How to get rid of pride, arrogance, vanity and self-abasement?

Before we begin discussing how to get rid of pride, let’s first understand this concept itself. This word usually means excessive pride, arrogance, selfishness, arrogance, etc. Everyone roughly knows what pride is, but rarely does anyone recognize it in themselves, and if they notice it, they do not see any danger in it and, moreover, are not going to fight it. But sooner or later it will make itself felt and bear its terrible fruits.

How to get rid of pride: Orthodoxy, Catholicism

Pride in Orthodoxy is one of the eight sinful passions, along with gluttony, fornication, greed, anger, sadness, despondency and vanity.

In Catholicism, pride is one of the seven main sinful passions, along with gluttony, fornication, greed, anger, despondency and envy.

Before answering the question of how to get rid of the sin of pride, it should be noted that pride and pride are not at all the same thing. Pride is, in general, the most common characteristic of any sinner. We all get proud from time to time. Pride is that great degree when this sinful passion turns into a dominant characteristic of a person and fills it. These people usually don’t listen to anyone, they say about such people: “There is a lot of pride, but little intelligence.”

Islam is about pride

Pride is when a person boasts about his achievements before the Creator, forgetting that it was from Him that he received them. This disgusting quality makes a person too arrogant; he begins to believe that he himself can achieve everything without God’s help, and therefore he never thanks God for everything he has.

How to get rid of pride? Islam, by the way, also holds the opinion that pride is a great sin, which becomes the cause of a number of other sins.

According to the Koran, a genie named Iblis refused to carry out Allah's order and prostrate to Adam. The genie said that he was better than man because he was made of fire, not clay. After this, he was cast out of heaven and vowed to lead believers astray.

Pride and vanity

We have already mentioned that anger is sometimes associated with another passion - pride. Let us now say that it is not often that anger is an independent or primary passion in the human heart. For the most part, anger expresses dissatisfaction with another passion or even with a person's random desires; in the latter case, anger is caused by impatience and stubbornness, which in turn are a manifestation of general selfishness, unbrotherly love and unwillingness to listen to oneself and fight with oneself. The stronger any passion in a person, the faster and more violently he succumbs to the impression of anger when the passion is dissatisfied: among the vain and money-loving, anger is expressed in envy, among the dissolute - in jealousy, among those devoted to gluttony - in pickiness, etc. In general, anger is an indicator of various sinful passions, and the latter can be recognized by when a person begins to get angry: if when talking about fasting and sobriety, then he sins with the passion of gluttony and drunkenness; if in cases of spending money - it means love of money; if during conversations about the humble deeds of saints, it means that he is proud, etc. That is why we began our instructions to confessors with the fight against anger as an involuntary sign of other passions. Slavery of a person to it is expressed primarily in slavery to anger, which also breaks out in very cunning people who know how to hide their passions and remain silent about their habits.

It may seem to the reader that our talk about anger and its sinfulness is too long, but here we have given several instructions about the fight against any passion in general, and therefore, perhaps, we will be able to express our thoughts briefly about other passions. However, we consider it necessary to warn against such an objection from confessors: is it possible to enter into such deep depths of the human soul during even a ten-minute confession - people talk about sins, about their sinful deeds, and I will explain to them about passions? - Yes, explain this to them first in your teachings, then in confession they will understand you in two words: these objects are very close and understandable to the soul of an Orthodox Christian, even an illiterate one; but, of course, during confession, due to its short duration, say as much as you can manage, and save the rest for church sermons (of course, without personal hints) and for individual conversations with parishioners. Here, the great thing is if you direct the spiritual gaze of your parishioner on his soul and on its ailments, that is, sinful passions, dispositions, and not on actions alone.

While presenting arguments for combating the passions of anger and malice, we also touched upon pride and vanity, which is closely related to them. However, this enemy of God and our salvation will not be defeated if the warrior of Christ, who came to his spiritual father with repentance, is not given a deliberate weapon against this enemy. The sin of pride among our contemporaries, the educated and semi-educated, and more recently among the uneducated, is not a fall, not a transformation.

poking, but their constant state, and is not considered a sin: what is “noble pride,” “self-esteem,” “honor,” if not this godless pride? People call these feelings noble pride, legal pride, but there is only one pride - demonic, as the elder of Optina Hermitage Macarius explained to the landowner, who was torn before him in grief that his son had married a serf girl and thereby offended the “noble pride” of all kind. I wrote and spoke a lot against this spiritual blindness, which, alas, was reflected even in textbooks on moral theology and makes an unreasonable reference to the words of the Apostle Paul, who said that it was better for him to die than to lose his praise (1 Cor. 9:15); but whoever bothers to read this saying will see that the praise here is of course from God and, moreover, in the future life.

Of course, not only our contemporaries suffer from pride: only saints are free from it, and the descendants of Adam who did not crucify their passions bear this burden and must fight with it until they are freed from its burden. But the trouble of our contemporaries is that they do not consider as sin what is cursed by God, just as those rooted in a depraved life do not consider either fornication or adultery to be sin. On the contrary, a young man who is distinguished by his kindness and does not take revenge on his offenders is often showered even by his parents with reproaches and ridicule as an insignificant person who does not defend his honor. Probably the same disdainful

Christ the Savior, the apostles and martyrs, who resignedly endured beatings and all kinds of humiliation, would have been subjected to the same attitude among our contemporaries.

The spiritual father must at least try to ensure that the penitent recognizes the sinfulness of every proud feeling and every word or deed inspired by this feeling. Pride has two varieties - vanity and inner or spiritual pride. The first passion pursues human praise and fame, while the second, a subtler and more dangerous feeling, is so filled with confidence in its own merits that it does not want to seek human praise, but is content with the sweet contemplation of its supposed merits. This is the type of Byronism and Mephistopheles and demons beloved by European writers.

Vanity is a more ridiculous feeling, that is, a feeling ridiculed by people, and for this reason it is easier, if not to overcome it, then to understand that it is shameful and to fight it. But how? The repentant must be reminded of the words of Christ in the Discourse on the Mount about the displeasure of God with the exploits of a vain man and the reproof of the Pharisees (Matthew 23).

This is how we should admonish frivolous people who do not notice the sinfulness of their motives; especially, not only the confessor, but also all of us, clergy, should beware of what we, alas, are not at all wary of, that is, not to develop vainglorious motives in people, in particular in donors; and yet one cannot help but admit that it is advisable

more than half of those very abundant donations for which churches, schools, shelters and hospitals are built, were made out of motives of vanity, awakened in rich people by clergy, often even of the priesthood.

Vanity that humbles itself or fights in the soul of a Christian with humility deserves incomparably greater sympathy or heartfelt participation. Often in confession, reverent and humble-hearted people will confess to you that they are haunted by vainglorious thoughts when making donations, when serving the sick, even when treating them kindly and kindly, and finally, when singing and reading well and praised by people in church, when delivering sermons, when teaching at school, etc., etc. Often good monks, noticing such impulses in themselves, ask the elder or confessor for permission to stop their useful service in the choir or at the altar, and laymen and laywomen - their public or charitable activity.

And of course, this was one of the main motivations for most hermits to renounce the priestly rank and even flee from people when they became famous among the latter; for the same reason, even today, some learned archimandrites renounce the bishopric, and monks - the priestly rank. What should a confessor say when a Christian reveals to him such an impulse? The same as the famous Optina elders responded to this

Macarius and Ambrose. You should not refuse obedience that is useful for the Church and approved by God’s commandments, to which your elders and your own gift given by God call you: do useful work, but for the thoughts of vanity that burst into your soul, reproach yourself and go against them - not through evasion from the matter, but through following a useful matter, and not this sinful thought, at least when the matter requires one thing, and the thought requires the opposite, which will certainly happen soon and will happen often. Not only the Lord, but also reasonable observers of life always see who works for business and who out of vanity: which teacher is kind to his students, trying to inspire them to work and heroism, and which one - to gain glory for himself, or, as they say, popularity . Which writer writes for the triumph of truth and to teach people good, and which one writes to please the crowd and for his own vain glory and evil for the sake of profit (Tit. 1, 11). So, teach people after any feat or even obligatory labor to check their conscience, for example, during prayer, whether the impulse of vanity was involved in his work and to what extent; then repent of this sin, but do not give up. By doing this, the Christian will soon see that he will often have to choose between the demands of business (and duty) and the demands of vanity, and constantly choose the first and constantly suppress the second. In addition, strengthening himself in deeds of goodness, a Christian in general gradually frees himself from self-love, and, consequently,

indeed, and from all vanity. What should we say to the proud in the strict sense of the word? They think so highly of themselves that they do not even seek praise from people. What do you admire: intelligence, beauty, nobility, talents? But all this is not from you, but from the Creator, and the Creator can take all this away from you, just as he took everything away from big people in a real revolution. But, worst of all, it can also take away your mind; remember the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar and humble yourself before God before you suffer the fate of Napoleon or William. And let every Christian who rises above others in some way watch himself and fight against all self-exaltation, remembering his sins and passions and the humble mood of the holy apostles and other saints of God. From the “Spiritual Meadow” (or another fatherly book) it is useful to quote such a legend. I saw, says one old man, in one monastery a still young brother, known for his exploits and his kindness; before my eyes he was offended and even insulted, but he complacently kept silent about it, without changing his face at all. “Brother, who and how taught you such gentleness?” – I asked him with emotion. “Are they really worth my anger,” he answered, “after all, these are not people, but beautiful dogs; they are not worthy of me being upset with them.” “Then my joy,” the elder continued, “was replaced by deep sorrow for this dying brother, and I walked away from him in horror, praying for him and for myself.” Pride must also be overcome by actions that are contrary to it; especially important in

In this case, force yourself, as said, to ask for forgiveness from the offender, and also to endure punishment at school without complaint.

An indication of pride

Frequent touchiness and intolerance towards other people, or rather towards their imperfections.
Constantly blaming others for your life problems.
Uncontrolled irritability and disrespect for other people.
Constant thoughts about your own greatness and uniqueness, and therefore superiority over others.
The need for someone to constantly admire and praise you.
Absolute intolerance to criticism and unwillingness to correct one’s shortcomings.
Inability to ask for forgiveness.
Complete confidence in one's own infallibility; the desire to argue and prove one’s merits.
Lack of humility and stubbornness, which lies in the fact that a person cannot accept the lessons of fate with dignity and calm.

When pathos grows, the joy in the heart fades and is replaced by dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction. Only some people, noticing all these negative signs of pride in themselves, begin to resist, while others become its victims.

You can deal with pride before it grows to gigantic proportions, figuratively speaking, before it takes power over your soul and mind. And we need to urgently get down to business, but how to deal with pride?

What is vanity

Vivid examples of vanity can be found in children's fairy tales, classical literary works, the Bible and other sacred texts. Manifestations of this quality of character are expressed in political leaders, pop stars, and film actors.

To imagine an arrogant person, you need to remember fairy-tale characters and real personalities:

Snow White's evil stepmother, ready to do anything to eliminate competitors for the title of "Most Fair";
Lucifer is the sinless son of the morning star, who imagines himself equal to God;
Khlestakov from The Inspector General;
Napoleon Bonaparte;
Adolf Gitler.

A girl cannot admire herself.
Pride and self-esteem in society are forgiven by political leaders, actors, musicians, and fashion models. Celebrities are a reference point for an ordinary person, which means they are better than others and have the right to superiority. Psychology gives several detailed explanations of what vanity is:

This is a person’s craving for recognition, praise, glory. He wants to be the center of attention, to be talked about, to be envied. Often the feeling of one’s greatness goes against logic; the individual thinks that all his actions are justified.
This is a search for evidence of one's own superiority over others. Instead of personal growth and development, a person chooses self-deception. He humiliates others in order to look more beautiful, stronger, smarter in his own eyes.

The causes of high self-esteem are associated with unsolved mental problems in childhood. Due to an excess or lack of parental love and attention, the child develops inadequate self-esteem (overestimated or underestimated). Inflated self-esteem forces a person to react aggressively to criticism, seek flattery and praise, belittle other people's merits, and compare himself with other people. Low self-esteem is associated with humiliation and self-criticism, which is why an inferiority complex develops.

Lack of self-confidence prompts a person to seek approval from others, to expect compliments and positive feedback from people.

Fighting methods

No matter how high your achievements are, you should try to be interested in people who have achieved more, whom you should respect and learn from.
Learn humility, realize the greatness and infinite potential of every human soul. Accept your insignificance before God, the creator of all life on earth and in heaven.
Don't take credit for all the credit and achievements. Always thank the Lord for everything good and bad that happens to you, for various trials and lessons. The feeling of gratitude is always more pleasant to experience than the feeling of contempt for others.
Find an adequate, honest and good person so that he can constructively express his opinion about you; all noticed shortcomings must be worked out and eradicated. And this is the best cure for pride.
You need to pass on your best experience to people, try to help them selflessly with love. Showing true love will definitely cleanse your heart of pride. Anyone who does not start sharing their positive experiences with others in time will only increase the growth of pride and pseudo-greatness.
Try to be sincere and first of all to yourself. Look for kindness in yourself, so that you have the opportunity not to accumulate grievances, but to find the strength and courage to ask for forgiveness from those we have offended and learn to admit our mistakes.

Self-deprecation

Many are interested in another interesting question - how to get rid of pride and self-abasement. These are two extreme points, one concept implies high self-esteem, the other - low self-esteem. Let's talk about it a little.

If we already know about pride, then let’s dwell a little on such a property as self-abasement, which is based on incorrect self-esteem and negative self-analysis. A person begins to belittle himself and his merits in comparison with other people. He may not like his appearance and qualities, he constantly criticizes himself, saying, “I’m not handsome,” “I’m fat,” “I’m a slob,” “I’m a complete fool,” etc.

How is vanity different from pride?

Vanity is not pride, although there is much in common between these two qualities. The dictionary defines pride as a feeling of joy, contentment, superiority, born as a result of one's achievements. You can be proud not only of yourself, but also of your children, parents, spouses, friends, colleagues, country, nation. Therefore, pride is a broader and more positive feeling.

Parameters by which pride can be distinguished from vanity:

Satisfaction from real achievements. In the case of arrogance, a person feels unreasonably important and attributes qualities that do not exist in real life.
Empathy for loved ones. A vain individual recognizes personal merits, a proud one can appreciate the merits of relatives, friends and partners.

A proud person does not conflict with other people, but distinguishes his own personality with the help of positive qualities, virtues, and achievements.

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Self-deprecation, like pride, can be used as a tool to influence how others evaluate and perceive you, so as not to take a painful blow to your self-esteem.

In a situation of belittling oneself, a person is the first to begin to criticize, scold and reproach himself, thereby preempting possible negative reactions to him from others. Such people truly believe that they are worse than those around them. Shyness also shows a developed inferiority complex in a person.

Causes of self-deprecation

Where does it come from? Usually this may be some negative experience from early childhood associated with the inability to evaluate oneself and others.

Self-deprecation becomes an inadequate way to protect against potential emotional threats. It can be used as a mask that a person puts on in adulthood in order to hide behind it.

Self-deprecation, as a rule, really appears from early childhood, often due to the child’s inability to meet all the high standards and expectations of the parents, especially if the parents are some outstanding people. They expect that their child must certainly meet their ideals, have talents and ambitious aspirations.

The dangers of vanity

Vanity is a dangerous character trait that destroys family, friendships and business relationships. Arrogant people constantly quarrel with others and often stop communicating even with close relatives.

An arrogant woman cannot get married for a long time and repels men with her contemptuous attitude. In the family, she shows selfishness, conflict, intransigence, touchiness, and greed. An arrogant wife makes endless claims and demands on her husband, and regularly gets offended and angry with him.

An arrogant man suppresses his wife and children and ignores their interests. He chooses for himself a quiet, weak-willed life partner who will agree to sacrifice her desires for the sake of her beloved husband. It is difficult for children to get along with an ambitious father; as a result of irreconcilable contradictions, they can run away from home and begin an early independent life.

When building a career, arrogance is a serious barrier. An ambitious employee reacts sharply to criticism, does not admit his own mistakes, and is rude to colleagues and management. A striking example is an arrogant salesman who looks with contempt at customers who come to the store for cheap goods.

Arrogant lion lord

Psychologists discuss problems associated with arrogance:

inadequate self-esteem;
interpersonal conflicts;
disappointment in life (due to high expectations and demands on other people);
lack of personal achievements (an arrogant person has no motivation for self-development);
cessation of spiritual development.

The only area where vanity can be beneficial is show business.

Mask of Powerlessness

But the child does not reach the bar set by his parents, then he blames himself, considers himself mediocre, and incorrect self-esteem comes to his mind, because his parents are unhappy with him.

When a child grows up, that’s when the fear appears that he will never be able to be as good as many people around him, that they cannot like him, and therefore success, happiness and love will never come to him. He begins to openly declare that he is a loser. A deep internal conflict is brewing and a chain of complexes is formed that hide under a mask that means “don’t pay any attention to me” and “don’t expect anything special from me.” He is not used to praise and does not accept it because he does not believe in himself.

Vanity

At the same time, another question arises - how to get rid of pride and vanity. And these are all links of one chain. Where there is pride, vanity appears. The meaning of this concept is that a person constantly wants to look better than he actually is, he feels a constant need to confirm his superiority, which means he surrounds himself with flattering friends.

Related concepts of vanity also include pride, pride, arrogance, arrogance and “star fever”. A vain person is only interested in his person.

Vanity is like a drug, without which, once you become addicted to it, you will no longer be able to live. And envy immediately settles in next to each other, and they go hand in hand. Since a vain person does not tolerate any competition, if someone is ahead of him, black envy begins to gnaw at him.

Signs

In psychology you can find the following signs of arrogance:

Dependence on public opinion.
Excessive talkativeness to attract attention to oneself.
Attachment to flattery.
Envy of more beautiful, smart and successful people.
Overestimation of one's strengths and personal qualities.
Boasting.
High demands on your family, friends, acquaintances, and colleagues. A vain person desires increased attention, constant praise, flattery, and cannot tolerate criticism.
Eccentric behavior. An individual exposes his feelings and thoughts in an inappropriate manner to attract everyone's attention.
Doing good deeds for recognition. When an arrogant person does good deeds, he dreams that his activities will be known in society. For example, he gives alms to a beggar and makes a video about it for YouTube.
Addiction to likes on social networks. To take unusual pictures, people risk their lives, fall from great heights into the abyss, and get hit by a train.

Recognizing vanity in a child is more difficult than in an adult. Kids need recognition and approval from their parents, so they love to show them their achievements. If a little boy or girl wants to get the attention of adults, that's okay. It’s another matter when a child reacts aggressively to criticism and reacts painfully to any comments from adults.

Perishable glory

As mentioned above, vanity, along with pride, is one of the eight sinful passions in Orthodoxy.

I would also like to add to everything that vanity is when a person constantly strives for vain, that is, vain and empty glory. The word “vain,” in turn, means “quickly passing and perishable.”

Position, high position, fame - things on earth are short-lived and unreliable. Any earthly glory is ashes and dust, simply nothing compared to the glory that the Lord has prepared for His loving children.

Arrogance

Now we need to talk about how to get rid of pride and arrogance. You must immediately find out what arrogance is, then it will be easier to understand and cope with this passion. Arrogance is self-exaltation, arrogance and contempt for another person.

Summarizing the discussion of how to get rid of pride, arrogance and the like, it should be noted that the fight against them is possible only after a person takes strict control of his behavior and words, begins to do good deeds, and takes care of as much as possible people around you and don’t expect gratitude or payment for it.

We must try to get rid of the thought of our own importance, specialness and greatness. Look at yourself from the outside, listen to what you say, what you think, how you behave, put yourself in the shoes of others.

Pride, arrogance and vanity will prevent an individual from living an independent and fulfilling life. And before they destroy you, start fighting them. Only then will you be able to rejoice and live in peace with yourself and with the world around you. And you will no longer want to blame anyone for your sins, and you will have a desire to thank the Lord for everything.

The world will shine with different colors, only then can a person comprehend the main thing: the meaning of life is LOVE. And only for her should he strive.

Why is vanity bad?

In psychology there is no concept of “bad” or “good”. But a vain person faces the following problems:

Pendulum “arrogance-humiliation”. The human mind is characterized by dual perception. A sense of self-importance and excessive pride are periodically replaced by humiliation.
Selfishness. An arrogant person thinks about personal well-being and does not benefit society.
Bias. A person intoxicated with delusions of grandeur does not see his shortcomings and reacts aggressively to constructive criticism. He ignores his mistakes and does not know in which direction to work on himself.
Family conflicts. Ambitious men and women have difficulty communicating with the opposite sex and repel partners with their arrogant character. In the family, such individuals conflict with their spouse and children, and quarrel with relatives.
Loneliness. Arrogance destroys friendships, friendships and business relationships. Sooner or later, a vain individual destroys his relationships with others and remains alone.

Vanity is always a disappointment, because, intoxicated by delusions of grandeur, the individual loses touch with reality. Over time, the proud man will see his shortcomings, understand that his merits have been greatly exaggerated, and will lament this.