Being humble isn’t about thinking less of yourself, it’s about thinking of yourself less.

Being humble is not about being right but being concerned with what is right.

Being humble is about appreciating team attributes, recognising contribution or promoting others rather than promoting self and wanting recognition.

Of course, most people can recognise humbleness is an admirable quality but we can all be a bit introspective, push our personal ideals and want to be recognised at times, we’re only human; anyone who denies struggling with humbleness is only deceiving themselves!

As someone who has frequent brushes with depression, my self-esteem is pretty poor at the best of times, that is – I think very little of myself. I sometimes find myself looking to others for approval or gratification because I struggle to know if what I’m doing is good enough or if who I am is acceptable but I know, through years of therapy, that seeking this from outside is unhelpful and generally, unfruitful. With a low self esteem, I’ve also unfortunately neglected my needs because I think I’m not worthy of care etc. But therapy has taught me it’s in these times when self care is most important. Self compassion and self care isn’t, as one fears, self indulgence, but in fact a vital part of keeping oneself healthy.

I have a quiet unassuming character and time after time what I do goes unnoticed, what I say gets forgotten or attributed to others, the polite requests I make are unfulfilled, for hours at a time even my existence is ignored even if there have been opportunities to notice me. At times my needs have been neglected (even if I’ve had the rare confidence to state them) to such an extent that I don’t know if it’s reasonable to ask for my needs to be met anymore. I have a strange belief about myself that to take up space or to be seen is improper so maybe I bring this treatment on myself? But, to be continuously treated like this, is it any surprise I think nothing of myself?

I frequently have the experience of someone asking a group of people a question, I answer the question but they continue repeating the question; it seems as though they’re more concerned with listening to themselves asking the question than they are the answer! Once someone (else) has managed to get them to listen to the answer, it’s rarely recognised that I answered the question the first time. I feel frustrated that I had the rare confidence to open my mouth and I needn’t have bothered; but if I was humble this wouldn’t matter.

People are so used to me blending into the background and going unnoticed, I was assertive a couple of times a few months ago in a environment where I’m not usually and this was so shocking to the people involved I’m still feeling the unpleasant after-quakes today!

Of course, this is not my only experience, there are plenty of people in this world who care about me and notice me – by default – if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably someone who cares, so I’ll use this opportunity to say thank you! This blog isn’t about having a go at the people who forget about me because, obviously they won’t be reading this! Most of them won’t even know I can write, let alone have a fairly successful blog; most of them, if they know my name, they won’t have a clue how important it is to me to spell my name correctly – to those who do, thank you!

Being humble is easier if your self-esteem is intact. I’ve been reflecting on humbleness and wondering where it fits in with my low self esteem. If I think so little of myself, how do I also think of myself less? How do I balance the self care and compassion that’s necessary to ensure I don’t neglect myself but then make sure I think of myself less?! I think the optimum word here is balance.

Being humble is also easier if other people notice you! But we can’t confuse humbleness with false modesty. Bringing up your contributions and achievements, so that you can be modest and humble about them is not the way to go! My naturally quiet character means other people won’t have a clue I’m being humble, but that’s not what being humble is about.

If I’ve managed to balance my self esteem issues, somehow and I’m now considering how being humble fits with other people – if I’m feeling forgotten and trodden on, if others are promoting themselves over and above me, as they do (because they’re more confident or down right arrogant) do I add to this and show appreciation for their attributes? Another one to ponder! Maybe it’s not about comparisons but simply about appreciating what is right.

So, while writing this, it happened again, I felt forgotten; in this moment I considered pointing out the work I’d done but it only took me a second to stop myself and realise I was looking for recognition from other people. I took a breath and realised, as a Christian, I’m called to be humble, it’s not just a nice-to-have. But, even when it’s hard, what helped me in that moment was that I remembered that God knows every action and every inaction of everyone on Earth. He knows how hard I work, he loves me just the way I am; he knows I wasn’t being humble in that second but he also knew I stopped myself and realised that humbleness was more important than recognition.

I’d worked incredibly hard and had been forgotten again. Recognition would be nice, yes, I felt hurt, I felt crushed, I felt let down, but in this moment, I chose to be humble and by turning to God in my pain, I’m choosing to deepen my relationship with him.

God made me, just the way I am, I’m a grafter, not many people know what I do or how hard I work and I certainly don’t get the gratitude most people would expect. But what makes it all worth it is that, I can turn to God and he knows exactly what I’m going through. Being a Christian isn’t about having an easy life, it’s about having a human life, serving the will of God in relationship with Jesus Christ.