With pride comes pressure and with pressure, pride.
What pictures do you think of when you read the word pressure? I see a pressure cooker. I see sweat running down the brow. I see red faces with raised veins. I see fear at its core.
Pressure comes from somewhere deep and it generally is bred via anxiety that is rooted in insecurity. Most of the time it comes around deadlines and most of those deadlines have a judge. For instance,
• Remember the pressure you felt when you know you didn’t study enough for that test? The professor (or judge) was going to show you how well you studied or not with their red pen.
• Have you ever scrambled through the house trying to get everything in order before your guests arrived? You were afraid they would see how messy your world really is as if their worlds do not have their own dysfunction.
• Remember the time you froze when you had to turn something in to your boss? That feeling of pressure came like a wind storm blowing away your thoughts and causing great pain.
Pressure is directly related to pride. I know it because I have them both. I get anxious inside when I have to present bad news. I feel the pressure because I want people to think I know what I am talking about. Did you catch that? I want people to think I am something special. If my results don’t show that then the pressure races in. Pride was the instigator. Pressure either comes from pride or leads to pride.
And so the opposite is true – Humility & Peace are joined at the hip.
Release your pressure – give up your pride.
