a Different view of Humility

Humility is one of those spiritual paradoxes that actually can provide us with a lot of power if only we can find it within ourselves to be teachable.

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Transcript

Welcome back to Fearlessly Feral Living! Broadcasting from the Woogie Ranch in the back 40 of northwestern Nevada — where I’m a good half hour from the nearest gas station or grocery store, and wide-open space is both a lifestyle and a spiritual teacher.

This podcast explores practical, real-life ways to apply New Thought spiritual principles and practices so you can create a deeply successful, meaningful life and live creatively, courageously and successfully.

Fearlessly Feral Living is a focus ministry of Centers for Spiritual Living, devoted to cultivating a world where every person lives wild, awake, free and unapologetically alive.

In this episode I want to speak to humility. I’ve always thought that humility was widely misunderstood. In fact, I believe humility is one of the most misunderstood spiritual ideas we’ve inherited.

Humility has been dressed up as smallness. As silence. As staying in your place.

That is not humility.
 That is domestication.

The good news about an inheritance is that we do not have to keep it. We can give it away, sell it, or otherwise release it.

Fearlessly feral living does not ask you to shrink in some sense of misunderstanding about what humility really is.

So in this episode, I’m going to give you the evidence to prove that humility is more about living our truth than about hiding it. Humility is about knowing our worth and claiming it, humility is about acknowledging our successes and the work we did to achieve them. 

Ernest Holmes has a great definition of humility in the Science of Mind textbook: “True humility does not mean self-abasement, but is rather that attitude which Emerson tells us is willing to get our “bloated nothingness out of the way of the Divine Circuits. It is an intelligent recognition that the whole is greater than any one of its parts.”

I did a little research about the words bloated nothingness and came across some wisdom in a little Ernest Holmes book called The Philosophy of Emerson. In this book, Holmes suggests that our bloated nothingness is simply being close minded. It’s thinking that what we learned in the past is what is. He says, “Let us unlearn our wisdom of the world.” In order to be rid of our bloated nothingness.

See, the wisdom we’ve learned, the wisdom we’ve inherited, from parents, from society, from school, from church, is not always wisdom. It is, in the words of Ernest Holmes in that same previously mentioned book, “the false valuation we’ve placed on things.”

This is why I so strongly advocate personal self awareness as the primary (coupled with oneness) spiritual practice in my book How to Live Fearlessly Feral.

Because if we don’t know whether the value we place on things is our own or was simply inherited, then we can’t get our bloated nothingness out of the way. We can’t shine our light, because it’s hidden with false values. And if we can’t shine our light, we can’t live fearlessly feral, we can’t eliminate limitation from our lives using a false sense of humility as an excuse.
 
 

I’m reminded of Maryanne Williamson telling us that it is our light we are afraid of. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Here’s another description of humility which I, like it’s author did also, keep in a plaque on my desk so that I am reminded of my truth every time I sit there. Dr. Bob S, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, had this to say about humility: “humility is Perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble.  It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore; to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing against me.

It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around is seeming trouble.”

THIS, my friends, is what humility really is to me. It’s being able to go within and feel the presence of Spirit, or God, or whatever you want to call it, and be at peace.

These days, when there is so much chaos in the world, when we are bombarded daily with news about history being erased, about entire populations of people being told they do not deserve a place in this country, about a false sense of patriotism being touted, about real painful things that are happening, we have to be able to have a place to do where we can be at peace. Not only because we are ineffective if we are not at peace, but because we must come from a place of peace in order to be receptive to what new wants to be born out of this collective mess.

That place of peace is within us. And if you can’t find peace within yourself, I highly recommend you buy my book How to Live Fearlessly Feral, read it, and do the year long guide in the last section. I guarantee that by the end of the year you will be able to practice humility by going within and being at peace there.

And if you are Christian, I have news for you: humility is mentioned in the Bible, in the beatitudes. You can check it out in Matthew chapter 5. Here’s just a small section: Blessed are the humble, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In modern language, the word blessed means delighted. The kingdom of heaven is within us. Heaven is a state of mind. We are being guided to go within, again.  So consider the statement this way: Delighted are those who place more importance on their connection with god than they do on material things. 

Here’s more from the beatitudes: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 

Delighted are the teachable. The earth signifies our outer experience; this section implies that we shall have control over our outer conditions if we 

are meek or teachable. Meek also means yielding, pliable, flexible. It isn’t telling us to be meek, in our modern understanding of the word. It is telling us to be teachable.

In the world of spiritual psychology, being humble, or practicing humility, begins with being able to recognize when we are in fear (a call to personal self awareness). It also means knowing what we do when we are in fear (more personal self awareness). It means having the willingness to interrupt that cycle and not do the stuff we do behind the fear that gets us into trouble. It means going within and connecting with our Source, whatever that is (oneness and personal communion) to get the strength and willingness to be teachable enough to learn what that fear is trying to tell us. 

I hope you can see that releasing that old tired worn out definition of humility that would limit you is the way to go. I hope I’ve given you some ideas about what a new definition of humility could look like in your life.

Just this morning, I got an email from Tama Kieves, who reminded me that “real success comes from the humility to start wherever you can and remember the magnitude within you.”

Remember the magnitude within you.

Humility is not about shrinking yourself—it’s about right-sizing yourself in relationship to the Infinite. In the teachings of Ernest Holmes, humility is the quiet recognition that there is One Life, One Mind, One Power expressing as all things—including you. So rather than “I am small,” humility becomes “I am not separate.”  In this framework, humility actually empowers you. It allows you to become a clearer vessel for creativity, love, and wisdom. You don’t diminish yourself—you align yourself. It’s less “Look how unimportant I am,” and more “Look how beautifully Life expresses when I get out of the way.”

Humility is not bowing down. It’s stepping aside—so something vast, wild, and sacred can live through you without obstruction.

Humility, in this framework, is not bowing your head in submission.

It is loosening your grip on needing to be:

• right
• recognized
• in control
• the center of everything

It is the radical act of trusting the movement of Life itself. And here’s where it becomes powerful—not passive:

When you release the need to control the flow,
 you become available to it.

When you release the need to be the source,
 you become a conduit for something far more intelligent than your fear.

When you release the need to elevate yourself,
 you no longer have to defend yourself.

Fearlessly feral humility walks into a room without needing to prove anything—and leaves having changed everything.

Not because it demanded attention,
 but because it carried presence.

This kind of humility will:

• tell the truth without arrogance
• stand firm without rigidity
• love without self-sacrifice
• act without needing applause

It is not weak.
 It is wildly grounded.

So no—humility is not about becoming less.

It is about removing everything false
 so what is real can finally breathe.

If you want to live fearlessly feral,
 you don’t need to make yourself bigger.

You are the place where the sacred shows up—
 unfiltered, uncontained, and fully alive.

Embrace humility as I have defined it here and watch your life blossom and grow into something more beautiful than you ever could have imagined. 

Closing:

If Fearlessly Feral speaks to your wild and authentic spirit, you can support this ministry through a donation, membership, or by subscribing to my Substack. Supporting what feeds your soul helps it grow stronger in your life and keeps this message riding forward.

Stay wild. Stay awake. Stay free. And keep living Fearlessly Feral.

Fear is not your enemy. It’s untamed energy waiting for direction.

Harness it. Trust your spiritual nature. And go live Fearlessly Feral.

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