Saturday, March 15th
Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
At first, “humility” might bring vague associations of embarrassment and shame from a family or social interaction. Perhaps “eating humble pie” comes to mind. Such incidents may add to our low self-esteem.
As sexual compulsives, the possible disclosure of our acting out life created tremendous anxiety and fear. We worried we would lose the connections we had if our web of lies unraveled. Most of all, we feared that if others saw our character defects, it would lead to humiliation and rejection.
Humiliation is about being shamed or being made to feel foolish. Our past may be filled with episodes of being humiliated, harangued, belittled, and made to feel we were “wrong.” Some of us may have ultimately felt the need to inflict shame and humiliation on ourselves — a form of self-abasement to seek absolution.
Humility is a state of realizing we are not in control and that we do not have all the answers. It is a state of being fully prepared to accept the “how, what, why, and where” of what happens rather than believing we can control the outcome. Although humility does ask us to be vulnerable, it gives us an opportunity for real growth.
From this place of humility, I have accepted the grace of sobriety, one day at a time.