Self Esteem vs. Arrogance

During pregnancy and motherhood, our lives shift so much, sometimes we forget ourselves in the process, if only for a little while.

After becoming pregnant, for the first time I felt uncomfortable with myself.. and the remnants remain, if not increase, once the baby is in the picture and people question your role as a mother.

This is a beautiful article/ reminder on the relationship between low self esteem and arrogance, and the importance of having confidence in yourself.

SELF – ESTEEM VERSUS ARROGANCE

By Mamoon Yusaf - http://www.quranforbusypeople.com/

“God does not love the arrogant and boasting ones” [Quran 31:18]

In western psychology ‘self-esteem’ refers

to the esteem you give to yourself. It is a measure of how much you like and value yourself. In other words, it is a measure of the extent to which you live by your own personal values. When you do not act in accordance to your values, you like yourself less, and your self-esteem goes down. When you ‘beat yourself up’ for not acting in accordance to your values, rather than learning from your mistakes and moving on (the Islamic approach to forgiveness), your self – esteem goes down even further and you continue to violate your values and sin.

Low self esteem results in not living according to your values, usually as a result of what you think other people will think of you. For example, not giving your honest opinion when it’s required, because you’re afraid of what others may think. Not having the courage to make a sales call due to fear of rejection rooted in valuing their opinion of you over your opinion of yourself. Wearing, or not wearing hijab, not because of what feels right inside, but because of what other people will think of you.

The truth is nobody knows you better than you do – not even your loved ones. Nobody cares about you more than you do, either. If you die, they’ll morn your loss, but you’ll live eternally with the consequences of your actions.

The hypnosis of Muslim culture encourages us to think that having a high opinion of yourself is a ‘bad thing’ because it could lead to arrogance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Having a low opinion of yourself leads to arrogance.

If your opinion of yourself is lower, your inner confidence is diminished and you always need to prove a point to others (and yourself) by unconsciously competing. This leads to you ‘looking down on people and denying people their rights’ – the Prophet’s definition of arrogance (pbuh).

If you have a high opinion of yourself in areas where you are good, and a low opinion in areas where you struggle, you are closer to the truth of your situation. This honesty and self-acceptance is the starting point of personal growth.

The problem in your personal development comes when you use patterns of language that put yourself down, and then actually convince yourself that this is a good thing because you are ‘being humble’. These negative language patterns like “I’m such a loser; I’m so lazy” etc, are not humility they are self-humiliation. They are lies, which become limiting beliefs, which ultimately prevent your success. And they are forbidden. This is why the Prophet (pbuh) said “A believer never humiliates himself”.

Muslim spiritual writings on arrogance as a root disease of the heart, always balance not being boastful and arrogant with not looking down on yourself either. We tend to overlook the second part. In reality, if you look down on yourself (have low self esteem), you lose your personal dignity (‘izza) which may result in you lashing out in a boastful manner when you get the chance.

To make matters worse, if your self esteem is low the chances are you could even be indulging in a sly form of shirk – valuing others opinions of you affects your behaviour drastically. The only real opinion we should care about is Allah’s opinion. If you let others dictate what you think about yourself, and therefore what you do, this may be a form of ‘riyah’.

This dua will help: Allahuma inna na’uthu bika min an nushrika bika shayan na’alamu wa nastaghfiruka li ma la na’alamu.

Allah, we seek refuge in you from associating partners with you knowingly, and seek your forgiveness from what we don’t know (doing it unknowingly).

The best of examples, our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said quite frankly “I am the best among you, and this is not arrogance’. It’s not arrogance because it’s a fact. He told us, because it’s important for us to know his status, and we can learn from his statement that when you have deep inner confidence and self esteem like He did, there is no arrogance.