PRIDE 🏆

VICE OR VIRTUE?

As many of you may know, that apart from writing this newsletter, I am an iEQ9 Enneagram Practitioner. Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has a vulnerability, a value, a virtue, and a vice - I have written a letter on each Enneagram type in 2022 in case you would like to know more or want to re-read them. The vice of an Enneagram Type 2 - The Helper - is Pride. Being an Enneagram 2 myself, I can assure you I know a lot about pride, especially false pride. And in case you were worried, todays letter has absolutely nothing to do with the rainbow cult!

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“It was Pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” — Saint Augustine

We pride ourselves in so many things and it often gives us a feeling of superiority. We also like to use pride - or the appearance of the same - as a mechanism to build a wall around us that supposedly protects us. Often our sense of pride protects us against our own disapproval. We justify our actions as those of a good person who is proud of what they do. When we become aware of this, once we see a thought or action as pride the pride can suddenly lose its powerful grip.

Pride often stands in our way and I had a wake up call at an Enneagram workshop in Nashville many years ago. Someone said: “The Enneagram 2 asks for nothing and expects everything.” For the most part of my life that was absolutely true. I used to pride myself that I can do anything and don’t need anyone to help me. And the things I cannot do, I can learn. I was so full of myself that I could not take a compliment and almost saw it as an insult. On the other hand though, I was absolutely incapable to ask for help but expected the people who know me, who care for me, and who I have helped so often to know and to offer. Little did I know that none of them had a crystal ball or other psychic powers.

I saw myself as the helper of the people around me, believing I know what they need nff and that I can give it, even believing that I could be the one to save them. It was how I wanted to see myself and had the audacity to be intrusive at times as well as an insufferable know-it-all.

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“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.” — Carl Jung

Especially having raised my children more or less alone and having been a working mother all the time, I even belittled this Herculean task out of false pride. Today my pride for what I accomplished there is real, sincere and justified for the right reasons.

I believed that my energy was unlimited and that I have no real need to replenish or give to myself. I payed a high price for that pride and ignorance many years ago with what you would today call a Burn Out, yet I prefer to call it what it really was, an exhaustion depression. I learned though, even if I still struggle at times, to ask for help when I need it, which was one of the biggest leaps for me. I also learned to say No.

“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.” — Khalil Gibran

But enough about me. Let’s have a look at the definition of pride and why it is one of the seven deadly sins.

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The Sin of Pride is said by some to be the foremost of the Seven Deadly Sins. Hubris is the gateway through which all other sin enters the mortal soul. 

Pride is the excessive belief in one's own abilities. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity, which I believe is just a very small part of pride.

Of the seven deadly sins, pride is the only one that also has a virtuous side. It is certainly a good thing to have pride in one's country, in one's community, in oneself. But when it is taken too far, these virtues become deadly sins.

The difficulty is to acknowledge our limits and to recognise the fine line we are walking. It is about self-awareness, about establishing healthy boundaries, and giving love as needed. When we realise that we are not as indispensable to other people as we believe, pride can give way to humility.

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Like embarrassment, shame, and guilt, pride is a reflexive emotion - an emotion about the self - that is strongly influenced by sociocultural norms and values. Historically, pride has been conceived both as vice and virtue.

Many religious traditions look upon pride, hubris, and vanity as self-idolatry. In the Christian tradition, pride is one of the seven deadly sins. More than that, it is the original and most unforgivable sin, for it is from pride that the angel Lucifer (Latin, ‘Light-maker’) fell from Heaven. Pride is the sin most hated by God because it bears all the other sins, blinds us to truth and reason, and removes us from God and his religion. In art, pride is sometimes symbolised by a figure of death - or else by Narcissus, a peacock, or a naked woman attending to her hair with a mirror and comb.

As a virtue, pride is, in the words of Albertanus of Brescia, ‘the love of one’s own excellence’. More prosaically, pride is the satisfaction, pleasure, or vindication that arises from having our self-image confirmed, either directly, or indirectly through others - for example, through our children, or colleagues and friends, or partner.

If pride is ‘the love of one’s own excellence’, the opposite of pride is shame, which is a completely different topic for another time.

So, on the one hand, pride is the most blinding and unforgivable of sins, but, on the other, it is a vector of virtue. Again, I believe that knowing oneself better and having a high level of self-awareness helps us to know when we are displaying the justified and true pride or a false hubristic pride.

“In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.” — John Ruskin

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🎶My Song for you

It was time Tina Turner showed up in the playlist… Proud Mary!

For more good music, go to this Spotify playlist where you can find all the songs from the Change & Evolve Letters!

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📚My Poem for you

Is by Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)

Awakening

 
Oh, I wanted to be pampered and I wanted to be 
    petted;
I thought that Life should run to me with comfort 
    when I fretted,
And so I used to wail for joys I had no means of
    buying,
But Life went on about its work and never heard 
    me crying.

I used to fly in tantrums when some pleasure was
    denied me;
I fancied everyone was wrong who raised a voice
    to chide me.
I thought that Life should run to me with pretty
    things to show me,
But Life went on about its work and never seemed
    to know me.

I know not how the thought began nor why so long 
    it lasted;
I wanted cake and pie to eat while others bravely 
    fasted;
I wanted easy tasks to do, high pay without the
    labor,
But Life, I noticed, passed me by to visit with my,
    neighbor.

Then suddenly I faced about — stopped my sense-
    less whining.
Took disappointment with a grin and loss with-
    out repining;
I found that woes were everywhere and some 
    would surely strike me;
I strapped my burdens on my back — and Life be-
    gan to like me. 

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👀Impression

Lake Starnberg how you don’t see it often on wild and stormy day…

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Let me know your thoughts in the comments, leave a ❤️ or send me a message. I always love hearing from you.

Wishing you a happy day wherever you are.

Yours

Tanja 🤗

Change & Evolve and feel free to get in touch