Pretending to be humble

[Roch]

So I’ve been pretending to be humble. As a kid I couldn’t hide it. I was an annoying show-off, but at the same time I felt like I was terrible at so many things. Since being a show-off makes people criticize me a lot I’ve learnt to stop acting like a show-off. I still feel I have no real accomplishments. But if I did I bet I would be an annoying show-off. So I’m kind of scared of having accomplishments for that reason. Most of the time I’m good at pretending to be humble or at least not being a show off. But sometimes the mask slips. I get so embarrassed when it does. 

[RobertZ]

I would not be worried about accomplishments, in case I might start bragging.

Rather, lack of honest humility is fear of conflict (and fear of facing my inadequacy) preventing me from pro-social behaviours and engaging in meaningful accomplishments.

[SgtPepper]

drop all those stories. you are creating a prison around yourself. Just Be man. thats all you gotta do, if you want show off, then show off what you can do boiiii

[DrewNows]

Why so serious? Why so afraid of what others think?

These are the questions you need to ask yourself. Start to question some of the thoughts you have in moments of feeling judged or embarrassed 

Maybe you should try to break the ice from time to time with a little obvious showoff-ness for things that may seem totally ordinary/expected. There are many facets to your personality so don’t think you are defined by any one in particular 

[Extreme Z7]

Stop pretending and git good!

In all seriousness, though, just stop caring what other people think and be authentic.

[Gabriel Antonio]

Lol

Even if you pretend to be humble, people will still notice that sooner or later. 

Have you ever taken psychedelics? They might help you develop genuine humbleness. 

[rNOW]

Ask yourself why do you need to pretend to be humble. Is it because you are not? If not, why is it that you want to be seen as 'humble'? What do you think you can gain from that pretense? And what can you lose if you let it go? What happens if people see you in a different light than the one you want them to?

 

[Nahm]

@Roch Dream as big as you can, accomplish as much as you can. The accomplishments will humble you. You’ll see. 

[Commodent]

Did you receive little validation from your parents as a kid? It's a need all kids have, and if they don't have it fulfilled at home they will seek it externally. It will then carry on into adult life because the trauma will never be resolved by external validation.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Commodent

[JohnnyBravo]

@Roch

Yes.

I went through a similar thing.

Afraid to shine, because, tall poppy syndrome. You become a target for others to dump their issues on because your radience triggers issues in them they dont want to face.

Ah yes......the forced humility is such an exhausting role to play. I hear you.

You dont need advise from anyone here. You have figured it out yourself clever one. Keep putting attention on it and it will dissolve over time.

But if you want advise.....now that you are aware of your fake humility....DO IT MORE! AND EXAGGERATE IT!!

Have fun with it!

This is based on what Ali G, Borat and some of Bruno do; a fake measurement of humility to draw  the other person to admit their prejudices publicly. But thats another thread I can discuss if you want me to elabotate.

Be playful with the fake humility. Youre not hurting anyone. You see what youre doing.

Self compassion for yourself also; this was a defence tactic for your childhood. Stay small to survive and downplay everything. Story of my childhood. Its a disappointing thing to do because you feel like you are never recognised for the 'real you.'

How can I help?

[Roch]

35 minutes ago, JohnnyBravo said:

@Roch

Yes.

I went through a similar thing.

Afraid to shine, because, tall poppy syndrome. You become a target for others to dump their issues on because your radience triggers issues in them they dont want to face.

Ah yes......the forced humility is such an exhausting role to play. I hear you.

You dont need advise from anyone here. You have figured it out yourself clever one. Keep putting attention on it and it will dissolve over time.

But if you want advise.....now that you are aware of your fake humility....DO IT MORE! AND EXAGGERATE IT!!

Have fun with it!

This is based on what Ali G, Borat and some of Bruno do; a fake measurement of humility to draw  the other person to admit their prejudices publicly. But thats another thread I can discuss if you want me to elabotate.

Be playful with the fake humility. Youre not hurting anyone. You see what youre doing.

Self compassion for yourself also; this was a defence tactic for your childhood. Stay small to survive and downplay everything. Story of my childhood. Its a disappointing thing to do because you feel like you are never recognised for the 'real you.'

How can I help?

Yeah. I feel I get a lot of criticism when I act less than super humble. I really hate criticism, so I take steps to avoid it. Fake humility is the easiest and most effective way to avoid the terrible criticism I get. Can you talk more about Borat and Ali G? I’ve akways been fascinated by that show. 

2 hours ago, Commodent said:

Did you receive little validation from your parents as a kid? It's a need all kids have, and if they don't have it fulfilled at home they will seek it externally. It will then carry on into adult life because the trauma will never be resolved by external validation.

Yes. I had a fairly comfortable childhood, but I had little validation. All my mom really focused on was what was wrong with me and how to fix it. Never on my accomplishments, especially stuff I worked hard on. I remember doing some difficult rock climbing on the school grounds. When my classmate’s mom saw her rock climbing she cheered her on. When my mom saw me all she could focus on was that I was wearing the wrong shoes. This isn’t the only incident, but it illustrates how my childhood was. 

[Commodent]

23 minutes ago, Roch said:

Yes. I had a fairly comfortable childhood, but I had little validation. All my mom really focused on was what was wrong with me and how to fix it. Never on my accomplishments, especially stuff I worked hard on. I remember doing some difficult rock climbing on the school grounds. When my classmate’s mom saw her rock climbing she cheered her on. When my mom saw me all she could focus on was that I was wearing the wrong shoes. This isn’t the only incident, but it illustrates how my childhood was.

Yes, that is very likely where it stems from. There is nothing wrong with you, you had a very valid need that was never met and to this day you are suffering the consequences. I will suggest you to grieve the loss of rarely (if ever) being validated, and whenever you feel this need for validation I will suggest you to remind you of your personal history. Doing so makes the feeling less "immediate" and you're able to see it from a more detached viewpoint. Given your history this need for "showing off" makes perfectly sense. It's the mark of a great tragedy, and not something to be ashamed of.

I assume you are also to this day are trying figure out what is wrong with you and to fix it. That is another horrible idea that was inflicted on you as a child. Your mother sounds very emotionally neglective, borderline abusive, just like my mother were.

[JohnnyBravo]

Borderline mothers.

A level 10 challenge for any soul.

[Joseph Maynor]

Why is your Ego invested in feeling or appearing humble?  What are the pros and cons that feeling or appearing humble have on your life?  Maybe write out a list of pros and cons like this:

Pros and cons to my life of feeling or appearing humble: (1), (2), (3) ... etc.  Try to come up with as many as you can, don't just list 3.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Mu_]

On 3/23/2019 at 10:10 PM, Roch said:

So I’ve been pretending to be humble. As a kid I couldn’t hide it. I was an annoying show-off, but at the same time I felt like I was terrible at so many things. Since being a show-off makes people criticize me a lot I’ve learnt to stop acting like a show-off. I still feel I have no real accomplishments. But if I did I bet I would be an annoying show-off. So I’m kind of scared of having accomplishments for that reason. Most of the time I’m good at pretending to be humble or at least not being a show off. But sometimes the mask slips. I get so embarrassed when it does. 

Who are you trying to impress?  Yourself or others?  Do you need to prove to yourself or others something in particular?  Perhaps looking into this will yield something interesting.

[Roch]

 

On 3/24/2019 at 7:23 PM, Mu_ said:

Who are you trying to impress?  Yourself or others?  Do you need to prove to yourself or others something in particular?  Perhaps looking into this will yield something interesting.

I’m mainly avoiding criticism. I just can’t handle criticism. It sucks. I manage to avoid a lot of criticism by pretending to be humble. 

[Joseph Maynor]

15 minutes ago, Roch said:

I’m mainly avoiding criticism. I just can’t handle criticism. It sucks. I manage to avoid a lot of criticism by pretending to be humble. 

It's weird I've always kind of attracted criticism and almost relished people criticizing me.  And I would always beat them in a debate and make them look like idiots.  I don't do this much as I used to like in my 20's.  When I was in college I was really bad like this.  I would debate anybody and not care what they thought of me or what anybody thought of me.  I had no shame.  I only had shame if I thought I said something stupid or if someone actually proved that I was stupid or wrong.  But I've always been way more intuitive than almost everybody else, so this has rarely been a problem for me.  But people have been jealous of me and have always desired to knock me own a peg, but they always have to resort to taking a cheap-shot to do so.  I used to raise my hand in class and say the most controversial things with no shame.  All the other sheep in the class were beneath me insofar as I was concerned.  I was a real Army of One.  I've always been kind of a Socrates, kind of an iconoclast, kind of a gadfly.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Roch]

32 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

It's weird I've always kind of attracted criticism and almost relished people criticizing me.  And I would always beat them in a debate and make them look like idiots.  I don't do this much as I used to like in my 20's.  When I was in college I was really bad like this.  I would debate anybody and not care what they thought of me or what anybody thought of me.  I had no shame.  I only had shame if I thought I said something stupid or if someone actually proved that I was stupid or wrong.  But I've always been way more intuitive than almost everybody else, so this has rarely been a problem for me.  But people have been jealous of me and have always desired to knock me own a peg, but they always have to resort to taking a cheap-shot to do so.  I used to raise my hand in class and say the most controversial things with no shame.  All the other sheep in the class were beneath me insofar as I was concerned.  I was a real Army of One.  I've always been kind of a Socrates, kind of an iconoclast, kind of a gadfly.

On the other hand I also love to provoke people and say controversial things. I also do a lot of trolling to provoke responses. What I mean by trolling is getting attention with controversial posts or stupid jokes. Not harass people. I kind of tell stupid jokes to provoke people in real life as well. I just hate to brag in real life or even online because people love to try to push me down one peg. Most of the time I just push myself several pegs down before anyone else has the chance to.

When people give me the attention I want I notice my attention seeking behaviors and social awkwardness get reduced. I’m starting to spend less time with my mom because I always feel like she shuts down everything I say. Like when I’m excited she’s hardly ever excited for me.

I just feel so drained around her. She wants to spend more time with me, but it’s hard for me. Other people can be like that as well. I always feel like I need an hour or two to recover from being around her. I find I’m more monotone and annoying when I spend time with her. 

[Joseph Maynor]

32 minutes ago, Roch said:

On the other hand I also love to provoke people and say controversial things. I also do a lot of trolling to provoke responses. What I mean by trolling is getting attention with controversial posts or stupid jokes. Not harass people. I kind of tell stupid jokes to provoke people in real life as well. I just hate to brag in real life or even online because people love to try to push me down one peg. Most of the time I just push myself several pegs down before anyone else has the chance to.

When people give me the attention I want I notice my attention seeking behaviors and social awkwardness get reduced. I’m starting to spend less time with my mom because I always feel like she shuts down everything I say. Like when I’m excited she’s hardly ever excited for me.

I just feel so drained around her. She wants to spend more time with me, but it’s hard for me. Other people can be like that as well. I always feel like I need an hour or two to recover from being around her. I find I’m more monotone and annoying when I spend time with her. 

An entry that I recently wrote in my Journal that you might appreciate:

Nobody wants a real Enlightenment teacher around.  It's too devastating to your cherished beliefs and your Ego-Mind will resist it.  Teaching Transcendence of the Mind is like asking to be on the business end of a horse kick to the mouth.  What people want is either entertainment, distraction, or corroboration of their strongly held beliefs in an Enlightenment teacher.  But these are not real Enlightenment teachers.  A real Enlightenment teacher is a gadfly, a Socrates, someone who you probably can't stand, and somebody whose motive you probably misunderstand -- someone who eventually either gets killed or thrown out of the community.  It's just the way things must be.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Mu_]

22 hours ago, Roch said:

 

I’m mainly avoiding criticism. I just can’t handle criticism. It sucks. I manage to avoid a lot of criticism by pretending to be humble. 

Is there a reason you can't handle criticism?  You may find some gems of understanding in here. 

Also imagine what it may be like to not be effected by criticism, not as in a action you do to pump yourself up and deflect, push away or avoid your feelings that arise, but to be at rest within these emotions and beliefs that come up.  If that sounds interesting, you may be interested in trying meditation and looking into the nature of thought and emotion itself.