Psychological Healing
in the Roman Catholic Mystic Tradition

Four Steps to Humility

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Humiliation | The Difference Between Humility and Masochism | Recognizing Emotions | Recognizing Psychological Defenses | Learning How the Past “Lives” in the Present | Learning New Behaviors | Summary

 
Some persons question the relevance of humility to modern life. “Isn’t humility the same thing as masochism?” they ask. Well, no, it’s not. Let’s find out why.

 
Humiliation

Most families are far from perfect. Even Catholic parents who present themselves as devout quite often fail their children in one way or another. Usually these failures are more-or-less “normal” expressions of human frailty, but they can become expressions of family dysfunction, ranging through alcoholism, infidelity, and outbursts of anger or violence all the way into outright emotional, physical, or sexual abuse of the children.

If you look back on your life honestly, then, you will see times when you felt humiliated as a child. You will also see times when you have gotten involved with bad situations. This doesn’t mean that you deliberately wanted to suffer; it just indicates that people most often choose what is known over what is unknown. That is, for children who have experienced some form of humiliation or abuse in their families, even though abuse and humiliation are not pleasant they are known and predictable, and in that sense they’re comfortable. And that’s masochism in a nutshell: preferring (desiring) humiliation unconsciously because it’s more “comfortable” than facing the unknown with true personal responsibility.

Technically, this is the distinction between desire (unconscious) and want (conscious). As odd as it sounds, because of hidden unconscious conflicts you can very well desire something you don’t even want.

Now, the especially sad thing here is that, because unconscious desires can’t be seen directly, most persons will deny that they have them. But, just as an animal’s presence can be deduced by the evidence of its tracks, so desires can be deduced by the evidence of the behavior they cause. For example, maybe you can’t see your secret desire to destroy yourself, but maybe you can see that you smoke cigarettes, overeat, drink heavily, are prone to arguing, take risks, procrastinate, have difficulty finishing projects, can’t read maps, harbor suspicions about others, avoid cleaning, or tolerate clutter—and so on.

And the fact is that unless you resolve this aspect of your unconscious, you will continue to do unpleasant things. The unconscious urge for self-punishment and humiliation will continue to lead you into bad situations, even if consciously you don’t want them at all.

And what is the deepest motivation for all this unconsciously self-inflicted pain? It’s the veiled hope that you can make yourself feel loved. That’s right—it’s the hope that others, in seeing how much you are willing to suffer abuse, will somehow be made to acknowledge you. Then, in seeing yourself reflected in their eyes, you will have the satisfaction of feeling loved.

This hope of feeling loved brings us to the clear difference between humility and masochism.

 
The Difference Between Humility and Masochism

To live in humility is to live always in total confidence of God’s love, protection, and guidance and therefore to have no concern for yourself when others insult you—or praise you. Secure in God’s love, you don’t have to base your identity on whether or not others acknowledge you.

In masochism, on the other hand, you invite others to insult you because, as a psychological defense against the pain of deep emotional wounds, you take unconscious pleasure in being demeaned in the secret hope that you will somehow, someday, earn someone’s admiration for your willingness to endure painful abuse.

Therefore, whereas masochism, and all false humility, burdens the soul, genuine humility brings enlightenment to the soul and frees it from all that would obstruct its service to God.

	Now be on your guard, daughters, against some types of humility given by the devil in which great disquiet is felt about the gravity of our sins. This disturbance can afflict in many ways even to the point of making one give up receiving Communion and practicing private prayer. These things are given up because the devil makes one feel unworthy. . . . The situation gets so bad that the soul thinks God has abandoned it because of what it is; it almost doubts His mercy. . . .      Humility does not disturb or disquiet or agitate, however great it may be; it comes with peace, delight, and calm. . . . The pain of genuine humility doesn’t agitate or afflict the soul; rather, this humility expands it and enables it to serve God more.
	—Saint Teresa of Avila The Way of Perfection, 39:1-2

Humility, therefore, is actually a sign of great courage and deep spiritual understanding. In humility there is no fear. In humility there is no timidity. In humility there is only confidence—confidence, not in the self, but in God’s loving protection.

	And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for: “God opposes the proud but bestows favor on the humble.” So humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you.
	—1 Peter 5:5b-7

The psychological process necessary to attain a state of humility consists of four steps.

 
1. Recognizing Emotions

You must learn not only that you have emotions but also how to recognize and name them.

Some emotions are pleasant—such as feeling confident, soothed, peaceful, relaxed, joyful, etc. Some emotions are unpleasant—such as feeling unwanted, unnoticed, rejected, ugly, abandoned, misunderstood, powerless, stupid, etc.

Be careful not to make the mistake of deliberately indulging in sensory pleasures just to feel pleasant emotions. Your task is to feel all emotions, including the unpleasant ones.

Learning to recognize your emotions can take some hard work, so make the task into a form of prayerful contemplation. Reserve moments of reflection to ask yourself what you are really feeling in the moment and what you have been feeling recently. Use a list of common emotions as an aid.

 
2. Recognizing Psychological Defenses

You must learn that you have been using some very clever unconscious psychological defenses to push out of awareness all the unpleasant and frightening emotions which hurt you as a child.

As one way to block out unpleasant and frightening emotions, many children block out any awareness of the situations that cause these emotions. Hence they can lose situational awareness and bodily awareness in the process. Maybe they always bump into things and have accidents. Maybe they cannot perceive the emotional cues given off by others, and so they will lack empathy. Maybe they cannot perceive the beauty of nature, and so they will lack wonder. Maybe they will develop eating disorders, such as anorexia or obesity.

If body awareness is a problem, practice a psychological technique called autogenics as an aid.

As another way to block out unpleasant and frightening emotions, many children simply dampen all their emotional reactions, dwelling in the realm of intellect and reason.

Learning to recognize your psychological defenses can take as much hard work as recognizing your emotions in the first place, so make the task into a form of prayerful scrutiny. Take the time to remember things that happened to you as a child; ask yourself what emotions you must have been feeling at that time; and reflect on what defenses you used at that time to protect yourself from unpleasant emotions. Use a list of psychological defenses as an aid.

 
3. Learning How the Past “Lives” in the Present

Having learned to recognize emotions and your defenses against them, your next task will be to learn that the past essentially continues to live in the present; that is, when you experience emotional stimulation in the present you will be unconsciously pushed into responding to those emotions according to your old psychological defenses.

Thus you will see that all the unpleasant and frightening emotions which you have been pushing out of awareness all your life have been secret causes for all the problems and conflicts you have been experiencing all your life. 

Just as a child who does not understand the concept of dirt and disease will resist taking a bath, persons who do not believe they are governed by unconscious defenses will resist spiritual purification. When confronted by personal trials—such as a difficult marriage, or an illness—they will tend to seek a way to “get rid of the problem.” And what a wasted opportunity! If only they would look inside themselves with deep scrutiny so as to recognize and then remedy the unconscious conflicts keeping the problem alive, they could see that the trial is God’s way of calling them to overcome old weaknesses and develop new virtues.

Read an excerpt about false spiritual peace  by St. Dorotheus, abbot

 
Therefore, you must examine your life very carefully so as to make a conscious, enlightened connection between your suppressed emotions and your current behavioral problems. (If you look carefully, you will find fantasies of grandiosity, revenge, and sexuality frequently running through your mind, and these fantasies can prod you into acting in ways that are, well, unbecoming to Christian conduct.) This scrutiny will show you how your life, up to now, has been largely controlled by the unconscious repetition of old emotional conflicts.

 
4. Learning New Behaviors

Having mastered the previous steps so that you can easily recognize how the past essentially continues to live in the present, you must make a conscious effort to resist the temptation to fall into old defensive patterns, and you must train yourself to act with new and different behaviors.
 
Make no mistake here: this is hard work.
 
How many persons say “Jesus, I trust in You!” as a rote part of their prayers? And how many of these same persons fly into a panic when some difficulty or trial afflicts them? Immediately, they want to get satisfaction, get back at the person who hurt them, or just get anything in compensation. And in so doing they completely forget what Christianity is all about: taking up your cross in imitation of Christ.
 
So it’s essential that you train yourself to make a disciplined, conscious decision in the moment to understand and resist transient defensive fantasies and instead to bear pain and suffering gracefully, in imitation of Christ, with mercy and forgiveness. In every moment of difficulty you will, like a frightened child, think first of protecting your pride, but you must now, with a deliberate act of will, set aside that pride, realizing that if Christ could bear all insults in complete obedience to the Father’s will, then you, too, must live by that same obedience.

 
Summary

Note carefully that unless you work through all these stages—either in psychotherapy or through prayer and spiritual purgation—it is nearly impossible to live a genuinely humble life. You cannot surrender your pain and suffering completely to God if you persist in clinging, deep in your heart, to psychological defense mechanisms that shield you from that very pain. How can you say that you trust in God if you’re always protecting yourself with your own wits? In the past, particularly as a child, blame, resentment, and anger may have served to ensure your survival by masking your hurt and vulnerability, but in reality these things are totally opposed to Christian love.

 

The Litany of Humility

	A  HERMIT  had a gift from God to cast out evil spirits. One time he asked to learn what they feared most and what compelled them to flee. “Perhaps it is fasting?” he asked one of them. “We,” the evil spirit replied, “neither ever eat nor ever drink.” “Sleepless vigils, then?” “We do not sleep at all.” “Flight from the world?” “Supposedly an important thing. But we spend the greater part of our time wandering around the deserts.” “I implore you to confess what it is that can subdue you,” insisted the elder. The evil spirit, compelled by a supernatural force, was pressed to answer: “Humility—which we can never overcome.”
	— The Ancient Fathers of the Desert: Section 1 V. Rev. Chrysostomos, trans.