Pride is always scanning for rejection and judgment. Ultimately, this scanning stems from fulfilling a belief that it is not wanted. Yet, it is not the essential us who is not wanted, it is that the pride patterns that are created over us are undesirable. Pride absorbs our power so we do not have enough to remain steady, connected, and conscious through discomfort. It employs proactive patterns of rejection. Pride communicates the feeling of, “I am not wanted,” by preemptively saying, “I do not want you.” Lacking power means lacking courage, so when our pride-mind has hijacked us, we do not have enough power to enter and face the uncertainty of human interaction.
The challenge of interacting with a person in a pride spiral is not reacting to their rejection and also not acquiescing to it. Otherwise, pride will not be reduced to the level of humility required for human interaction and will expect that we now meet all of its demands—and know that those demands will be endless. They will stem from a black hole inside of those who refuse to believe they belong or are desired, constantly demanding proof.
The communication to any one intoxicated with pride is “You are welcome to enter and the same is required of you as everybody else—vulnerability.” When threatened in any way—meaning there is a truth that will require change—pride braces against it by refusing to take it in and receive it. It doesn’t allow us to be impacted and changed by truth and then respond to it.
Pride will try to convince us and everyone else it is doing more than anyone. This is a smokescreen aimed to keep our consciousness locked in pride and placed in a lookout from on high, where we do not risk getting dirty or hurt.
When stuck in pride, the thing to remember is that engagement is the antidote to the fear of exclusion. A consistent action of putting ourselves on the line will build the resilience and connection that can dissolve pride. It becomes something we grow into, fortifying pride’s basic stance of, “I know better,” with the actual experience of being able to deliver on that offer. When we are able to engage with the fear of rejection, what was once a hole becomes a fortress, a solidity, a beacon, and we become someone to feel safe around.
