You might be intelligent, good-looking, rich, or successful, but you might tend to hide those qualities. You might think that you’re humble and don’t like to show off.
Think about it. Are you really hiding your positive qualities out of humility? Or is there something else under your behavior?
- Are you afraid of drawing unwanted attention?
- Are you afraid of the jealousy of others?
- Are you afraid of haters?
- Are you afraid of people asking favors from you?
- Are you afraid of people robbing you?
- Do your qualities trigger shame and guilt in you?
- Do you feel that you don’t deserve them?
- If none of those feelings are present in your consciousness, what keeps you from sharing your qualities with the world?
You might think that you’re living a safe life by hiding your qualities, but you won’t enjoy the comfort of your comfort zone too long. As you stay in there, your comfort zone will shrink. You’ll feel trapped in an ever-shrinking space until an unexpected challenge knocks you out of it.
The opposite of hiding your qualities isn’t being proud of them. It is accepting them. How would you feel if you gave someone a gift and they didn’t accept it? You’d feel rejected, wouldn’t you? This is exactly how the universe feels when you feel afraid, embarrassed, or guilty about your qualities.
I remember the days when I felt guilty about letting other people wash my car. I felt bad for those people having to wash my car. It dawned on me much later that if I washed my car myself, those people would be left unemployed.
There’s a difference between accepting your qualities and showing them off. If you’re showing your qualities off in a way to make others feel inferior, you aren’t actually accepting them. That’s a sign of the superiority complex which is the flip side of the inferiority complex.
This isn’t about feeling proud because you are better than others. This is about feeling good because you know you’re good.
By accepting your qualities, you don’t make others feel bad. If they feel bad, that’s their choice. By acknowledging your qualities, you give the permission to others to own their qualities as well.
No one benefits if we all hide our greatness and settle to a mediocre life.
Owning your greatness will trigger shame, guilt, and fears. And some of those fears will materialize. You will draw unwanted attention, jealousy, and haters, but there’s a question you have to ask yourself.
Do you prefer dealing with shame, guilt, fear, unwanted attention, jealousy, and haters? Or do you prefer to live a mediocre life? That’s the choice you have to make.
Now is the time to own your qualities. Do you feel like you don’t have any? Look closer. Everybody has qualities that they can be grateful for. If you can’t find them, you are taking a lot of things for granted.
If you could read this post so far, you can read, you speak English, and you have access to the Internet. Those are some positive qualities that you can acknowledge, can’t you?
Now, it’s your turn! What are the qualities that you acknowledge in yourself?