Living From a Place of Humility
Yesterday I had the opportunity to lead a session at Oklahoma’s annual Children’s Behavioral Health Conference in Tulsa. My topic had to do with helping parents manage their own emotions while raising an emotionally disturbed child. The room was full of parents struggling to raise some of the most difficult children one can imagine. The toll on their own life is huge. We shed a few tears together and we laughed together. It was a good session. Afterwards, several stopped by the front of the room to say thank you, to ask questions, or simply share some of their story to someone they thought might understand. It was gratifying.
Later, people I knew and didn’t know stopped me in the hallways to tell me what a great job I had done and how much they appreciated the session. I got in the elevator this morning to take some of my things to the car and a woman said to me, “You did an awesome job, yesterday.” I thanked her and tried to move the conversation to her and her family. Another man in the elevator said, “I heard about your session. I went to a different one, but wished I had gone to yours. I’m sorry I missed it.”
I’m certainly happy the session went well and those attending felt like it helped them, but when this kind of thing happens I have to start doing some serious internal emotional work of my own. I want to feel good about what I can do and the gifts I have. At the same time I always want to live out of humility.
I think the difference between pride and humility is that pride seeks to draw from others, to fill a void inside of self with words of honor and acclaim. It is the positioning of oneself to gather in compliments and distinguish oneself from the crowd. Humility, on the other hand seeks to give to others from some internal core of compassion. For a humble person, there is no void that needs constant replenishing. Rather, there is welling up of offering like a spring that comes from deep within the earth. A humble person is hoping to fill the voids in other people rather than some void within himself or herself.
The session I led yesterday came from that spring of compassion within me to help other people. I must admit, however, that there also exists that empty spot that I sometimes try to fill with attention from other people. I like the compliments. Sometimes I start thinking, “I deserve the compliments.” Unfortunately, compliments are fleeting and erratic. If I seek after them, I will always be disappointed in the long run. No, I want my life, as much as possible, to be lived from the place of humility where my deepest desire is to share what is within me rather than collecting what is within others.
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