Conceit

Conceit and self-respect. What is the difference?

It just so happens that many people often confuse concepts such as “conceit” and “self-esteem.” In their understanding, self-esteem is the same unhealthy self-love as self-esteem. In fact, these people are making a big mistake. Self-esteem has little to do with self-esteem. Moreover, unlike conceit, self-esteem is a very useful character trait for the human personality! Let's take a closer look at each of these concepts.

Conceit is the desire to convince everyone around you of your own importance. Self-esteem is adequate self-confidence and conviction of one’s importance for oneself (specifically for oneself, and not for others). Increased self-esteem is essentially an aggressive broadcast of oneself to a loved one, while self-respect does not affect other people's personal boundaries.

There is also a concept called self-esteem. Some people also perceive it as a synonym for the word “conceit.” In fact, self-esteem (or self-esteem) is a set of opinions about one’s personality and an adequate assessment of one’s strengths and weaknesses.

The formation of self-respect and self-esteem occurs under the influence of the following factors:

own sense of self;
the opinion of relatives and those whom a person considers an authority;
the opinion of peers (friends, classmates, classmates, etc.);
the cultural environment in which the person grew up and his education;
worldviews;
disabilities or injuries that set a person apart from other people;
social status.

Irina Klevtsova.

Conceit is a high opinion of oneself, arrogance, arrogance (Ozhegov’s dictionary). Conceit is a basic quality of the ego, it manifests itself in your perception of other people as second-class citizens if they do not correspond to your worldview or life standards. Hence the irritation with others and impatience if their actions and views go beyond the ideas of your master Conceit.

Impatience and irritation result in imposing your opinion on others, in the desire to teach them how to live, even if they don’t want to. Every person on earth has his own path in life, his own Divine destiny. But conceit does not rest on this, because the erring must be helped, although they do not ask for it. And under the pretext of doing “good deeds,” direct them to the “true path.”

The root cause of my conceit is an inferiority complex, laid down in childhood in the form of an outer shell of the super-ego, in the desire to stand out in everything, to become the first, covering up my inferiority - excessive fullness. Being overweight is a consequence of my mother’s fear of my thinness, the fear that I will remain hungry and get sick. This fear gradually settled in me and gave rise to my fear of remaining hungry, after which gluttony began and, as a consequence, obesity.

I began to feel ashamed of myself. My feminine qualities: lightness, airiness, attractiveness were replaced by shapelessness, amoeba-likeness and laziness. The boys paid attention to others, but avoided me. Here comes an inferiority complex in the form of unsatisfied desires to be loved and desired. It was necessary to stand out somehow in order to somehow compensate for the lack of male attention. And I became first a pioneer and then a Komsomol leader. Leadership work, the desire to be first in everything, love of honors and fanfare, ambition is fertile ground for the cultivation of self-conceit. Mr. Conceit and my personality began to gain vitality at an accelerated pace.

The roots of conceit are a lack of understanding of one’s Divine purpose

, in the lack of love and respect for people, in disregard for their opinions, in the lack of a sensitive perception of the world, in superficial knowledge. A person with high self-esteem, opposing himself to the people around him and devaluing their human qualities, may one day find himself alone. This is what happened to me in various life situations, when I, perceiving the world through the prism of conceit, humiliated and insulted people, neglected their opinions, and as a result: the team at work avoided me, and my husband crossed to the other side of the street. All these situations surfaced in my memory during the period of working with this quality.

The most important thing when working with conceit is the ability to disidentify, sensitively feeling where my perception of people and situations comes from: through the prism of conceit or from the heart center (from the essence). At the same time, do not get angry and do not fight with yourself, because this is my quality that has accompanied me through life for many years. It is better to assess the significance of Mr. Conceit from the position of an outside observer with humor.

When working with self-esteem, the people around me, like in a mirror, reflect my quality. I mentally thank them, because the people and situations around me are my teachers. I strive to see and feel the Divine Essence in them. In the process of meditation, I enter situations, realize and harmonize them, saturating them with the solar energies of Love.

In my opinion, the best way to work on transforming this quality is the “swing” technique. It is better to practice it during the morning setup for the day. At first I imagine the image of Mr. Conceit in the form of a swaggering, bloated dandy in a top hat and gloves, with a cane in his hands, of unusually tall stature - a sign of arrogance, elevation above others and his own importance. A disdainful look and a pompous gait. I mentally peer into the image, noticing all its features and peculiarities (as when viewing slides).

Then I form in the distance the image of a graceful girl (Divine being) with a flexible figure, glowing like the sun, radiating love, harmony and beauty, loving life, people and the whole world, sensitive and attentive, joyfully and understandingly assessing situations. I bring the image of the girl to the foreground, and gradually push Mr. Conceit into the background. I absorb every line of this image, strive for it with all my heart. With a wave of my hand I erase the formed images. Then I introduce Mr. Conceit again. And so on until the image of conceit loses its outline (up to about 3 times).

Psychology bookap

As soon as self-conceit was touched to the quick, i.e. awareness began, my throat and heart immediately hurt and my gums became inflamed. For me this was a sign that I was on the right path. After all, the energies of conceit, blocking the heart and throat centers, are firmly lodged in my body (affirmation of one’s superiority at the verbal level, dissatisfaction, resentment, claims, disregard for people’s opinions). As awareness of the disease began to recede.

Mr. Conceit, you have accompanied me through life for many years, and now it’s time for us to part. Go to my other half, serve him faithfully, strengthen his human qualities, sensitivity and attentiveness. And in your place, I cultivate warmth, openness, humility, respect and sensitivity!

Adequate self-esteem

In medical practice, there are two common cases when a person needs the help of a psychologist:

He feels superior to the people around him and is confident in his own exclusivity. According to such an individual, the main cause of his problems is evil envious people, and not himself.
He considers himself a failure without any positive qualities. Such a person often engages in self-flagellation and constantly regrets past mistakes. He considers even positive comments in his direction undeserved.

These two examples are extremes that need to be eliminated. But between them lies self-esteem and self-respect.

Am I in the right place?

Often, low self-esteem appears when a person tries to meet someone else's standard and takes on work that is not his own. For example, the owner of the anal vector tries to imitate the properties of a person with the skin vector - doing several things at the same time, quickly switching from one thing to another, and so on.

Working in this mode, he soon realizes that he still can’t cope: he can’t do everything as quickly as people with the skin vector. He still gets stuck on details and cannot maintain a strict daily routine, because people with an anal vector, unlike skin people, do not feel the passage of time. Their consciousness is turned to the past - to carefully collecting data, to studying literature, to observing traditions. When compared to a skinman, they may feel inferior.

For a manager whose task is to strictly organize the work process and be demanding of subordinates, the anal-visual ligament becomes a big obstacle. The gentleness and certainty of such a person do not allow him to ask his subordinates to meet deadlines. Comparing himself in this aspect with others, such a person feels that he is worse.

By understanding the properties of our psyche and our role, we stop comparing ourselves with others and focus on fulfilling our task in society.

What are the benefits of healthy self-esteem?

Low self-esteem can be just as dangerous as high self-esteem. This is why it is always important to keep your self-esteem and self-esteem balanced. Adequate self-esteem has a positive effect on many aspects of a person’s life, inspires optimism in his views, and also provides the necessary comfort in life. If a person has healthy self-esteem, then he:

confident in your decisions and actions;
is able to build relationships on honesty and mutual respect, and not on the desire to receive benefits;
rationally assesses one’s strengths and capabilities;
is immune to stress and has a normal attitude towards other people’s point of view;
rarely feels shame or guilt;
is convincing in his point of view and needs;
He is mentally balanced and rarely becomes depressed.

Let's cancel self-esteem!

Both low and high self-esteem prevent us from realizing our aspirations and feeling comfortable around other people. And it turns out that not everyone has self-esteem. This is no accident. What really matters is not how we evaluate ourselves, but how other people evaluate us and how we fit into society as a whole. The most important skill is the ability to live among people.

In fact, self-esteem is a false attitude of modern psychology. Such a category simply does not exist. Behind it are completely different, deep-seated mechanisms of our realization in a couple and society. Our self-esteem is what arises in the tension between “I want” and “I don’t get.” And here two points are important:

Do I really want this?
And why don't I get it?

System-vector psychology helps to realize one’s innate desires, given by nature, and to cut off those desires that are brought in from the outside under the influence of the environment. After all, to achieve our own desires we have all the possibilities, all the necessary data, all the prerequisites. But to achieve desires that are alien to us, they are not there.

Moreover, by realizing desires that are contrary to our nature, instead of joy, we will always experience dissatisfaction and disappointment with the result of our misdirected efforts. For example, people with an anal-optic ligament often want to please everyone and take on things that they themselves don’t like or don’t want. To be praised by their mother or other significant person. This is how the good boy complex or the good girl script manifests itself, which guide people even in adult life.

After the training, one becomes aware of one’s inner desires, as well as the awareness of the reasons why it was not possible to realize them before. For example, we may be talking about a scenario for failure in the skin vector. We begin to realize our fears, grievances, lacks in vectors - all those conditions that prevented us from realizing our potential, the underlying reasons for our behavior and the behavior of other people. And then we are no longer engaged in self-esteem, we are engaged in self-knowledge.

How to increase self-esteem?

Sometimes it happens that those with low self-esteem do not want to recognize themselves as such and continue to live to their detriment. The reason for this is simple: they like to feel like a victim because it is safe and relieves them of any responsibility.

What you need to do in order to get rid of the status of an eternal victim and become self-confident:

Find your calling in this world and start moving in this direction. To realize yourself in life, you need to develop skills and abilities and use them for their intended purpose. When you feel like a duck to water in a certain area, it significantly increases your self-esteem.
Read good books. This can be not only fiction. This also includes self-education textbooks or books in which authoritative people share the secrets of their success. In short, the selected literature should contribute to your self-development.
Listen to wise and experienced people. Communication with such individuals inspires new achievements and helps to avoid serious mistakes in the future.
Don't be afraid of failure. Very often, fear of failure prevents people from achieving their desired goal.
Try to be positive. When you give people positive emotions, they begin to respond to you in kind.
Hang out with the right people. Make friends who share your views and worldview and who will support you in your endeavors. Frequent communication with such people will have a positive effect on your attitude and self-esteem.
Do something for others. The main problem with many people is that they love to consume and do not like to give anything in return. This negative trait also needs to be gotten rid of.
Make a list of your positive qualities. As mentioned earlier, a person with healthy self-esteem is always aware of the good and bad sides of his character. Awareness of one's positive qualities helps a person avoid depression and blues.
Take your cue from the lucky losers. This refers to people who were at the very bottom of society, but at the same time continued to fight and achieve their goals. Such examples are very inspiring.
Try to protect yourself from negativity. Don't focus on bad news from the media and other stories that negatively affect your mood.

What to do with an inflated ego?

Finding a problem is already half the battle, but what to do with this knowledge next? Below are a few recommendations on how you can level out this life-poisoning defect:

Adjust the crown

Seeing your crown that has slipped down into your eyes, laughing at yourself and putting it back in its place is the first step towards changing the situation. Awareness and a good sense of humor can save you from many troubles - this is a universal remedy that improves any relationship, including with your own inflated ego.

Accept someone else's truth

We often say “no” to another picture of the world, we deny another position. But it’s useful to open up to this and try to see some benefit, to find truth and resource in something that you couldn’t agree with before. There is some part of truth in any opinion, in any position, even the most idiotic one, as it seems at first glance. Trying to accept this truth, to admit that such a point of view is also worthy of existence, is one of the methods to pacify yourself when you are “bombed”

Find your values

There is some value behind every action you take. For example, when you prove something, try to understand why you are doing it? To feel your own importance? Okay, so it's your value to feel important. Can you do something different, show yourself somehow differently in this situation in order to realize this value in practice?

To work with your values, there is the “Dilts pyramid” technique - these are several logical levels that allow you to put things in order in your head and sort out any actions, see your goals and understand your values. Alternatively, you can try this or some other method to work with your values - this is useful not only for pacifying your ego, but in general for your whole life, for all its aspects.

Be prepared to fail

To tame your ego, you need to be willing to screw up or give up. Preparedness for the fact that you will not be able to defend your position, willingness to lose and accept the consequences of your failure. Reducing importance and accepting any outcome of events not only deflates the ego, but also calms the nerves, relieves anxiety and stress

Agree on the impossibility of agreement

This method helps in communicating with other people: agree on something that you will never be able to agree on. We still won’t be able to change another person’s picture of the world in one moment, during a conversation. He has already developed his own neural network, he has his own beliefs, his own set of knowledge. Even if you talk to a child, you will not be able to quickly change him “to suit you.” Therefore, we need to agree not at the level of pictures of the world, but at the level of the results that we should obtain through some kind of joint action or discussion

Feel oneness with others

Another recommendation is to realize that there is a person nearby who has the right to be himself. She has her own path in life (including the path of mistakes and lessons), her own beliefs, her own aspirations. Here you need to find support for deep respect for a person. Just remember whether I am now in a position of respect or not?

The ego divides and forces us to distance ourselves from each other. Therefore, you need to try to find a common basis, some kind of base through which you can feel a commonality with another person. Maybe you have common interests or common values? Or a common outcome that you both strive for? By purposefully shifting the focus to commonality, any conversation will be much easier and more enjoyable for both parties.

Notice your emotion in the moment

“How do I feel now?” - this question helps you come to your senses in many cases. An inflated ego is often accompanied by negative emotions. It is important to simply notice the harmful emotion, and this will reduce the intensity of the situation and make it less critical. Once you have become aware of the emotion, you need to be glad that you tracked it and replace it with joy and pride in yourself. “Wow, I noticed that I’m angry!” - if before you had the habit of going headlong into this anger, now you need to look at it from a distance, and then this emotion will let you go. Or rather, you will let her go if you don't hold on to her.

Remember the divine principle

This recommendation is not clear to everyone. But at the same time, for some, this is the only thing that works, and the rest of our list is just flowers. Here we need to remember that in the universe there is something much wiser than us and through other people this something speaks to us. It's easiest for someone to call it God

This approach helps when something begins to bubble inside and the conviction appears that you are right, and everyone else is fools and does not understand anything. Remembering that something divine interacts with you through the bodies of these people, through their manifestations, you begin to relax, open up, and at some point, already on a rational level, something valuable actually appears that these people wanted before you convey.