Pride, that great generator of conflicts

As with all concepts, or like everything in life, there are never definitive categories or absolute definitions. This happens with pride, which can be used well or badly. In psychology, two types of pride have been defined, positive and negative.. Positive pride is called self-esteem and self-confidence, and negative pride is called arrogance.

Positive pride is necessary to feel safe and leading a balanced life, valuing ourselves in our right measure, placing ourselves in our existence and being proud of it: this is something absolutely healthy. The second pride, the one that distances us and elevates us from the world, is going to be the best generator and “stuck” of conflicts that we can have.

The negative side of pride is defined as excessive esteem for oneself and one’s own merits.by which the person believes himself superior to others. This type of pride makes us unable to recognize and correct our own mistakes and reveals a lack of humility.

Humility, a quality contrary to pride, is what allows us to adopt an open, flexible and receptive attitude in order to learn what we do not yet know. Proud people transmit many mental complaints due to their exaggerated ego., complaining about people, situations, time, the country, etc. This will inevitably make them jump from one conflict to another.

When pride turns into arrogance

The word pride comes from the Latin superbĭa and is a feeling of valuing oneself above others, overvaluation of the self with respect to others. It is a feeling of superiority that leads one to boast about one’s own qualities or ideas and belittle those of others.

It can be said that pride can lead to arrogance.. Pride is a proud attitude that finds its definition in the audacity of that person who puffs himself up.

Pride, which leads us to feel superior every time we compare ourselves to someone, reveals an inferiority complex. This is where arrogance arises, with which we try to prove that we are always right. We also use vanity, flaunting our merits, virtues and achievements.

These people can be very ideologically intolerant., clinging to a single position and not allowing any outside contributions. Their capacity for self-recognition is very low, and they show great resistance to asking for forgiveness and personal change: they do not think about change because they think they are doing it well.

They present an emotional hardening, an emotional distance. They hardly forget an offense. These characteristics block interpersonal relationships.

Honesty to tear down our pride

Honesty can be very painful at first, but in the medium term it is very liberating. It allows us to face the truth about who we are and how we relate to our inner world. This is how we begin the path that leads us towards our emotional well-being. Cultivating this virtue has a series of therapeutic effects.

First of all, reduces the fear of knowing ourselves and facing our dark side. It also makes us unable to continue wearing a mask with which to please others and be accepted by our social and work environment. In turn, this quality prevents us from continuing to sweep our emotional conflicts under the rug.

Honesty gives us the strength to question ourselves, identifying falsehood and lies that threaten us., like temptations, from within us. As honesty becomes integrated into our being, our pride will fade as we no longer have to play roles in order to give the image of someone we are not.

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