How the qualities of being proud and modest are combined. Is self-love bad or good? Advantages and disadvantages

Each person is unique and inimitable not only externally, but also internally. Each of us has our own character traits, characteristics, psychology and worldview. We all have self-love, but this character trait is developed differently in everyone. Let's figure out what pride is and who are proud people?

Definition of self-love

It’s good when a person has self-esteem, but, as they say, there should be moderation in everything. Each of us has self-love, but this character trait is only different. varying degrees of development. If you look at various sources to find the definition of the word pride, you can understand that this is a spiritual and moral quality of an individual person.

A person cannot love someone if he does not love himself. This character trait should manifest itself as self-respect and recognition of one’s own dignity. Thanks to this trait, a person can constantly grow spiritually and develop. It will become:

• smarter;
• more attractive;
• maintain your authority in society.

If a person does not love and respect himself, he cannot develop and improve intellectually, spiritually and physically normally.

When self-love helps a person to show restraint and responsibility for his actions and actions, then this can be assessed as a positive quality in character. Sometimes this feeling is developed so strongly that a person does not notice his own shortcomings. In this case, pride develops into pride and ambition, turning into selfishness.

Is self-love good or bad?

Most psychologists say that self-love is a good feeling. Other experts in the field of psychology believe that it is wrong to exalt oneself, since one can become morally degraded over time. To some extent, they are right, because often highly developed pride gives people a feeling of superiority over others. Over time, this leads to hyperbolization of one’s own “I”.

Adequate self-esteem is always perceived positively in society. It is very good when a person has:

• sense of dignity;
• does not allow oneself to be offended;
• accepts comments addressed to him;
• achieves its goals.

The sages have always said that low self-esteem is much worse than great pride. It’s a different matter when it comes to a self-loving person. This is immediately noticeable and does not allow her to live normally in society. In this case, she is not able to soberly assess her strengths and capabilities. A proud person has personal interests that prevail over the interests of other people, because he perceives himself as superior to everyone else. This quality makes the narcissist unpleasant for other people and his character unbearable.

Against the background of sick pride, people often develop neurasthenia. Gradually this leads to other negative consequences. A person constantly feels that he is underestimated and, to console his feelings of narcissism, he may lose control over himself. This can serve as a signal for bad actions:

• gluttony;
• alcoholism;
• drug addiction and other antisocial behavior.

How to get rid of excess pride?

When one of us hears words of praise addressed to himself, he begins to grow in his own eyes. If a person is constantly underestimated, undeservedly scolded, criticized, he falls in the eyes of himself and the people around him. Especially self-esteem is acutely developed in women. In adulthood, this begins to manifest itself more strongly. All representatives of the fairer sex always react negatively to comments, for example, about their appearance. For this reason, you should not directly tell women about this, but it is better to hint or say it gently in private.

It’s good when a person strives somewhere, works on himself, he has his own goals that he wants to achieve if they are useful for him and society. Normal pride should not lead to self-destruction of the individual, to his degradation. In a good sense, this feeling should be a kind of catalyst for desires and actions.

If this feeling is adequate and helps you move through life, then you shouldn’t get rid of it. In this case, this trait is positive, it cannot be considered a disadvantage. You can be proud of moderately developed self-esteem. It will help you move forward, not stop there, and continue self-development.

A proud person with a wounded and sick feeling requires the help of a qualified specialist in the field of psychology, with attendance at special trainings. Such people will not be able to notice their shortcomings on their own and take the word of others that they have inflated self-esteem. They create their own ideal image which they imbue with. This resembles pride and arrogance, which gradually leads to disrespect from others.

If self-love is combined with philanthropy and respect for others, then it can be called a positive character trait and a necessary quality. It will help you live, appreciate yourself, not allow yourself to be offended, and believe in your strength.

Passion “self-love” in Greek is philautia. The word “philautia” indicates the essence of this passion, and our task is to look at this phenomenon, at this phenomenon, in order to see the action of this passion in ourselves.

Literally, philautia is self-love. A proud person is fixated on himself, he loves himself, listens to himself and pleases himself. “Philautia” is self-love, self-indulgence, love for one’s body, self-pity, blind fear for oneself, preoccupation with oneself. This is an obsession with the finite self, with the transitory self, loving one’s desires, whims, to have it my way. Self-love is the opposite of what God wants from us. God wants us to love Him—God—and God wants us to love our neighbor. But a proud person is directed towards himself - he does not love God, he cannot love God, he loves himself, his body, his will, his desires, his “I”. God is eternal, I am finite. Self-love is loving your self, your false self. When a person is directed towards God and fulfills the will of God, his egoistic “I”, his imaginary self disappears, it does not exist. And when a person is not directed towards God, but is directed towards himself, his selfhood, his “I” “exists” in an imaginary way. This “I”, this self does not really exist, this is something false, invented, this is the self-will with which sin began, this is something damaged in a person, which the Apostle Paul called the body of death, this is what wants his own, so that it would be in my opinion, according to my self-loving desires, this is an old, passionately sinful person. Nicodemus the Holy Mountain says that self-love is the old man. The Holy Fathers say that self-love is the main passion, from which three passions first emerge - love of fame, love of money, love of voluptuousness, and then all other passions.

In order to please God, to love God, in order to know Jesus Christ, you need to learn to look at what interferes with this - self-love. Jesus Christ with his life gives an example of overcoming oneself and tells us: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” [Matthew 16:24]. But this passion operates in us independently of us - pride, philautia, and if we do not look at it, do not see its signs, it interferes in our life, in our work according to God, and a crafty substitution occurs when it seems to us that we do what is right - according to God, pleasing to God, we please God, but in fact we please ourselves if we do not see this enemy operating within us - self-love. The Apostle Paul described this as “the good that I want, I do not do, but the evil that I do not want, I do” [Rom 7:19]. Self-love is when we want to do according to God, but we fail, because we are used to doing it our own way, according to our own self-indulgence. Self-love is the basis of all passions, and this is the skill, the passion, to please oneself. To realize that the fight against it is difficult and long, you need to understand that passion is a sinful habit, it is the habit of following not God, but dark forces. And in order to overcome this habit, you need, firstly, to see it in yourself, its signs, and secondly, to create a counter-habit, that is, slowly, in small steps, patiently and steadily do something according to God, overcoming your self-indulgence. You can’t overcome pride right away, in a short time, because we are used to loving ourselves and pleasing ourselves. We need to realize the following fact: we often indulged ourselves, did what pleased ourselves, worried and cared only about ourselves, and if about others, then so that they would indulge our pride. People-pleasing is connected with self-indulgence, when a person flatters another, panders to him so that he will take care of him, pretends to love his neighbor, while he himself seeks only attention and love for himself.

In order to fight self-love in intelligent action, to resist this passion, you should turn your attention to yourself, to your mind and heart, in order to track the thoughts that ignite and give rise to the passion of self-love. How do passions ignite and form within us? We first accept thoughts and excuses that come from demons. Then we talk with them, the heart delights in them, then the will is connected and passion is created - the sinful habit of acting according to the will of evil forces. In the fight against pride, the work must be twofold. First we need to monitor the thoughts of pride that the evil one throws into our minds, and then drive them out. We must clearly understand that these thoughts of self-indulgence are not ours. The deceit of the devil is that he deceives us in such a way that he forces us to follow his will, but at the same time he makes us think that we are following ourselves, fulfilling our will. This is a cunning trap, a trick of the evil one to deceive us and enslave us. If we observe our hearts in sobriety - attention to thoughts, then we see how thoughts of pride have a destructive effect on the soul, on the heart, we notice that they are alien, hostile to us. We see how thoughts of self-indulgence (self-will) enter our heart, infecting it with vanity, how we are captured by something alien, restless, evil and deadening. We clearly realize that this depresses us, it is harmful to us, it is bad for our hearts, it is a disease that destroys our health. Signs of thoughts of pride, when we accept them, are vanity and confusion appearing in the heart. This is some kind of anxious preoccupation with oneself, preoccupied fussiness, a desire for things to be the way I want, and at the same time irritable impatience arises. The main thing here is to catch in attention, in observing yourself, your heart, how the heart reacts to these enemy thoughts and excuses, how it is captured by preoccupied anxiety about oneself, how it is captured by something (someone) else - alien, dead and terrible . The criterion here is this: when we are with God, when we do the will of God, we have peace and grace in our hearts, we feel good, our hearts feel good. We can observe this state in ourselves after attentive prayer, after the Liturgy, and participation in the Sacraments. We are with God, and we feel good, calm, peaceful and blessed. The Lord is eternal and gives absolute reliable eternal support. Self-love is aimed at the temporary, not eternal, finite, transitory, and hence fussiness and painful anxiety, uncertainty in the soul, in the heart from thoughts of self-love, because it is impossible to rely on the transitory, which is and is no longer there, - this is a false support. It is easier to track thoughts of self-love from a state of grace, calm, then the anxiety and vanity that they bring are most noticeable and conscious. For example, we leave church after confession, communion, or get up after attentive, calm prayer - and then thoughts appear. Thoughts that we would like something, we need to do something, evil thoughts against people who have hurt our pride, etc. These thoughts enter our heart, and anxiety appears in it, something is felt that is not right , something is wrong, the peace that was from communion with God is being disturbed. We observe signs of the influence of thoughts of pride on the heart - this is restlessness, vanity, anxiety, trouble, torment. You need to clearly realize that these are hostile and painful thoughts - “I want it to be my way, according to my pride, to be good for me, but I want impatiently, irritably, for it to be here and now the way I want,” and I am tormented by these thoughts. And if in my opinion it doesn’t work out, then immediately anger and fear. Dostoevsky called it “to live according to your stupid will.” This is an abnormal action of the desirable and irritable forces of the soul.

If we notice in ourselves that these painful thoughts of self-love, self-indulgence (to have it my way, how I love, how I want) are something alien in me and I get sick from it, it makes me feel bad, then this is awareness a very good start to fight self-esteem. If we saw this in ourselves, if we saw the thoughts that enter into us, into our hearts and begin to torment, excite and disturb us, if we tracked these thoughts in sobriety (attention to the heart), realized them as strangers, as enemy, then we can resist them, tell them “no!”, reject them from ourselves, from our hearts. Hesychius of Jerusalem calls this operation of cutting off enemy thoughts from the heart “contradiction of thoughts.” We say no to thoughts and passions, because they are not mine, they are alien and hostile, and we cut them off, drive them away from us.

And when I see that these thoughts are not mine and throw them away, then I create counter-thoughts, that is, I strengthen within myself thoughts that are opposite to self-loving ones. This is the second operation in the fight against thoughts - the creation of a counter-thought, the creation of a thought opposite to a self-loving thought, the creation of a godly thought, so that a godly thought opposes a self-pleasing thought. The Word of God is the source for thoughts pleasing to God.

The third operation is to fight, to drive away thoughts and passions from one’s heart with the Jesus Prayer or some other prayer. If we have inadvertently allowed an enemy thought into our hearts, selfish thoughts begin to multiply and passion begins to flare up - here we need to intensively say the prayer, preferably the Jesus prayer, in order to defeat and drive away enemies with the Name of Jesus, to stop passion and sinful spiritual movement.

Here are three operations to combat thoughts of pride (and in general all enemy thoughts). To see the thought of pride and tell it - no, this is not mine in me, this is a deception, that the thought is mine, it is enemy, which wants to kill me, destroy me, it makes me feel bad. Having realized this, I cut it off from myself and create a counter-thought, I begin to think according to God (and not in my own way), and the common feature of all counter-thoughts is that they are based on the Word of God and in contrast to the thoughts of pride, which inspire one to fulfill one’s will, one’s desires , aimed at fulfilling the will of God. Next, I say the Jesus Prayer, so that the spiritual fire of prayer will drive away thoughts and calm the passions driven by the forces of darkness.

An example: a thought of self-indulgence has come, which suggests that I need to do something my way, as I want, to do something unrealistic, unreasonable, inappropriate, inappropriate to the real situation. It kind of blinds me, darkens my mind, pushes me to do the wrong thing, it excites me with the desire to act willfully. And I say to this thought in myself - “no”, and then I say to myself - “As the Lord gives, as He directs, as He instructs, so it will be.” And this thought makes me calm. I'm really calming down. Impatience, anxiety, doubt, willful greedy desire, confusion, embarrassment are overcome by calm faith-confidence in God, in His love and providential care. Self-indulgence, self-love is “like it, don’t like it.” This infuriates me, upsets me - there is discord in my heart, my desires are torn apart. If I stop all this in myself, create a counter-thought - I think “As the Lord wills, so it will be”, create a thought of faith, a thought of relying on the will of God, on his commandments, then I will see that my heart calms down, some kind of stability appears, because I leave my will and accept the will of God, I accept His commandments in thought and heart, I trust in the will of God, and the Lord gives consolation and strength. But since the confusion from the chaos of selfish thoughts and passions does not immediately go away, I begin to methodically strike the enemy like a sword with the Jesus Prayer until the enemy runs away, then the thoughts of self-indulgence will dissipate, the passions will calm down and a gracious peace will appear in the heart, peace in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why is it important to gain experience in dealing with yourself – with pride. An ordinary person feels helpless in the face of the enemy’s evil thoughts. He is in a confused state from the attack of thoughts and passions and does not know what is happening to him and what to do about it. But if he has ascetic skills and has experience of inner battle in his heart, then he begins to feel that he is not so helpless. Even if there are strong shocks, unrest and attacks, but a person sees that he can at least slightly resist mental enemies, passions, fight them with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, then there is a calm confidence that the Lord Jesus Christ is with you, he will protect you and will not leave you . This faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, love for the Lord Jesus Christ, prayerful striving for the Lord Jesus overcomes self-love, takes us out of the blind, lost state of self-centeredness, out of the horror and anxiety of self-willed abandonment of God, and gives peace, peace and grace.

Lord help us!

“In order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must first love yourself correctly. Self-love is a distortion of love towards oneself. Self-love is the desire for the indiscriminate fulfillment of the wishes of a fallen will, guided by a false reason and an evil conscience.” St. Ignatius

The Holy Fathers distinguish three main types of pride: love of money, love of glory, love of voluptuousness, based on the words of St. ap. John about the three temptations of the world: “For whatever is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of this world.”(). The fathers identified the love of voluptuousness with the lust of the flesh, the love of money with the lust of the eyes, and the love of glory with the pride of life.

Should a Christian love himself?

Love is one of the essential Divine properties (see more details:). This means that God from eternity abides in Love for Himself. To put it differently, all the Divines are in mutual, heartfelt love, and at the same time, Each of Them nourishes love towards Himself.

Man is created in the image and likeness of God (see:). The ability to love is one of the features of this heavenly image.

Therefore, there is nothing reprehensible in a person’s love for himself, however, if we are talking about love in the correct understanding of the word, and not about a proud, selfish feeling, pride.

A person’s love for his own personality is not only allowed by God, but is also elevated by Him to a model of love for: “love your neighbor as yourself” ().

But what does the expression “love yourself” mean? To love oneself is to live the fullness of a God-like life, to love life itself as Divine, to have joy in the Lord, to strive to fulfill one’s highest purpose. If God loves a person, then does the person himself really have the right to treat himself with dislike (acting in defiance of the Almighty)?

There are many similarities between love for oneself and love for one’s neighbor(s), in particular the following.

Just as love for one’s neighbor implies the desire for his happiness, so love for oneself implies movement towards happiness. After all, man was created for, and not short-term, as is the case in the conditions of present life, but for the eternal and incessant.

The path to this bliss lies through the introduction of one’s life to the life of the Universe, to the life of Christ. He who does not strive for eternal happiness in the Lord does not love himself.

Thus, loving yourself means (among other things) doing what contributes to the eternal blissful life. This is facilitated by fulfillment, love for God and His creation.

Just as the love of one person for another is associated with the desire to protect him and not lose him, so love for oneself implies the desire not to lose oneself for the eternal Kingdom of Heaven: “whoever loses his soul for the sake of Me and the Gospel will save it” ().

Just as love in general implies, so self-love requires taking up your cross and following Christ ().

The commandment “love your neighbor as yourself” () indicates that ideally, love for one’s neighbor should not be inferior to the love that a person has for himself.

This rejects the idea of ​​self-love as self-love, because self-love implies the opposite: a selfish, and often disdainful attitude towards people.

PROUD

PROUD

PROUD, proud, proud; proud, proud, proud. Possessing great pride. Proud character. A painfully proud person. He is very proud. “This cadet... seemed to me to be a very intelligent person, extremely proud and therefore very pitiful.” L. Tolstoy . “I have seen other eccentric women who are proudly (adv.) indifferent to passionate sighs and praise.” Pushkin .

Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935-1940.

See what “PROOF” is in other dictionaries:

Proud... Spelling dictionary-reference book

Cm … Synonym dictionary

PROUD, oh, oh; Iv. Possessing heightened self-esteem. S. person. C. character. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

proud- extremely proud... Dictionary of Russian Idioms

Adj. 1. ratio with noun pride associated with it 2. Having great pride. 3. Characteristic of a person with great pride. Ephraim's explanatory dictionary. T. F. Efremova. 2000... Modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language by Efremova

Proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud,... ... Forms of words

proud- selfish... Russian spelling dictionary

proud - … Spelling dictionary of the Russian language

proud- pride/how... Together. Apart. Hyphenated.

Aya, oh; biv, a, oh. Possessing heightened self-esteem. Look, what a s.! // Imbued with pride. C. character. Oh feeling. S. look. ◁ Proudly, called... encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

• Pretty Runaway, Barbara Cartland. The lively, capricious Petrina, having escaped from the boarding house that had disgusted her, unexpectedly meets with her guardian, Count Staverton. Contrary to her expectations, he turns out to be not a respectable gray-haired man...
• Fables, Collection. The ancient collections of fables that have reached us show that initially the fable existed precisely as a teaching fable. Ridicule and then exposure (satire) appeared later in the fable. The most ancient...

Let's try to understand the meaning of the term “self-love” and try to understand what it is. So, self-love is a trait that is inherent in everyone, it differs only in degree, greater or lesser, for each person. Self-love allows you to determine the winning sides, the degree of development, sociability, the ability to self-criticize and the normal perception of criticism from the outside, identifying your personality. This character trait makes it possible to set a high bar for ourselves and achieve what we want with confidence; a sense of pride pushes us forward, allows us to draw conclusions from the criticism received and improve our track record. This is a kind of ability to identify one’s significance in the chain – me and the world around me.

Sick or wounded pride - what does it mean?

Everything should be in moderation, this also applies to self-esteem. Its excess prevents a person from adequately assessing his strengths and capabilities and from accepting appropriate criticism addressed to him. With wounded pride, refusals and the mildest attempts to point out mistakes will be met with hostility, followed by a violent reaction and even aggression. According to practicing psychologists, heightened pride is a consequence of an existing inferiority complex, an attempt to hide dissatisfaction with oneself behind an ideal mask, but is not a mental disorder.

Is self-love good or bad?

When answering the question that follows, you need to clearly understand what measure of pride we are talking about. If we mean adequate self-esteem, a sense of dignity, the ability to accept comments addressed to oneself, but at the same time not to be offended and achieve one’s goals, then of course it’s good. The sages said that great pride is better than low pride. But when we are talking about pride, which is visible to the naked eye, which prevents you from existing in society, which does not allow you to intelligently assess your capabilities and strengths, if your interests prevail over the interests of others, personal importance above other people is not the best quality of character. Following sick pride will come neurasthenia, because a person will constantly feel that he is underestimated, in order to console the narcissistic ego, he will indulge in all serious things: alcoholism, gluttony, drug addiction and other asocial actions.

How to get rid of pride?

In cases of adequate self-esteem, You shouldn’t get rid of it, it’s more of a source of pride than a drawback. Self-love, within normal limits, will be the engine forward towards accomplishments and achievements, the desire for self-development, the ability to derive personal benefit from these mistakes and defeats. When it comes to a patient with wounded pride, it is most likely impossible to do without the help of a qualified psychologist and attending trainings. Because a narcissistic person will not take your word for it that he has self-esteem problems.

Appreciate yourself, believe in your personal capabilities, and don’t let yourself be offended.