HUMILITY, NOT HUMILIATION

It occurs to me that the way out of humiliation is through humility.When I feel humiliated by my situation or someone's (mostly imagined) response to me, I feel humiliation which is another word for shame. Shame is a judgment, the taking on of a certain belief, attitude - it's a judgment that's leveled only by my own fears and self-loathing., not tied to anything objective outside myself, to some standard that's been decreed from on high. 
   But when I open myself to humility, judgment vanishes. Letting go of it, I'm only where I am, full of acceptance  for where I am. Humiliation is static; when I'm flooded with shame, there's no way forward. I'm caught in the prison of judgment. But humility looks only for what is; let me begin from where I am. Humility opens me up to the possibility that I don't know everything, that there may be another view, that there may be something I can or need or want to learn. Humility is a great bowing down, not to any other person or god but to my own shared humanity, a recognition of the human condition with all its faults and weaknesses and fears. 

Humiliation is the child of the ego, of all the judgments ego creates. Humility is the gift of the spirit, the way to move beyond ego and find a path forward.

HUMILITY AND GRATITUDE

Many times when I'm in turmoil I'm also in isolation. It's as if the turmoil entrances me and I forget that there are people around me who can offer help. Even more, some part of me wants to hold the turmoil close because it's so familiar. So I don't reach out because I don't remember to, because I compulsively cling to what feels familiar even though it's painful, and because the turmoil tells me nothing will help. I can't change. Why even try?
     There is another kind of remembering that helps me push past the wall. Through grace or luck or accident or effort, there have been times when I've reached out to people and tried to connect with spiritual principles. There are times when I've been comforted, allowed myself to feel the love of friends, and been given insight and hope. I have had direct experience of that letting go.  I know what it feels like and I know it's possible, possible for me. That makes it easier for me to want to do what I can to break out of isolation and let go of turmoil.
     There are two principles that most often help me remember and let go. Humility brings me back into the world; it allows me to feel how powerless I am; it makes me right-sized as I feel myself bow down before the universe. It helps me surrender the frantic need turmoil produces in me, the need to solve all my problems by myself, and with solutions that spring from a fearful, isolated self. Humility creates an ease and relaxation in me, I can begin to take deep breaths, I have space to reach beyond the terrible prison of my own making. In humility, other perspectives open themselves to me, ones from which I can risk showing myself to other people and I can connect with hope. Feeling that process, that opening, leads me to the other principle that moves me out of pain.  It's gratitude, which I think of as the aristocrat of emotions because when I am brimming over with it, I feel an unexpected grandeur, an expansiveness that fills me with love and acceptance. I breath in and out saying "thank you" and there is no room for turmoil or fear or pain. There is only a going out of myself, a desire to feel the world around me, to feel it with love.
     This is an endlessly recurring part of the path - to suffer, then to remember there are things that will relieve the suffering, then to allow humility and gratitude to lead me toward them.

GETTING OFF MY CASE

I don't know why it's so hard for me to get off my case. I know that the voice in my head that tells me I'm not enough, I don't do enough, is only attached to ephemeral thoughts floating through my mind. I know that I am not what that voice tells me. I know getting on my case is a very old habit - sometimes I think I was born with the on-my-case button already installed - and even the oldest of habits can change.
     God, I know a lot! And none of it helps me when the voice is on me. The reality of that voice in my head is stunning, powerful, all-consuming.  I think of Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show" - sometimes I'm encased in a world that feels absolutely real, that I completely believe, but when a chink appears, a sliver of light, I see that I can step through it and find myself in a new and expansive place, a place where I'm enough, I do enough and there's no reason to get on my case.
     I am my own chink in the sky, my own sliver of light. They are inside me and I know a few things to help me find them. When the voice has claimed me, I've learned to shake hands with it, to say you're smaller than I am and you're not all of reality. And repeat it until I really hear the words. Like an actor in a sense memory exercise, I work to summon up the feeling of fullness that tells me I'm enough. I remind myself I have some accomplishments and have done some good things. I picture the people in my life I care about the most. I especially think about how far I've come on this path of change. Then like Alice I step through the looking glass. In that new land, acceptance blossoms inside me, along with humility which allows me to be who I am, and gratitude for what I have and what I've done. I take a deep breath, come fully into the moment and find myself in that place where I and the world are enough. 

HUMILITY

I'm thinking of how often in the past I've been wrong about things. I've made assumptions about people - that one is uninteresting, that one is wearing the wrong shoes, that one will never see the solution right in front of his face. I've made snap judgments, misunderstood intentions, proudly spouted what I see now was absolute nonsense.
     Sometimes I like to remember the times I was wrong because they show me how far I've come. I hear something I said twenty years ago and instead of cringing with embarrassment I want to throw my arms around that poor misguided girl. You'll see, I want to say, you'll see how much you're going to change. 
    Remembering is humbling and I like the feeling of humility, which is a far cry from humiliation. Humility opens me up and helps me feel right-sized. It gives me the sense that all of us are fallible, sometimes living in illusion, sometimes deluded by self-interest or insecurity. Humility tells me that I'm no different than anyone else and sometimes that thought floods me with compassion, with love for us all.
     

IRRITATION

I got irritated today.  When I got back to my hotel room, the key card didn't work.  It meant I had to go back to the front desk.  I had to drive there because there are many buildings in this hotel and it was too long a walk.  The clerk gave me a new key and you may be able to guess what happened next.  This key didn't work either.  This time I tried calling the desk but for some reason I couldn't get through.  So it was back into the car to the front desk. I was by now very irritated.  The clerk gave me another key, I said I want someone to go with me because I'm not coming back again.  He said he was calling the engineer since something was obviously wrong with the lock.  When, I wanted to know in an irritated voice. As soon as he can walk over from wherever he is on the property. I drove back to my building, took the elevator up and went to my door.  I looked at the time and said to myself, if he isn't here in twenty minutes, I'll -- what?  My things were in the room so I couldn't storm off.  Then, just as I looked up from the time, there was the engineer.  The problem was the lock but his master key worked.  I thanked him for coming so quickly, went inside and plopped on the bed.
     I thought about irritation, mine in this particular case.  I was tired but my real question was why did I want the clerk to know I was irritated?  What was the point?  He didn't do something to the lock and I could see the edge in my voice made him nervous. My ego wanted to show the irritation, to say I'm important!  Drop everything right now and fix the lock! That would be counterproductive to say the least;  I learned a long time ago that showing anger or irritation only makes A bad situation worse.
     As I relaxed it came to me that the opposite of irritation and anger is humility. The way out for me from the driving back and forth and the frustration of the key cards not working was to acknowledge that these things happen, they happen to everyone and I'm not exempt. Daily life is full of obstacles and problems - if I don't take them personally I'll be helping them get resolved.
   Three cheers for humility, for recognizing that I'm not the center of the universe!