Intertwined within the whole Prideful Character exists the refusal to ask for help.

In previous blogs I discussed how the prideful character within me originated from a self-definition as ‘someone who is good/successful at anything’ – and how this gave rise to a fear or making mistakes or not being good enough. So, asking for help has been a tough point for me to learn – because I perceived asking for help as admitting failure, believing that: if I can’t do the task on my own, then I am in some way not good enough, ‘not up to the task’ –and now I have to ‘degrade’ myself to asking another for help.

This perception started in the class room. The teacher would explain something , we would do some of the exercises together, and then we’d have to do it on our own. I believed that – after the teacher had explained everything and after we had done exercises on our own – I ‘should’ be able to get it. And I mostly did. Those that asked for help, I saw as the ‘dumb kids’ – and I always pitied them and felt sorry for them that they NEEDED to ask for help – that they were so incapable or inadequate within understanding and processing the information that they couldn’t apply it for themselves in exercises and had to put up their hand in embarrassment and ask the teacher for help once more. I always felt lucky that I was spared from that experience.

Of course, outside of the classroom – when it’s not merely about learning information, someone showing you exactly what the rules are that need to be applied and then applying it – I ran into many moments that I actually ‘didn’t know what to do’ or where I had an idea of what I was supposed to do but I had no rulebook to fall back on or a script to follow. I didn’t realize that – yes, when you’re working with information that strictly follows certain rules and you’re actually working with ‘copy/pasting’ a certain format of resolution unto certain information – then sure, if you understand the rules and the conditions under which to apply them – then you simply do it for yourself. But most problem-solving in ‘real life’, outside of the class room, outside of maths, outside of grammar, outside of physics or chemistry – doesn’t follow such strict rules and doesn’t first hand me a formula to apply. I didn’t see the difference between the two – all I saw was: I have to get a project done or I have to master something or I have to direct a certain situation: and I find I am unable to do it!!! AAAAAAAAAAH!!!! What’s wrong with me!!!! I SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS!!! Lolol.

Fascinatingly, instead of simply admitting that: well, I don’t know what to do – let me ask someone else who might be able to assist me – I would just muddle on in all stubbornness – regardless of how ineffective I was and regardless of how long it was taking me to make any progress at all. I felt that – at least if I don’t ask for help, then I’m not officially stupid or inadequate – then I might ‘suddenly’ understand it, then I might find in my memory some piece of information that will be the key and all will be well in the end and I’ll see that I could do it on my own all along, it just took me a little longer.

I made many things unnecessarily hard for me this way. Also within my process for instance, if I didn’t see how I had created a certain experience for myself or if I was unable to make a decision – rather than speaking to someone about it and asking for their perspective, I would just try to ‘find the point on my own’, while in the meantime still sitting with the same experience or accumulating anxieties and doubts for not being able to make a decision – thinking that, if I ask for someone’s assistance, then I’m not the one walking my process, then even if I’m the one opening up the point further in writing and self-forgiveness and self-correction – I would think I didn’t ‘own’ that point of correction – because I wasn’t the one to see the point for myself.

Lol – it would feel like cheating and looking in the back of the book for the answer to the question I wasn’t able to resolve on my own. Again – a point I created in school where I made it quite a point not to go and look for the answers in the back of the book until I had an answer of my own – then it was okay to go and check if I had the right answer. But to go to the back of the book to see the answer while I didn’t have an inkling of how to solve the problem, no, that to me was totally unacceptable – that was cheating and dishonest. Lol – quite a morality point I created around ‘honesty’ here. But that’s in essence how I perceived asking for assistance – that I was cheating and that I was taking a short-cut. Those answers that I would go look up at the back of the book – because, yes, sometimes I was so stuck and desperate that I would go peak – after reading the answer I could suddenly see how they got to the answer and I would be able to work it out for myself in how to get to that answer – but those exercises didn’t ‘count’ then – because I had ‘cheated’.

So, a word of advice would be to look at your perceptions around ‘asking for assistance’ – specifically look at your childhood/schooling years – and to remove these associations, judgments and beliefs. If you have a look: it simply is a matter of fact that through defining ourselves through certain ideas, views, beliefs, opinions, personalities, etc – we have limited ourselves in being able to assess information for what it is and directing it effectively. If we each stick to trying to do everything on our own – it’s going to take forever to find solutions and walk them into correction, because in order to see information for what it is, we have to be able to also identify the lenses through which we view information – but if we have accepted those lenses as ‘normal’, then how can we see that they are lenses? Fortunately, each one has lived a different life, with different parents, with different upbringing, with different experiences – and so in asking another for perspective, they might be able to see something that we hadn’t considered on our own, because the particular lens we were looking through, the particular glasses we were wearing didn’t allow us to see that point.

So, in working together, asking for support and others’ perspectives and suggestions, we have the greatest chance at walking this process most effectively and formulating solutions most effectively – because in the end, it’s not about where some piece of information/some suggestions came from – it’s about putting all the pieces of information together, to see the whole picture and then directing it in terms of what is best for all. In the end, information is information, it cannot really be ‘owned’ – information is here – it doesn’t belong to anyone . Learn more »

In my previous post - Day 146: The Credit is Mine! - I said that as I was writing, I had a memory come up. So, if you haven’t yet – I suggest reading the previous post first.

The memory that came up was quite a ‘significant one’ – meaning: a memory that I have been working with for quite some time or that has come up several times in my process and each time there are different points revealed from/of it. And so, here again, lol.

This memory stands in relation to my relationship with a particular person that I was not on good terms with. I experienced this person as judgmental, unfair and brutal. Needless to say that over time, I accumulated a vast amount of reactions and resentment towards this particular person, but I would never voice them – I would brood and curse in silence and complain about the person to others. Now, within this memory – I was having a discussion with my mother and we were not agreeing on something. This other person was present as well and at some point started shouting and ranting at me – I cannot remember all that was said – but one particular point I remember very clearly – these were the words that triggered my reactions to ‘shoot through the roof’, smash the plate I was holding onto the kitchen floor, shout that I’ve had enough at the top of my lungs and get into a huge fight.

Now – those particular words that were said that triggered my reactions to go through the roof – I had always remembered them, but I hadn’t placed any importance on why I was remembering these words or even why these words had such an impact in terms of the intensity of my reactions increasing so extensively. The words were ‘you think you’re the queen and everyone must just bow for you’ – lol. So, in writing my previous blog about how I experience the prideful character as being a queen on a throne within myself and any time someone gives ‘praise’ it is like a person bowing before the queen and how this relationship to praise had become like an addiction within myself – in ‘needing people to praise me’ – I could suddenly why these words that were spoken in that moment would have such a big impact – because they were striking at the heart of the prideful character that I had become, lived and embodied totally and completely by that age.

It is fascinating – every time I would remember these words I would think ‘that just shows how little this person knew and understood me, if that’s how they see me – a queen who wants everyone to bow for her’ – because on a conscious level and how I would interact with people on a conscious level, I did not at all see myself this way, let alone want to be seen this way – but on a deeper level, these words summarized a very large aspect of who I was accepting and allowing myself to be and exist as.

Herein – I remember very clearly how the word ‘queen’ within what he said, was the one word in relation to which I allowed a flood of reactions to surge up inside me – showing that this is a word that is polarized within and as me – holding both positive and negative charges.

So, I’ll write a bit more on the polarization of the word ‘queen’ in my next post. Learn more »

This blog-post is a continuation to:

Day 141: Pride - The Root of All Sin?
Day 142: Pride and Perfection
Day 143: Pride – Prize versus Hide
Day 144: It doesn't matter what you say, I already decided I won't listen to you

Maleficent is the name of the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty and also the name of the new Disney movie where this classic fairy tale is told from Maleficent’s point of view. Without going into a debate about whether it’s a good movie or not or whether it is cool or not that the story was told from the villain’s point of view – I found the movie depicting the point of Pride quite nicely so will use it as a reference from that perspective.

In the story, Maleficent starts out as an ‘innocent’ fairy. She’s revered by the other creatures in her domain for her large wings, her expression, her devotion. At some point, she is ‘betrayed’ by a friend, a human, that she had trusted with access to ‘fairyland’ to call it that – I don’t recall the exact terms. In any case, her human friend cuts off her wings to bring them to his dying king so that he may ascend to the throne after the king’s death. When she realized the ‘betrayal’, she decided to take revenge and destroy what is most precious to him – his daughter.

In that moment, it seemed like the right thing to do – she felt justified in her decision of avenging her loss and betrayal. As the child grows up on the country-side under the stewardship of the ‘three good fairies’ – Maleficent keeps an eye on her and on occasion steps in to make sure the child is not harmed. As the child grows older, her and Maleficent start to develop a relationship – the child thinking/believing that Maleficent is her fairy godmother. It becomes clear how Maleficent starts to see the child in a different light – no longer just ‘the most precious possession of my enemy and therefore my target for destruction’ – but a child in her own right, with her own expression, her own life. More and more you can see the doubt in Maleficent in terms of the decision she had made and the curse she had placed on the girl, Sleeping Beauty. But she wipes away the doubt and the regret, because ‘she made that decision and in that moment, she felt so right and righteous about it, she cannot, she won’t, reconsider it. Then of course, she will only admit her mistake when it is too late and the curse takes effect.

Another way in which the prideful character is so nicely depicted in Maleficent is her total disregard for everything and everyone around her. Whereas she used to care and nurture, she starts to poison and harm – in the movie, she literally casts a ‘dark cloud’ over her land and ‘sucks the joy’ out of everything around her. The only thing on her mind is her revenge, her path, her point of view – nothing else matters – everything can be sacrificed for her self-interest. And anyone who tries to point it out to her is shut down.

Oh, how far we are willing to go to protect our self-interest. Would it not be easier to admit the mistake? To take a step back and see the consequences one is busy creating, for oneself and for everyone else involved? To see that: okay, I am experiencing some very strong emotions here and I reaaaaaallly want to stick with my point of view – but that is all it is: my point of view – am I really choosing the optimum path here? Is this really a solution? Whom does this benefit, whom does this harm?

In the movie, of course, all magically ends well, but we all know how, in real life, when our mistakes catch up with us, we don’t just get a ‘happily ever after’ handed to us – the consequences are already created and now have to be faced and walked through. Is our pride really worth it? Superimposing an experience over reality, superimposing ourselves over others – to what end? To eventually have to realize the same thing: 'crap, I made a mistake'. Learn more »