One of the Orthodox commandments says: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Everyone understands what is meant by self-love in their own way. However, there are boundaries within which self-love is an excellent motivator for self-improvement, and when going beyond conventional boundaries, a person risks becoming a narcissistic egoist.
Heightened self-esteem
Is there any benefit to self-love?
Black color in psychology - what it means for women and men who like
Everything is good in moderation. The same goes for your attitude towards yourself. A person must love himself, otherwise he will not have an incentive to develop, increase his level of education, provide himself with quality food, timely medical examinations, and develop his body. Only with self-esteem can you defend your interests in disputes, occupy a leading position in a team, and have an opinion that is significant for others. This is precisely the meaning that should be inherent in self-love: the desire to become an authority for others, to take a responsible approach to any work, to put effort into self-discipline.
Attention! Healthy pride borders on boorish narcissism, which destroys everything good that is in character, erases the lines of good and evil in relationships between people, and turns a person into a forced loner.
Inadequate overestimation of one’s abilities becomes the cause of a distorted perception of one’s position in society. Individuals who “crown” themselves become a laughing stock for others, without realizing it. They can be recognized by their arrogant look and specific gait. They not only want to have the best, but also undeservedly consider themselves to be successful in everything, even when they have absolutely no knowledge of the subject area.
Braggart
The difference between self-love and self-esteem
Dissonance - what does it mean?
When assessing self-esteem, deciding whether it is good or bad, you first need to be able to distinguish it from self-esteem. In contrast to excessive pride, a self-respecting person will never allow himself to offend his interlocutor or deprive another of anything in the pursuit of satisfying his desires. At the same time, self-respect is a reason to defend one’s interests in a dispute, not to allow others to neglect private opinion and take oneself lightly. A self-respecting person will not pass off the thoughts of sages as his own; he will be able to formulate his own conclusions with dignity.
What does a proud person mean - he is not just an egoist who concentrates on his desires. This is a person who considers himself the center of the World. With such conceit, it is difficult to build relationships with the opposite sex, much less create a family. As a rule, these are lonely people. However, they also have unions, but in this case the other half also has mental disorders and takes pleasure in the fact that they are constantly psychologically suppressed by their partner and live in endless humiliation.
hurt feeling
Of course, you shouldn’t intentionally hurt anyone’s feelings, especially a woman’s pride. Indeed, in this case, not only will you simply offend the person, but you may also lose your good relationship with him forever. This is especially important for female psychology, because, despite the uniqueness of each girl, they, like men, still have something in common. Women, especially in adulthood, react very sensitively to compliments and words of flattery, so it is better to remain silent than to tell a lie. And, of course, representatives of the fair sex react more sharply to comments about appearance, behavior and way of thinking from people around them. It is important for a lady of any age to feel comfortable and calm, so you shouldn’t directly and publicly point out any shortcomings - it’s enough to remain silent, but if you really need to draw a woman’s attention to this nuance, it’s better to tell her this aside, in private. And your hurt pride will not suffer much, and you will remain in a normal relationship.
Sick or wounded pride
Harmony - what does it mean?
Sick pride - what is it, is it possible to learn to cope with it? Psychologists agree that this is possible only after recognizing the presence of a problem. Wounded self-esteem does not allow its owner to adequately perceive criticism even from close relatives. Any attempt to make even the most diplomatic remark to a proud person turns into an explosion of anger on his part, insults and ends in an interruption of the dialogue.
Important! There is such a thing as “excellent student syndrome,” which begins during school years in children whose parents place high demands on their academic performance. Accustoming from an early age to the fact that living correctly means doing everything only “excellently,” students become unprepared for the defeats and failures that inevitably await them in adulthood.
Excellent student syndrome
When talking about what self-esteem is, first of all, we mean defining the self-esteem of a person with an unhealthy perception of disapproval from the environment. Especially such people keenly perceive comments or advice from a person significant in society, just as they react most vividly to praise from such a person. Praise from a well-deserved authority in a team is a source of nourishment for a proud person.
Self-love and self-confidence
There is an African proverb: “the smaller the lizard, the more it hopes to become a crocodile.” In every society, no matter whether it is a group or a department, we are surrounded by completely different people and, if you look around, there are several individuals whose behavior exactly corresponds to this proverb?;-) Why do they behave this way? Is it the same thing every day? Such people clearly stand out from the background, demonstrating themselves in every possible way, or rather, their shortcomings. And to be even more precise, how they try to hide their shortcomings (primarily fears) under the guise of a pompous, forced confidence that there is simply excessive self-confidence, which is due to sick pride. This topic seems to me to be very broad, and it is clearly not possible to cover it all in one post. In my opinion, speaking about sick pride, along the way we will certainly touch on dozens of different psychological topics: uncertainty, narcissism, perfectionism, various types of defenses (suppression, transference, denial, avoidance, etc.), vanity, ambition, Maslow’s pyramid of needs, this list goes on and on, it all depends on each individual.
What is self-love?
An inflated assessment of one’s strengths, combined with a jealous perception of the opinions of others about oneself. Every person has self-love and is expressed to varying degrees, and self-love is not necessarily a bad thing. [/CENTER]
If a high assessment of one’s strengths is combined with the habit of their further development, this is rather a personal dignity. Attentiveness to the opinions of others about oneself is also a rather useful quality.
Healthy self-esteem is adequate self-esteem, the ability to see oneself from the outside, to be aware of true goals, actions and their possible consequences, to be able to accept one’s feelings - without trying to hide them or run away from them. In addition, this is the ability to be “here and now”, to correctly interpret information from the surrounding world, for example criticism
Sick pride is a trap into which a person, once caught, cannot always get out on his own. The situations in which such a person finds himself are both comical and sad. This is a good time to mention “Games People Play; People who play games" by E. Bern and the Karpman triangle. In this case, a person in search of a Rescuer rushes between the Victim and the Aggressor, changing the role to a more advantageous one depending on the situation.
It is painful to perceive criticism from others towards you; even more often - sick pride “clouds” the view and instead of the usual friendly advice or even just an ordinary joke, a person is able to classify the phrase he hears as “criticism” (defense - censorship (take away what you need)) and completely turn what the opponent said into a completely different one angle The result will not be long in coming - for example, the laughter of others or their reasonable attempt to reason (depending on the situation). And again the “rake”: are they laughing at me? Or: are they trying to re-educate me?
Further developments are unpredictable. This can be followed, for example, by aggression (such as denial, suppression, non-acceptance of one’s own wrongness), and revenge (petty dirty tricks “give me a kick”), or complete depression, withdrawal into oneself, etc. All this is accompanied by a lack of a sense of humor , although the laughter of others is not addressed to the speaker personally, but to the absurdity of the situation. However, the speaker is absolutely sure that they are laughing at him, so for rehabilitation he begins to make excuses, which makes others laugh even more. The trap has closed.
Every society has at least one such character. It is impossible not to notice him. On the one hand, he reaches out to people, on the other, he moves away from them, and sometimes against them. According to my observations, those around such a character are divided into 2 groups: those from whom there is no threat and those who pose a threat. Among the former, there are more sympathizers/supporters; Among the second are amateurs, taking advantage of the opportunity to benefit, to sit on the neck.
In addition, people with sick pride are characterized by attempts to control everything, to crush everyone under themselves. The absurdity is that, driven by fear (and not accepting it), it is not that they do not control anything, quite the opposite - they themselves become controlled without noticing it, naively believing that everything is under their control. Further, being imaginary confident that they are right, they become overly self-confident (which cannot be ignored), clearly either underestimate or overestimate their capabilities, and sometimes strive for vanity - the need to be noticed and appreciated. Of course, they get some share of applause, but real applause will only come when a person accepts himself: stops overly criticizing and humiliating himself, accepts society as it is, without trying to remake it for himself, accepts the rules of this society and demonstrates real respect for him.
How to distinguish: what is the real value of recognition, and what is empty vanity?
The human organism has no goals, but there is a need to satisfy needs and the task of survival. Here, the best thing that can happen is that such a person is oriented towards the opinions of the most intelligent, authoritative and worthy people, but with the caveat that the “organism” actually listens and does not pretend. The desire to please such people is an excellent desire, and if smart people like this behavior, then at least he is on the right path, the main thing is not to turn aside.
A person-person has his goals and objectives, and if for some purpose he needs to achieve recognition, he will value recognition and achieve it. Here we can talk about the value of recognition, but this value is not terminal, not intrinsic value, but instrumental value, that is, simply a means, an instrument. Another thing is what goals a person has as an individual. The desire for his house in the city to be the most status and highest is already vanity, because - why? Just to amuse yourself with a pleasant experience? If you want to write the best textbook for school or build the best hospital for the city, then this is not vanity, but a wonderful intention to do the best for people. Such a person is aware of his advantages and disadvantages, respects his individuality, does not curry favor with anyone, and carries himself through life with a sense of self-worth. Confidence is inseparable from sincerity: it is incompatible with lies and hypocrisy. A confident person is not afraid to express his opinion, including in front of a large audience, and knows how to insist on his own. But at the same time he adequately responds to criticism and comments. He is able to independently draw conclusions about what is happening, without relying only on the opinions of others, traditions and authorities. Confident accepts people as they are.
In summary, self-confidence is based on nothing; true self-confidence is based on awareness of oneself and one’s place in the world, on objective successes in the past. Self-confidence often works for the public and cannot live without it; a truly self-confident and internally free person does not care about the public. Self-confidence is tied to emotions and attitudes, self-confidence is a fusion of will and reason with inner comfort.
A self-confident (that is, actually insecure) person strives for dominance over others, for fame, for power. He argues about literally any issue and constantly finds himself in “slippery” and conflict situations, is painfully proud and overly touchy. A self-confident person believes that life constantly challenges him, so many ordinary circumstances become a real problem for him.
Self-confident people hide their complexes under aggressiveness, ostentatious courage, selfishness, arrogance, bravado and even external equanimity. The foundations of both confidence and self-confidence are laid in childhood: much depends on external factors (for example, parental divorce) and upbringing. An incorrectly brought up individual grows up to be angry, passive, touchy, and fussy. He hides these negative qualities under the guise of self-confidence.
A self-confident person takes things unceremoniously, sometimes it works, but with repeated attempts, ignorance and lack of experience will make themselves felt, and failure awaits the person. Moreover, for self-confident people deep down this failure will be very painful, although outwardly they can hide it.
Confident people recognize both their strengths and weaknesses, adequately assessing their capabilities. They endure difficulties more easily, knowing that only with experience comes practical skills in a particular area.
Turning to the first paragraph, I will note once again that this topic intersects with 10 others, it is difficult to describe everything briefly, so I propose to move on to the briefing, exchange opinions and life stories.
Hurt pride
A proud person is a person who is very easily deeply wounded even by an inoffensive word. Hurt pride can become a weapon in the hands of a competent manipulator. Some managers deliberately hurt the pride of their subordinates, which means for them an unacceptable failure, from which they can only recover by surpassing themselves. Thus, in some teams the level of labor productivity is increased.
Important! In such conversations, department heads do not insult or reprimand vain employees for their poor performance; this is achieved with the help of subtle psychological comparisons and hints that indirectly elevate competitors over the subjects.
The easiest way is to hurt the self-esteem of a narcissistic newcomer; this condition is aggravated due to the already increased level of tension associated with the new environment and a strange team. Psychologists do not recommend arranging strength tests for newly arrived employees until their professional probationary period has expired, since such an attitude can leave the organization without valuable personnel.
Male and female pride
Men and women have completely different life values. This means that the gender division of self-esteem should not be overlooked.
Men are less focused on their appearance than women. They seek satisfaction and self-realization in business, status, car brand and general image. Therefore, their self-esteem can be hurt by:
- comparison of his position with the status of a competitor;
- an unloved neighbor purchasing a more presentable car;
- his woman's intense attention directed at a younger or more daring man.
Attention! The appearance of his woman also matters, since in male circles it gives rise to discussions on this topic and inevitable assessments from competitors.
Women, on the contrary, are obsessed with their appearance, in particular, with details. A proud girl is one who will not allow herself to leave the house with the slightest defect in her manicure, an insufficiently even complexion, or a hint of a mismatch in the color of her accessories and clothes. All this is important not only in order to feel confident and ensure satisfaction with narcissism, but also so that others do not have a reason to prick her, pointing out the imperfection of her appearance.
Impeccable appearance
Quite a lot of girls, precisely because of sick pride, go to plastic surgeons under the knife, correcting their body in order to feel more confident. After there are no places left in the girl that are imperfect in her opinion, she changes her gait to a confident one, her gaze becomes arrogant. She does not consider other representatives of the fairer sex worthy of male attention.
Male pride
Men's pride suffers no less than women's. When a man's pride is hurt, even the most docile and calm man turns into an aggressive, uncontrollable and inadequate person. Until a man throws out all his anger at the offender, it will be almost impossible to stop him. And the abusers are often women themselves.
It’s very easy to hurt a man’s pride:
- Put yourself above him.
- Show your intelligence by proving its stupidity.
- Manipulate a man.
- Cheating on a man or flirting with other gentlemen.
- Stop caring for yourself.
- Constantly criticize and insult a man, especially in the presence of other people.
Often women feel their own impunity, even when committing physical violence against men. Men are not allowed to hit women, but women, it turns out, are allowed to. Because of this, women often cross the boundaries of what is permitted, which is why they make men look like laughing stock.
If a man feels that he is being put in a bad light, insulted and humiliated, his pride will be hurt.
How to get rid of self-esteem
Before you think about how to get rid of pride, it’s worth thinking about who a proud person really is. Anyone who strives to make themselves better, more successful, smarter, more attractive without harming others does not need self-esteem correction. Healthy self-love is not a sin.
You can stop being offended by criticism or remarks by becoming complete for yourself. By truly loving yourself for who a person really is, you can become emotionally self-sufficient, which will allow you to not take other people’s opinions too seriously. You need to be able to be happy here and now, because every person has a lot, but often does not value his achievements and benefits, as if everything he has does not matter. You can't offend a happy person. Anyone can become happy, taking their time and appreciating the true value of the peaks they have conquered.
Obsessed with appearance and materialism
pixabay
And also - intellectual superiority, which in fact there is no trace of. Narcissistic women fit well into the femme fatale stereotype. Many of them are quite attractive, but once you get to know them better, many immediately feel the desire to leave forever.
Narcissistic women spend more money than they earn. What they want from their chosen ones is not care and tenderness, but material values. In this regard, such women are much worse than narcissistic men. So, if a narcissistic man makes money and gets pleasure from it, then such ladies are simply parasitic.
