Less.

I came across this quote from CS Lewis that I’ve been pondering: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

I will confess something to you. Somewhere in my head as I feel embarrassment about how I walk and move, I have wrongly associated shame with humility. Being humble has absolutely nothing to do with feeling bad about yourself. As CS Lewis reminded me, it has everything to do with forgetting about yourself and focusing on how you see the people around you.

Of course, you can’t help other people until you realise that you are of immense value first. Don’t think less of yourself. Once you understand that you are worthy of all the love people have for you, you can love in return. Humility is not about feeling bad about yourself, it is about making other people feel good. You can’t do that until you have a healthy opinion of yourself. It is only when your heart is filled up with love that you can let it spill over onto others.

I had an encounter with my ever kind green grocer that reinforced that this week. He always tells me to be careful, but this time when I looked at him I saw that his face was covered in cuts. He had fallen when he was training for the marathon and told me he hadn’t had the courage to go out running since then. Now that is something I could relate to!

So if you’re feeling low, don’t think badly of yourself. Look around you and see that there are others in situations not unlike your own. And maybe you can use what you’re going through to help them too.