Overcoming Humiliation Quotes

His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and restless; he was vain of the wider knowledge he had acquired from the perusal of so many books, his mind was alert, and he had not the skill to hide his contempt for his companions' stupidity. They complained that he was conceited; and, since he excelled only in matters which to them were unimportant, they asked satirically what he had to be conceited about. He was developing a sense of humour, and found that he had a knack of saying bitter things, which caught people on the raw; he said them because they amused him, hardly realising how much they hurt, and was much offended when he found that his victims regarded him with active dislike. The humiliations he suffered when he first went to school had caused in him a shrinking from his fellows which he could never entirely overcome; he remained shy and silent. But though he did everything to alienate the sympathy of other boys he longed with all his heart for the popularity which to some was so easily accorded. These from his distance he admired extravagantly; and though he was inclined to be more sarcastic with them than with others, though he made little jokes at their expense, he would have given anything to change places with them.

1. We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us. 2. We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us. 3. We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us. These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as “bigger” (that is, more powerful and significant) than God, and, out of the fear that creates in us, we give other people the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do.

When you feel humiliated or things like that, you either use it as fuel to change or you get covered by it.

Abused children have a caldron of rage bubbling inside them. You can’t be battered, humiliated, terrified, denigrated, and blamed for your own pain without getting angry. But a battered child has no way to release this anger. In adulthood, that anger has to find an outlet.

God told us to love everyone. However, when you don’t like someone then you need to walk away and focus not on him or her, but the hatred you’re harboring. Otherwise, you will allow your piety to take over. Before you know it, you’re using the gospel as a sword to slice other religious people apart, which have offended you. From your point of helplessness, it will be is easy to recruit people that will mistake your kindness as righteousness, when in reality it is a hidden agenda to humiliate through the words of Christ. This game is so often used by women in the Christian faith, that it is the number one reason why many people become inactive. It is a silent, unspoken hypocrisy that is inconsistent with the teachings of the gospel. If you choose not to like someone, then avoid them. If you wish to love them, the only way to overcome your frustrations is through empathy, prayer, forgiveness and allowing yourself time to heal through distance. Try focusing on what you share as sisters in the gospel, rather than the negative aspects you dislike about that person.

The main reason I felt foolish and humiliated was because of - what had I called it to myself, only a few days previously? - 'the eternal hopefulness of the human heart'. And before that, 'the attraction of overcoming someone's contempt'. I don't think I normally suffer from vanity, but I'd clearly been more afflicted than I realised.

Writers live with fear. Some writers cannot deal with the fear, and so they quit or refuse to publish. In order to write, you must either ignore the fear or trick it into leaving you alone. The fear is very sly, though and hard to trick. The fear in writing comes from exposing your thoughts, your emotions, your experiences, your ideas, your talent, your intelligence and ultimately your self to public scrutiny and possible scorn. The fear is by no means groundless. You have opened yourself up to the possibility of public humiliations...I sometimes wonder if perhaps the greatest novel ever written isn't gathering dust in some filing cabinet somewhere, simply because its author could not overcome the fear of having it published.

The most fulfilling human projects appeared inseparable from a degree of torment, the sources of our greatest joys lying awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains… Why? Because no one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a great lover at the first attempt; and in the interval between initial failure and subsequent success, in the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment. Nietzsche was striving to correct the belief that fulfillment must come easily or not at all, a belief ruinous in its effects, for it leads us to withdraw prematurely from challenges that might have been overcome if only we had been prepared for the savagery legitimately demanded by almost everything valuable.

What you see as a crisis, God sees as an opportunity for growth. What you see as humiliating, He sees as an occasion for the development of humble leadership. It is all in how you see it. What is your perspective?

My friend, still seemingly perplexed, asked me "So if it's not about genitals, what is it about trans women's bodies that you find so attractive?" I paused for a second to consider the question. Then I replied that it is almost always their eyes. When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness. I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person. I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway. I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible. When I look into a trans woman's eyes, I see a profound appreciation for how fucking empowering it can be to be female, an appreciation that seems lost on many cissexual women who sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted, or who perpetually seek to cast themselves as victims rather than instigators. In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognised as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world. In a trans woman's eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that's seemingly fuelled on male homophobic hysteria, choosing to be female and openly expressing one's femininity is not a sign of frivolousness, weakness or passivity, it is a fucking badge of courage. Everybody loves to say that drag queens are "fabulous", but nobody seems to get the fact that trans women are fucking badass!

With insecure attachments, “a child unwittingly memorizes the precise lesson of that troubled relationship: that love is suffocation, that anger is terrifying, that dependence is humiliating, or one of a million crippling variations.

Every criminal was humiliated, neglected, or abused in childhood, but few of them can admit to it. Many genuinely do not know that they were. Thus denial gets in the way of statistical surveys based on the question-and-answer method, none of which will have any practical prophylactic effect as long as our eyes and ears remain closed to the issues posed by childhood.

And Mr Verloc, temparamentally identical with his associates, drew fine distinctions in his mind on the strenght of insignificant differences. He drew them with a certain complacency, because the instinct of conventional respectability was strong within him, being only overcome by defect which he shared with a large proportion of revolutionary reformers of a given social state. For obviously one does not revolt against the advantages and opportunities of that state, but against the price which must be paid for the same in the coin of accepted morality, self-restraint, and toil. The majority of revolutionists are the enemies of discipline and fatigue mostly. There are natures, too, to whose sense of justice the price exacted looms up monstrously enormous, odious, oppressive, worrying, humiliating, extortionate, intolerable. Those are the fanatics. The remaining portion of social rebels is accounted for by, vanity, the mother of all noble and vile illusions, the companion of poets, reformers, charlatans, prophets, and incendiaries.

Now Fëanor's heart was still bitter at his humiliation before Mandos, and he looked at Melkor in silence, pondering if indeed he might yet trust him so far as to aid him in his flight. And Melkor, seeing that Fëanor wavered, and knowing the the Silmarils held his heart in thrall, said at last: 'Here is a strong place, and well guarded; but think not that the Silmarils will lie safe in any treasury within the realm of the Valar!' But his cunning overreached his aim; his words touched too deep, and awoke a fire more fierce than he designed; and Fëanor looked upon Melkor with eyes that burned through his fair semblance and pierced the cloaks of his mind, perceiving his fierce lust for the Silmarils. Then hate overcome Fëanor's fear, and he cursed Melkor and bade him be gone, saying: 'Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!' And he shut the doors of his house in the face of the mightiest of the dwellers of Eä.

Right now, within each of us there are two voices fighting to be heard: the voice of reason, good conscience, and the good of the greater whole; and the voice of fear, shame, and selfishness. The voice of our higher self versus the voice of our lower self. This is the dilemma, the inner struggle between the dark and the light aspects of our humanity. One voice is relaxed, trusting, and stable, while the other is fearful, nervous, and calculating. One holds the promise of serenity, peace of mind, and an innate knowledge that things are as they should be, while the other echoes the fragmented uncertainty of the unknown. One tells us to do the right thing, not to worry if our neighbors have more than us, and the other tells us to work harder, to find a way to get, collect, and win the prize for having the most toys. One tells us that we are in an abusive situation and should get out, while the other minimizes the destruction, saying, “You’ll never find better than this.” One says, “You are perfect as you are,” while the other insists, “You’re not pretty enough, smart enough, thin enough, or successful enough.” One urges, “Get help, it’s OK, we all have struggles to overcome,” and the other taunts, teases, and humiliates us, constantly warning us that if we speak up about our dark thoughts, insecurities, and fears, we will be shunned, punished, or abandoned.

Phil talked openly about his current life, but he closed up when I asked him about his early years. With some gentle probing, he told me that what he remembered most vividly about his childhood was his father’s constant teasing. The jokes were always at Phil’s expense and he often felt humiliated. When the rest of the family laughed, he felt all the more isolated. It was bad enough being teased, but sometimes he really scared me when he’d say things like: “This boy can’t be a son of ours, look at that face. I’ll bet they switched babies on us in the hospital. Why don’t we take him back and swap him for the right one.” I was only six, and I really thought I was going to get dropped off at the hospital. One day, I finally said to him, “Dad, why are you always picking on me?” He said, “I’m not picking on you. I’m just joking around. Can’t you see that?” Phil, like any young child, couldn’t distinguish the truth from a joke, a threat from a tease. Positive humor is one of our most valuable tools for strengthening family bonds. But humor that belittles can be extremely damaging within the family. Children take sarcasm and humorous exaggeration at face value. They are not worldly enough to understand that a parent is joking when he says something like, “We’re going to have to send you to preschool in China.” Instead, the child may have nightmares about being abandoned in some frightening, distant land. We have all been guilty of making jokes at someone else’s expense. Most of the time, such jokes can be relatively harmless. But, as in other forms of toxic parenting, it is the frequency, the cruelty, and the source of these jokes that make them abusive. Children believe and internalize what their parents say about them. It is sadistic and destructive for a parent to make repetitive jokes at the expense of a vulnerable child. Phil was constantly being humiliated and picked on. When he made an attempt to confront his father’s behavior, he was accused of being inadequate because he “couldn’t take a joke.” Phil had nowhere to go with all these feelings. As Phil described his feelings, I could see that he was still embarrassed—as if he believed that his complaints were silly.

The most fulfilling human projects appeared inseparable from a degree of torment, the sources of our greatest joys lying awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains… Why? Because no one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a great lover at the first attempt; and in the interval between initial failure and subsequent success, in the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment. Nietzsche was striving to correct the belief that fulfillment must come easily or not at all, a belief ruinous in its effects, for it leads us to withdraw prematurely from challenges that might have been overcome if only we had been prepared for the savagery legitimately demanded by almost everything valuable.

Malaise invades me as the crowd around me grows. The compromises I have made with stupidity under the pressure of circumstances rush to meet me, swimming towards me in hallucinating waves of faceless heads. Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Cry, evokes for me something I feel ten times a day. A man carried along by a crowd, which only he can see, suddenly screams out in an attempt to break the spell, to call himself back to himself, to get back inside his own skin. The tacit acknowledgments, fixed smiles, lifeless words, listlessness and humiliation sprinkled in his path suddenly surge into him, driving him out of his desires and his dreams and exploding the illusion of 'being together'. People touch without meeting; isolation accumulates but is never realized; emptiness overcomes us as the density of the crowd grows. The crowd drags me out of myself and installs thousands of little sacrifices in my empty presence. Everywhere neon signs are flashing out the dictum of Plotinus: All beings are together though each remains separate. But we only need to hold out our hands and touch one another, to raise our eyes and meet one another, and everything comes into focus, as if by magic.

The greater the humiliation, the greater the accolades. The greater the opposition, the greater the triumph. The greater the pain, the greater the blessing. The greater the loss, the greater the gain. The greater the danger, the greater the glory.

If we think of ourselves as a nothing, as a servant of all those we meet (as did St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thérèse of Lisieux), we will embrace the hurts and humiliations we endure as splinters of the cross we must bear for Christ. These are sacrifices that we can joyfully accept as offerings to save souls, including our own.

Vi, are you all right?” Jay asked, right beside her now, pulling her off the ground. Tears burned her eyes, and it wasn’t just from the painful sting radiating up through her hands and knees. Humiliation threatened to overcome the hurt. Jay hauled her up. She could smell his musky scent in his sweatshirt, and she tried to hold her breath against it. This was bad . . . this was a bad, bad place for her to be. “Are you hurt?” He pulled her away just enough so he could look down at her. She bit her lip, trying to will the tears away. She blinked and looked back at him. “I’m okay,” she responded, but her voice broke, making her words sound puny, pathetic even. He cringed as he bent down and looked at the angry red scrapes on both her knees. He reached out to lightly brush away some of the dirt from them, but she knew that he was afraid of hurting her, so he barely touched them. “We’d better get you back so we can clean those up.” He straightened, and then surprised her by picking her up as he started to carry her along the trail. She struggled against him. “I can walk!” she protested, feeling even more like a baby as he held her in his arms. He looked down at her in disbelief. “Are you sure? ‘Cause I think I just saw you trying, and it didn’t work out so well for you.” He didn’t seem inclined to let her down just yet; he just kept walking. She laughed but insisted again through her teary giggles, “Seriously, put me down! I feel stupid enough already—I don’t need you treating me like an invalid.” He slowed down unsurely before setting Violet on her own two feet. Internally she cursed herself for being so stubborn, and she wished that he’d put up more of a fight. Why couldn’t he have insisted on carrying her all the way home? Instead, he reached out and grabbed her hand. “If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll keep ahold of you anyway. I don’t want to be responsible for letting you fall again.

But why are we here?” “Because I hate Halil Pasha, and I hate my cousin.” Lada shook her head in exasperation. “And who is your cousin?” Radu flinched at her tone. He straightened. No point in continuing to bow if Lada was going to get them both killed. “Why, your beloved, of course! The man whose tongue you are going to cut out and devour.” Mehmed collapsed back onto a velvet pillow as large as a horse, overcome with laughter. “I thought he would piss himself, he was so humiliated! By a girl! Oh, he is a loathsome, foul man. I have never been so delighted as I was today.

Sacrifice is a notoriously hard concept to understand. Indeed, it is not a univocal concept, but is a name used for a variety of actions that attempt communication between the human and the divine or transcendent spheres.7 Contemplation of the abyss reveals the enormity and complexity of the evil that has been perpetrated upon a society. What would it take to overcome it? The images of cross and blood figure prominently in the Pauline language of reconciliation (cf. Rom 5:9; Col 1:20; Eph 2:13-16). Both cross and blood have paradoxical meanings that allow them to bridge the distance between the divine and human worlds, between life and death. The cross was the ultimate sign of Roman power over a conquered and colonized people. To be crucified was the most dishonorable and humiliating of ways to die. The cross stood as a sign of reassertion of Roman power and the capacity to reject and exclude utterly. Yet it was through the crucified Christ that God chose to reconcile the world. The apparent triumph of worldly power is turned against itself and becomes “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). For John, the cross is at once instrument of humiliation and Christ's throne of glory (Jn 12:32). Similarly, blood is a sign of the divine life that God has breathed into every living being, and its shedding is a sign of death. The blood of the cross (Col 1:20) becomes the means of reconciling all things to God. In its being shed, the symbol of violence and death becomes the symbol of reconciliation and peace. To understand sacrifice, one must be prepared to inhabit the space within these paradoxes. Sacrifice understood in this way is not about the abuse of power, but about a transformation of power. A spirituality of reconciliation can be deepened by a meditation on the stories of the women and the tomb. These stories invite us to place inside them our experience of marginalization, of being incapable of imagining a way out of a traumatic past, of dealing with the kinds of absence that traumas create. They invite us to let the light of the resurrection—a light that even the abyss cannot extinguish—penetrate those absences.

Perhaps we were looking strained in our manner, because I noticed we had attracted the attention of a little man who sat on a sofa not far off. I tried to outstare him and that was easy. He had a long moustache and fawn-like eyes and he looked hurriedly away: his elbow caught his glass of beer and spun it on to the floor, so that he was overcome with confusion. I was sorry then because it occurred to me that he might have recognized me from my photographs: he might even be one of my few readers. He had a small boy sitting with him, and what a cruel thing it is to humiliate a father in the presence of his son. The boy blushed scarlet when the waiter hurried forward, and his father began to apologize with unnecessary vehemence.

Most of the learning that we do is capitalization learning. It is easy and obvious... "Compensation learning", on the other hand, is really hard. Memorizing what your mother says while she reads to you and then reproducing the words later in such a way that it sounds convincing to all those around you requires that you confront your limitations. It requires that you overcome your insecurity and humiliation. It requires that you focus hard enough to memorize the words, and then have the panache to put on a successful performance. Most people with serious disabilities cannot master all those steps. But those who can are better off than they would have been otherwise, because what is learned out of necessity is inevitably more powerful than the learning that comes easily.

But Miss Kilman did not hate Mrs. Dalloway. Turning her large gooseberry-coloured eyes upon Clarissa, observing her small pink face, her delicate body, her air of freshness and fashion, Miss Kilman felt, Fool! Simpleton! You who have known neither sorrow nor pleasure; who have trifled your life away! And there rose in her an overmastering desire to overcome her; to unmask her. If she could have felled her it would have eased her. But it was not the body; it was the soul and its mockery that she wished to subdue; make feel her mastery. If only she could make her weep; could ruin her; humiliate her; bring her to her knees crying, You are right! But this was God’s will, not Miss Kilman’s. It was to be a religious victory. So she glared; so she glowered. Clarissa was really shocked. This a Christian — this woman! This woman had taken her daughter from her! She in touch with invisible presences! Heavy, ugly, commonplace, without kindness or grace, she know the meaning of life!

Timothy grabbed his squealing, tearful wife and spun her around the room. Then he read the letter again just to be sure he hadn't misunderstood. He lightly brushed his fingers across the gold embossed letters KPH in the upper left-hand corner and then, overcome with emotion, covered his face with the letter. This was what he had been hoping for. All those years of rejections; the frustrations and self-doubt; the late nights of writing until five or six in the morning, only to have to stop and get ready to go to work exhausted; the stress on his marriage. Even the other employees where he worked had started kidding him, calling him "Mr. Shakespeare" to his face and making jokes about him behind his back. He was sick of being asked, "Have you gotten published yet?" The cost had been high; with each rejection letter, a new humiliation to suffer. It was all worth it now. This is what it had been about. Now he could say he was an author; and yes, dammit, he was published. His dream had finally come true.

The humiliations he suffered when first he went to school had caused in him a shrinking from his fellows which he could never entirely overcome; he remained shy and silent. But though he did everything to alienate the sympathy of other boys he longed with all his heart for the popularity which to some was so easily accorded. These from his distance he admired extravagantly; and though he was inclined to be more sarcastic with them than with others, though he made little jokes at their expense, he would have given anything to change places with them. Indeed he would gladly have changed places with the dullest boy in the school who was whole of limb. He took to a singular habit. He would imagine that he was some boy whom he had a particular fancy for; he would throw his soul, as it were, into the other's body, talk with his voice and laugh with his laugh; he would imagine himself doing all the things the other did. It was so vivid that he seemed for a moment really to be no longer himself. In this way he enjoyed many intervals of fantastic happiness. At

From the outside looking in, everyone looks like a conformist. But really, no one is; they’re just waiting for another person to speak up. The question is, why isn’t it you? Do you feel like you’ll be judged, or ostracized? Do you think you’ll be ignored and humiliated? Do you feel impotent? The truth is likely quite different. Everyone wants progress but very few want to lead. So a whole group waits for the first hand to go up before their hands go up, too. Suddenly, a vote goes from a unanimous NO to a unanimous YES. All it took was one voice of dissent—and suddenly, everything changed. The secret to overcoming the flinch is that everyone wants you to succeed. People are looking for proof that you can be amazing so that they can be amazing, too. The Web is so great because you can see others being truly themselves, and succeeding at it. This diminishes the power of the consensus. The pressure diminishes. You can be who you like. Getting in the ring becomes easier because you have supporters. So if you see no one like you, no one who agrees, don’t worry. There are actually hundreds of people like you, and they’re waiting for a leader. That person is you. Stop flinching. Speak up. Join us.

Yet this religious outcast, this man who was thought to be in a state of perpetual uncleanliness, had gotten his hands on a sacred scroll and found a passage from the prophet Isaiah that resonated profoundly with his own experience: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth. ACTS 8:32–33 When Philip heard the eunuch reading these words aloud, he approached the chariot and asked if the eunuch understood them. “How can I unless someone guides me?” the eunuch replied. Philip climbed into the chariot, and as it rumbled through the wilderness, told the eunuch about Jesus—about how when God became one of us, God suffered too. Overcome, the eunuch looked out at the rugged landscape that surrounded them and shouted, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” We don’t know how long that question, brimming with such childlike joy it wrenches the heart, hung vulnerable as a drop of water in the desert air. At another time in his life, Philip might have pointed to the eunuch’s ethnicity, or his anatomy, or his inability to gain access to the ceremonial baths that made a person clean. But instead, with no additional conversation between the travelers, the chariot lumbered to a halt and Philip baptized the eunuch in the first body of water the two could find. It might have been a river, or it might have been a puddle in the road. Philip got out of God’s way. He remembered that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out, but who it lets in.

For these reasons, and because we know that wanting to hurt, control or humiliate people is not OK, we may feel very ashamed or embarrassed about our fantasies. But once we overcome that embarrassment, and discover how many other people have similar feelings, our fantasy world becomes a hot and happy playground.

The key to letting go of negativity lies in our willingness to change our perspective and be proactive. It’s with this mindset that we’re able to persevere through difficult times and help others to do the same. Positivity is contagious, but it has to start with you. NO MORE EXCUSES…SERIOUSLY We make excuses all the time for a variety of reasons, mostly as a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from humiliation and criticism. Nobody wants to be cast in a negative light, so if there’s an opportunity to shift the blame without consequence, the decision seems obvious. Again, this all comes back to letting ourselves off the hook and deflecting accountability. It might be convenient, but it won’t get you very far in life. The same can be said for procrastination. Consider all the reasons why you put something off. You’re tired and would rather do the work another day. You’re afraid of what others might think if you don’t succeed. You don’t have all the answers, and that scares you. But this isn’t what we tell ourselves. Instead, we rationalize that it isn’t the right time to proceed with our plans.

Bunyan says that it is hard to get down into the valley of humiliation, the descent into it is steep and rugged; but that it is very fruitful and fertile and beautiful when once we get there. I think that no one will dispute that; almost every man, even the ungodly, admires meekness.

The work’s persistent popularity in the modern era can be explained by its elevation of a neglected secondary son as a great hero. In the history of modern Korea, the people of the peninsula have experienced a series of humiliations from colonization, forced division, and domestic oppression. As a result, a central agenda in the political rhetoric of both North and South Korea has been the recovery of national dignity and respect, oftentimes through massive displays of newly acquired power in the realms of the military, economy, and culture. Starting from the attempt by imperial Japan to convince Koreans that they were inferior relatives who had to be civilized through colonial tutelage, the liberated but soon divided nations felt like the bastard children of foreign powers that set their destinies in motion without consulting them on their own desires for the future. As a result, the theme of being disrespected, unappreciated, and underrated by callous and unwise authority figures blind to the emotional needs and the substantial talents of the protagonist, so well portrayed in the first part of The Story of Hong Gildong, has a profound resonance in the Korean psyche. In other words, the Joseon dynasty story of a secondary son seeking to overcome the disadvantages of his background and the oppression of his society in order to prove his true worth as a man, a leader, and a ruler has become the story of modern Korea itself. MINSOO KANG

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the reference manual used by mental health professionals to diagnose psychological problems, defines the avoidant personality disorder by saying that this personality type has the “essential feature of hypersensitivity to potential rejection, humiliation, or shame. . . .” Avoidant people are always afraid of “messing up,” “saying or doing the wrong thing,” “getting caught,” “not being good enough,” and so on. They do anything to save face—even, and this is the extreme, not showing their faces at all. The Manual goes on to describe “an unwillingness to enter into relationships unless given unusually strong guarantees of uncritical acceptance. . . .” Most avoidant people do whatever they can to keep relationships superficial or nonexistent, unless they are sure that the person will accept them without judging them; often, they turn to relatives for emotional support, perceiving them as “safe.” Even if superficial friendships do exist, it is unlikely that an avoidant person will take the perceived risk of sharing intimate thoughts or feelings, for fear that the acquaintance would find “the truth” horrifying or even merely unattractive or unacceptable. “Social withdrawal in spite of desire for affection and acceptance. . . .” Avoidant people may look and act like “loners,” but they’re not. Many of the people I have worked with in my social therapy program start out saying that they are perfectly fine without friends, even though they have sought out treatment for depression or anxiety. The truth is, most people truly want companionship, even if they can’t verbalize the desire. Avoidant people are no exception; the only thing that makes them different is that the fear of rejection we all feel to one degree or another has become so great in their minds that they have trouble controlling it. With effort, though, avoidant people can learn to overcome their fear of rejection and seek out the friendship and even romance that they secretly want. “Low self-esteem.” As I’ve explained, most people who fear rejection act as though they have some terrible secret that would mean instant loneliness if it were discovered. Usually, we are much harder on ourselves than others would ever be. For people whose low self-esteem is a stopper, it seems as though the whole world sees them the way they do, and that only magnifies their poor self-image. “Individuals with this disorder are exquisitely sensitive to rejection, humiliation, or shame. Most people are somewhat concerned about how others assess them, but these individuals are devastated by the slightest hint of disapproval.” So sensitive to disapproval, in fact, that they will avoid it at all costs—even if it means forgoing job opportunities, social events, or intimate relationships that they would truly like to pursue.

I told them about my father, Ezell Shepard, who had gone into a Jim Crow army and fought, and had been wounded in France. He had suffered all kinds of humiliations just because he was a fourth-class citizen at home. When I finished, I told those tired, hungry children who needed to go to the restroom that in the final analysis, this whole operation at Bishop's depended upon each one of us. "Do you feel that we should go or stay? I want to have you think about it and make up your own minds as to what you individually want to do. This must be your decision." The waitresses, managers, policemen, and firemen had stopped and were watching the youth. My heart was pounding, and my eyes were heavy since we had been working on Operation Bishop's all night. "Let's vote," I said. "All in favor of leaving, say aye." Not one voice was heard. "All in favor of staying, say aye." Ayes range out all over the place. "Why are you staying?" They answered in song. Because: We shall overcome, we shall overcome, We shall overcome someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe That we shall overcome someday. God is on our side, God is on our side, God is on our side today. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe That we shall overcome someday.

What sort of answer would you like to hear?” “An honest one.” “Are you certain? It’s my experience that young ladies vastly prefer fictions. Little stories, like Portia’s gothic novel.” “I am as fond of a good tale as anyone,” she replied, “but in this instance, I wish to know the truth.” “So you say. Let us try an experiment, shall we?” He rose from his chair and sauntered toward her, his expression one of jaded languor. His every movement a negotiation between aristocratic grace and sheer brute strength. Power. He radiated power in every form—physical, intellectual, sensual—and he knew it. He knew that she sensed it. The fire was unbearably warm now. Blistering, really. Sweat beaded at her hairline, but Cecily would not retreat. “I could tell you,” he said darkly, seductively, “that I kissed you that night because I was desperate with love for you, overcome with passion, and that the color of my ardor has only deepened with time and separation. And that when I lay on a battlefield bleeding my guts out, surrounded by meaningless death and destruction, I remembered that kiss and was able to believe that there was something of innocence and beauty in this world, and it was you.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. Almost. Warm breath caressed her fingertips. “Do you like that answer?” She gave a breathless nod. She was a fool; she couldn’t help it. “You see?” He kissed her fingers. “Young ladies prefer fictions.” “You are a cad.” Cecily wrenched her hand away and balled it into a fist. “An arrogant, insufferable cad.” “Yes, yes. Now we come to the truth. Shall I give you an honest answer, then? That I kissed you that night for no other reason than that you looked uncommonly pretty and fresh, and though I doubted my ability to vanquish Napoleon, it was some balm to my pride to conquer you, to feel you tremble under my touch? And that now I return from war, to find everything changed, myself most of all. I scarcely recognize my surroundings, except . . .” He cupped her chin in his hand and lightly framed her jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “Except Cecily Hale still looks at me with stars in her eyes, the same as she ever did. And when I touch her, she still trembles.” Oh. She was trembling. He swept his thumb across her cheek, and even her hair shivered. “And suddenly . . .” His voice cracked. Some unrehearsed emotion pitched his dispassionate drawl into a warm, expressive whisper. “Suddenly, I find myself determined to keep this one thing constant in my universe. Forever.” She swallowed hard. “Do you intend to propose to me?” “I don’t think so, no.” He caressed her cheek again. “I’ve no reason to.” “No reason?” Had she thought her humiliation complete? No, it seemed to be only beginning. “I’ll get my wish, Cecy, whether I propose to you or not. You can marry Denny, and I’ll still catch you stealing those starry looks at me across drawing rooms, ten years from now. You can share a bed with him, but I’ll still haunt your dreams. Perhaps once a year on your birthday—or perhaps on mine—I’ll contrive to brush a single fingertip oh-so-lightly between your shoulder blades, just to savor that delicious tremor.” He demonstrated, and she hated her body for responding just as he’d predicted. An ironic smile crooked his lips. “You see? You can marry anyone or no one. But you’ll always be mine.” “I will not,” she choked out, pulling away. “I will put you out of my mind forever. You are not so very handsome, you know, for all that.” “No, I’m not,” he said, chuckling. “And there’s the wonder of it. It’s nothing to do with me, and everything to do with you. I know you, Cecily. You may try to put me out of your mind. You may even succeed. But you’ve built a home for me in your heart, and you’re too generous a soul to cast me out now.” She shook her head. “I—” “Don’t.” With a sudden, powerful movement, he grasped her waist and brought her to him, holding her tight against his chest. “Don’t cast me out.” His

The difference between dictatorship and democracy is that in a dictatorship one man can overcome, humiliate and put upon the other. In a democracy, the other can do the same with one.

Visualize the conversations your friends have about how they all knew you’d never be able to make it. Imagine having to explain quitting to every single person who knew you were going to BUD/S. You have to face them. You have to live with many of them. Imagine trying to find a way to overcome the shame of failing. How long is it going to take for them to stop thinking of you as a failure, a quitter, a pussy? How long until anyone takes anything you say seriously again? Visualize being sent to a crappy ship, an undesignated Seaman. Imagine, if you will, a life below deck where you spend 18 hours chipping paint and repainting the spot you chipped. Imagine not seeing the sun for days or weeks at a time. This picture is worse than anything in BUD/S. Experience the shame and humiliation of quitting once in your head. Feel how much you hate yourself for giving up on your dream. Then never, ever, ever experience it in real life.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine. From the desire to be esteemed, deliver me. From the desire to be honored, deliver me. From the desire to be praised, deliver me. Teach me to accept humiliation, contempt, rebukes, being slandered, being ignored, being insulted, being wronged, and being belittled. Jesus, grant me the grace that others be admired more than I; that others be praised and I unnoticed; that others be preferred to me in everything; that others be holier than I, provided I become as holy as I should; that I might imitate the patience

Only a fool is humiliated by having been weak enough to have to overcome obstacles.

February 9 Comforting Others Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.—2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Do you have acquaintances who need comforting? Sometimes we don’t attempt to comfort others who are suffering because we don’t know what to do or what to say. How do we comfort others? Recently I read a story about Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven wrote some of the world’s greatest music even after he became too deaf to carry on a conversation. He was also noted as a concert pianist. Beethoven was not known for social grace. Because of his deafness, he found conversation difficult and humiliating. When he heard of the death of a friend’s son, Beethoven hurried to his friend’s house, overcome with grief. Beethoven had no words of comfort to offer, but he saw a piano in the room. For the next half hour, he played the piano. He poured out his emotions in the most eloquent way he could. When he finished playing, he left. The friend later remarked that no one else’s visit had meant so much. Words are not always necessary. There is nothing more comforting than a hug or just your presence. When you don’t know what to say, just put your arms around your friends and say, “I love you, and I am praying for you.” After our daughter’s death a few years ago, my husband and I realized that we had not heard from some of our long-time friends. Finally, they contacted us and said, “We have not called you or come to see you because we just didn’t know what to say.” Our reply was, “You could have just given us a hug.” If you are at a loss for words when comfort needs to be given, go to your friends anyway. Give them the gift of your presence.

Power can manifest itself only when imposed on another. It is an illusion of the most selfish cooperation and is to be confronted and confounded whenever possible. Respect, on the other hand, is something you earn by overcoming the weakest part of yourself, exposed by defeat or humiliation. Respect is yours to share with another person of your choice.

The collective hope of this kind of group is that through strength and triumph, vengeance will replace shame and humiliation. The leader and nation engage together in a kind of frenzy. Anyone who questions the leader who symbolizes this hope of restitution of self-esteem and power is cast as a traitor to the nation. Hence the amassing of power over the whole world and the destruction of the Jews, cast (mythically) as the source of the humiliation, became ends in themselves. This alliance of nation and leader for power itself, in order to overcome psychic humiliation, Kohut regards as the source of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century. He comments, “The most malignant human propensities are mobilized in support of nationalistic narcissistic rage. Nothing satisfies its fury, neither the achievement of limited advantages nor the negotiation of compromises, however favorable—not even victory itself is enough.”43

Fallen women are often used as an object lesson, as the subject of a tutorial on how not to become her. This book is no such tutorial; it is a celebration. It encourages you to take risks. The risk of failure, rejection, humiliation—the risk of losing place for yourself entirely and not being able to get it back, of being seen as foolish, brazen bitchy, grabby, and batshit crazy. Embrace the fall.

The more one-sided a society's observance of strict moral principles such as orderliness, cleanliness, and hostility toward instinctual drives, and the more deep-seated its fear of the other side of human nature vitality, spontaneity, sensuality, critical judgment, and inner independence the more strenuous will be its efforts to isolate this hidden territory, to surround it with silence or institutionalize it. Prostitution, the pornography trade, and the almost obligatory obscenity typical of traditionally all-male groups such as the military are part of the legalized, even requisite reverse side of this cleanliness and order. Splitting of the human being into two parts, one that is good, meek, conforming, and obedient and the other that is the diametrical opposite is perhaps as old as the human race, and one could simply say that it is part of "human nature." Yet it has been my experience that when people have had the opportunity to seek and live out their true self in analysis, this split disappears of itself. They perceive both sides, the conforming as well as the so-called obscene, as two extremes of the false self, which they now no longer need. (...) This case and similar ones make me wonder if it will not one day be possible to let children grow up in such a way that they can later have more respect for all sides of their nature and not be forced to suppress the forbidden sides to the point where they must be lived out in violent and obscene ways. Obscenity and cruelty are not a true liberation from compulsive behavior but are its by-products. Free sexuality is never obscene, nor does violence ever result if a person is able to deal openly with his or her aggressive impulses, to acknowledge feelings such as anger and rage as responses to real frustration, hurt, and humiliation. How can it have come about that the split I have just described is attributed to human nature as a matter of course even though there is evidence that it can be overcome without any great effort of will and without legislating morality? The only explanation I can find is that these two sides are perpetuated in the way children are raised and treated at a very early age, and the accompanying split between them is therefore regarded as "human nature." The "good" false self is the result of what is called socialization, of adapting to society's norms, consciously and intentionally passed on by the parents; the "bad", equally false self is rooted in the child's earliest observations of parental behavior, visible only to the child's devoted, unsuspecting eyes and stored up in his or her unconscious, this behavior is what comes to be regarded, generation after generation, as "human nature".

I don't think our generation is sensitive at all. I think we understand that a lot of what has been normalized while growing up is toxic, humiliating and traumatizing and we are choosing not to repeat it.

According to the National Center for PTSD, self-care following toxic relationships can bring up emotions of humiliation, shame or guilt when you begin engaging in self-care because it was not only something you didn’t do but something you felt that you couldn’t do. It may feel like by taking care of yourself, you are robbing someone else of having their needs met, which is completely untrue, but a common feeling nonetheless. Allowing yourself to recognize these feelings but carry on with the process of learning the art of self-care is important.

In that humiliating, spirit-crushing, bone-aching, ah-ha! moment, a lightbulb went off in my head. I thought to myself, I finally get it. Anytime I’m in a relationship with any living thing and I have the need to win, the possibility for connection and closeness is over.