Healthy Pride Gives Competence Pleasure
There is a serenity that comes with being adept. When practice creates proficiency a sense of healthy pride emerges. Broucek describes that healthy pride as “competence pleasure”. The authentic satisfaction of knowing that you brought what you had to the moment and it was enough. The principles of healthy pride, also known as humility, are many but its main tenets are:
Being comfortable and contained in your own skin.
Accurate appraisal of yourself and your abilities. It’s not a comparison of others ability but a recognition of your ability with a fair and balanced assessment.
Can accept “enough”. That what you brought was as much or as many as required for the moment.
Able to receive feedback with an openness not a defensiveness. Able to metabolize constructive criticism.
Doesn't speak the word should, but offers invitational "could," imagining what is possible
A world that demands production, pushing and perfection won’t tolerate the idea of humility and healthy pride. It roars back and attacks the idea of “enough”. It then frantically points out all the imperfections it finds in a reactive panic. When we have a feeling of shame rather than inviting us into humility it offers us the salvation of ER i.e. get better, bigger, stronger and smarter.
The ER will deliver us from harm, ruin or loss. In ER we trust becoming a slave to its commandments. It tells us to hide our humanity away, only reveal what it deems as acceptable and to toil until we can rise above our intolerable mortal weaknesses. We live off the fantasy of what it will be like when we “get there” and as we daydream, the sense of satisfaction from competence pleasure gets stolen out from under us. Our heart never gets rest as our mind filters everything we do showing all the places we should have been better. This objective of perfection leaves us frustrated, isolated and scared. Then we double down and sacrifice more to the altar of ER with the hope of one day feeling the peace of that fantasized perfect moment. It’s a framework that’s so powerful it will have us miss our own lives. It’s an ideology so compelling that it will shape multiple generations of a family tree.
Freedom from ERbegins with accepting our limits. John Bradshaw in Healing the Shame that Binds You writes “We humans are finite, “perfectly imperfect.” Limitation is our essential nature and grave problems result from refusing to accept our limits.” He goes on to write that “Healthy Shame is a part of every human's personal power, it allows us to know our limits and thus use our energy more effectively.” Limits help us arrive at enough;that what we brought was what was needed for the moment. If it wasn’t enough for the moment then we’re able to meet ourselves with understanding and grace. Knowing that if we return back to try again we have some areas we need to practice. If it was enough the limits then give us the gift of competence pleasure, satisfaction and true humility. Our heart can rest and drink in the satisfaction of “well done”. When we operate in humility within our limits we offer respite for ourselves and those we’re in relationship with. As our heart rests, we offer rest to others. As we become authentic in accepting our limits we become more accepting and open to others limits. This is the moment that the spring of grace starts flowing, it’s not some precious resource to be doled out in drops but this wonderful renewing abundance we can return to again and again to quench our thirst. Our shame becomes this gift leading us back to a relationship with ourselves, that’s full of grace, satisfaction and gladness.
Written by Chandler Ross