling to talk to this man, and he was very humble about how he shared it with me. It was kind of like patting me on the head like, “Little girl, you don’t understand.” And I didn’t understand.

Because the lessons we can learn from pride so often move us into humility (if we’re willing), it is usually through this paradox that we were taught, through the expression of our pride combined with our unawareness of our vulnerabilities and our limitations, we experience humility. Because prideful experiences are oftentimes so uncomfortable, the hope is that we learn from the sting of pride, and that we don’t have to be taught in this manner again and again.

Discomfort can be a powerful mechanism and motivator for change to move us into humility.

Pride has been present since the beginning of the world. It has been modeled for us through countless historical storylines, plays, relationships. All of us are very aware of the destructive nature of pride which speaks in two directions. It says, “You are not enough. You’re bad. You’re unworthy. You’re undesirable, unloving.” Or, “You are the exception to the rule. You don’t have to follow the rules, you’re justified, you’re right, you’re better than others. You’re entitled. You deserve. You’re the smartest. You are perfect and more capable than anyone else.”

So, pride, the origins and characteristics of pride is a focus on self, to be and remain jealous, that you are all-powerful, you don’t have to ask for help, that you isolate yourself from others, close yourself to teaching because you’re always right, you’re entitled, you’re impulsive, you deny and hide your vulnerabilities, you do not show weakness of any sort, you are learned and educated and therefore you are all-knowing, you control yourself and everything and everyone else around you.

Pride is a very powerful poison, and if you have been in it for an extended period of time, it has affected you. Look for it. Recognize its voice in your head. Watch your actions and thoughts, and see if you are not absent of humility. Notice whether or not you feel resentful or entitled to things, people and stuff. Notice if you denigrate or diminish yourself to others. Think about how you behave. Are you open to further information and instruction? Are you an honest person? And are you willing to forgive yourself and others? Can you emotionally connect with yourself and others?

So, the way that you heal pride,—the way that you heal it—is that you learn how to choose. There is a power greater than pride, and it is the power of free agency and choice. Choosing to be humble rather than choosing to be prideful is a wise choose.

If you want to rid your life of pride, you must be willing to recognize that you are in a prideful position and choose to humble yourself. When you choose to humble yourself by accepting the Truth and the Reality of your situation, experience and relationships, you choose to move forward. When you consciously choose Reality rather than distortion—which is pride—it enables emotional and spiritual freedom.

So, choice is always present. You can choose anything you want, but you will not get to choose the outcomes or the consequences of your choices. However, we do get to choose how we perceive our Reality and how we manage it. we can choose to manage Reality and the uncomfortable experiences of Reality in anger, frustration, vindictiveness, resentments, fear. Or we can hold the exact same experience: hope, happiness, gratitude, information, tolerance, patience and love. It is entirely up to us and completely up to us, which I think is so amazing because I don’t have to be stuck. And if we are victimized by something or someone, in these kind of situations we don’t get to choose what happens to us, yet we do get to choose how we hold the experiences. And when you fully implement the power of choice, it frees you and liberates you from the lies and distorted perceptions of shame and pride.

You can choose how you will act and how you will react. You can choose how you will feel and how you will not feel. You get to choose when you will respond and not respond. You will choose what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. Choice is a gift that we need to use more consciously because it has incredible power for good, to keep you in Reality, to keep you in Truth.

On the other hand, that same power of choice can also be used in destructive manners as to distort Reality.

So, what a powerful podcast. As I am sharing this with you, I’m feeling just in myself a renewing energy to pay attention. Am I living in humility or am I living in pride? It seems like such a simple question. So, I encourage you to look deeply at oneself, to share this information with those you love, and to practice this powerful skill-set of living in humility, because it does have to be practiced, it’s not something that comes naturally. Pride comes more naturally than humility does.

Have a fantastic day and week. I look forward to speaking with you in September, next week. And until then, stay connected and live in your integrity.

[ENDS]