Moving Forward With Acceptance and Humility
A prerequisite for overcoming passivity is acting through acceptance and humility. Passivity can be the comfortable place to be at times while acceptance and humility mean we have to be kind to ourselves and those around us which can be hard. We are generally our own worst critic and it can keep us in the victim mindset. Being aware of ourselves and where our mindset is takes a lot of courage as well as acceptance that we are good enough as we are and nothing can change God’s love for us.
The Merriam-Webster definition of humility is: not proud or haughty, not arrogant or assertive; reflecting, expressing or offering in a spirit of deference or submission a humble apology. I think this definition is lacking a little bit and promotes the idea of letting others do as they like without ever asking for your own needs. Another definition of humility is love and acceptance. Here is an example; as therapists we want to give our clients unconditional positive regard, or love. We check our egos at the door and accept our clients as they are and provide them with a safe space that they may not experience anywhere else. The key part of the example is the idea of checking our ego at the door and recognizing that our clients are on a journey of growth and we are there to walk with them as they learn and change. If we were to get frustrated and blame ourselves if we feel like a client isn’t growing then we won’t be effective. This is our chance to ask them what else is going on in their lives, what they think is working and what they don’t think is working, and explore the therapeutic relationship. Now change this to your relationship with your partner!
Humility does not mean that you can’t be assertive. The idea is more that we can be assertive for our needs without being assertive over or controlling over others. Sometimes we think that humility means that it is better to just not say something to our partner because we don’t want to create a bigger issue. This is not true though! Being able to have a conversation with our partner where we acknowledge the mistakes we have made and also express our needs takes courage and shows our acceptance and love for our partners. Acceptance is a critical part of being humble. When we are not humble or accepting of ourselves, somebody else’s hurt means that we are the problem, that we are not enough as we are. When we act with humility we don’t feel the need to defend ourselves when mistakes are made, we can explore that hurt and find ways to move forward together.
One major takeaway from our discussion today is to focus on the behavior as the problem instead of the person being the problem. If we are telling ourselves that we are bad people or that our partner is a terrible person because they hurt us we are looking at them with blame and judgement. We should look at a problem like it is an opportunity for growth. Once we start loving ourselves the way that God loves us, we can start loving others that way as well. One step forward is to journal about this question: how can I love better? Once we are able to answer that question we can start moving forward!
