From Humiliation to Humility
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” This simple line invites a more profound reflection: what happens when we are no longer at the centre of our own story? This essay explores how moments of humiliation, painful as they are, can become unexpected gateways to humility, and how this softening of self-preoccupation offers not only personal healing but also a more spacious way of being with others and the world.
Humiliation is seldom welcomed. It strikes like a sting, a collapse, a wound to the identity we spend our lives shaping. Yet, suppose we are willing to face it with courage and curiosity. In that case, humiliation can become an unexpected gateway to humility, not the false humility of performance or religious virtue, but the humility that emerges when the self-protective shell cracks, letting something more honest shine through.
The etymology provides a clue. Humiliation and humility both originate from the Latin 'humus,' meaning earth. To be humiliated is to be brought low, returned to the ground. In that moment of falling—when the ego is unveiled and our invulnerability lessens—a different kind of strength can emerge, not pride but presence.
My first encounter with the term 'humiliation' occurred when I read Mark Epstein’s 'Thoughts Without a Thinker'. He describes the Buddha’s First Noble Truth of suffering as the “Noble Truth of Humiliation.” This was striking. Epstein, both a psychoanalyst and a long-time Buddhist practitioner, reframes suffering not simply as existential discomfort, but as the profound emotional rupture that happens when the ego’s self-image collapses. Humiliation, he suggests, is not an anomaly but a gateway. And if approached with care rather than defence, it becomes the very terrain on which insight and transformation can unfold.
Humility, in this sense, is not about self-effacement or a tactic to seem good. It involves recognising what we are not. It is an unmasking, but not a stripping away. True humility does not deny our worth, nor does it inflate our flaws; instead, it quiets the part of us that craves to be seen, defended, praised, or absolved. It is the spaciousness that appears when we let go of the need to control impressions.
In therapeutic work, humility often emerges when clients stop putting on a front. When they no longer feel the need to seem as if they are healing, or to say the right thing, or to understand their story perfectly. It is the moment they say, not in despair but honestly, “I don’t know.” Or, “I’m tired of trying to be someone.” These confessions are not signs of weakness; they indicate that the performance is dissolving, and something more genuine is emerging.
In spiritual life, humility is often misunderstood as meekness or piety. However, in Buddhist terms, it can be viewed as a consequence of insight. The more deeply we understand the constructed nature of the self, the less need we have to protect it. We cease imagining ourselves at the centre of everything. Our joys and sorrows persist, but we no longer clutch at them as if they are exclusively ours. There is space.
Humility enables us to admit, ‘I am not the centre of the world.’ I am not immune to confusion. I am not superior or inferior to others. I do not need to be special. I am here, like everyone else, trying to live, love, and make sense of things. It is a relief. It reduces comparisons. It allows us to listen.
Humility also enables us to bear witness. When we are not preoccupied with how others perceive us, we can approach others with genuine interest and compassion. We are no longer defending ourselves in every encounter. We become more receptive. Humility is not the end of self; it is the end of self-preoccupation.
This capacity has important implications not only for personal well-being but also for collective life. Without humility, conflict becomes rigid. Ideological certainty hardens, and dialogue collapses into debate. But when humility is present, something opens up. We can be curious, change our minds, and say, “I was wrong,” without breaking apart. In that sense, humility is a civic virtue as much as a spiritual one. It makes relationships possible.
Humility is not just a trait we have or lack. It is something that can be developed, practised, and revisited repeatedly. It grows with age, with loss, with failure. It often arrives not as a sudden insight but as a quiet realisation. The noise of the ego diminishes, and in that silence, a different kind of clarity emerges.
Humiliation often acts as the trigger. However, it is humility that brings about healing. It is humility that enables us to stay human, even as our illusions disappear.
I have been familiar with this pattern, not only through the people I work with but also through my own body and personal story. I grew up in South Africa during apartheid, where the daily humiliation of Black people was visible, systemic, and for a long time, normalised by those around me. I didn’t have the words for it then, but something inside me recoiled. The way Black workers were spoken to and how power could strip someone of dignity left a mark on me. It also raised a question: who do I become within such a system? Can I remain a generous, good, whole person when the structure I am part of is not?
Later, at boarding school, another layer developed, more personal, more internalised. I learned to conceal certain feelings, to fit in, and to survive the humiliation of feeling inadequate, not strong enough, and not fitting in. My family, while loving in parts, also conveyed the quiet message common in many families: that love and worth must be earned, that failure is shameful, and that vulnerability is a risk.
Perhaps the moment when humiliation truly became aware to me was when my wife left me. I experienced a wide range of emotions: intense grief, confusion, anger, shame, defensiveness, a wish to hurt, a wish to cry, and a wish to die. What I noticed was a jumble of thoughts and stories, and beneath that, I felt a pain and emptiness in my gut. I called this gut feeling humiliation.
Over time, I chose to trust my instinct. Each time the flood of mental stories, blaming, revenge fantasies, and loops of inadequacy surfaced, I returned to sit with that visceral feeling. I realised that the only way through was to soften into humility. The humility of recognising I couldn’t be perfect. That not everyone could love me. Despite being a psychotherapist and a Buddhist, I am deeply fallible. Deeply human.
This practice has endured over the years, and in a less painful but equally meaningful way, it continues even now. The realisation that sitting with my humiliation—feeling powerless and small—becomes a window. A window into humility. Humility, in turn, opens into openness, compassion, reflective enquiry, and diminished defensiveness. It is the quiet realisation that if I genuinely do not fear or resist humiliation, I am truly free.
These early experiences left me with the same strategies I now recognise in others: striving, self-improvement, performance, and retreat. It has taken years to realise that the wound was not that I was not good enough, but that I believed I had to be. That is the lie humiliation teaches. And humility, if we’re lucky, slowly unteaches it.
Henri Nouwen once described his distress when an article he regarded as one of his best was dismissed as below his usual standard. In that moment of shame, he recognised an invitation to slow down, not time itself, but the frantic self trying to outrun its limits. “Life is humbling,” he wrote. “We need a lot of humiliation for a bit of humility.”
Dan Allender stated clearly: “No one is humble by nature. Humility comes from humiliation, not from a desire to look modest or give others credit.” Without experiencing the fire of suffering, humility risks becoming merely performance rather than genuine transformation.
Hubert Benoit, the French psychotherapist and Zen practitioner, was even more direct: “All suffering, by humiliating us, modifies us. If I struggle against humiliation, it destroys me; if I leave it alone, it builds up my inner harmony.” He described this as resting on the stone bed of discomfort—not fixing, not fleeing, but enduring in pain until its more profound truth is revealed.
Śāntideva, the great Indian sage, echoes this: “Whenever the wish to belittle, deceive, or dominate arises, at such times I should remain like a piece of wood.” The image is simple but profound: when humiliation burns, do not fuel it with reactivity. Be still. Let it purify.
These voices help identify something many of us instinctively feel but find hard to articulate: that the path to humility is shaped by experiences we’d rather avoid. However, if we stay present with those moments, if we soften, breathe, and resist retaliation, we become less defensive and more open to life.
Here, in the very place we resist, lies the potential for peace. It is not a dramatic peace, not the kind that comes with victory or acclaim. It is quiet, ordinary, and undramatic. It exists in the moment when we no longer need to argue with reality, when we stop bracing against what is already here. This peace does not erase our pain, nor does it excuse injustice. Instead, it allows us to meet life without the rigid armour that humiliation so often produces.
In my clinical work, I have observed how humility fosters the conditions for genuine healing. When a client begins to let go of the need to be right, good, or enlightened, something relaxes. They breathe differently. They speak more simply. They laugh, sometimes through tears. The atmosphere feels different. We are no longer pursuing an idea of health or transcendence; we are sitting in the reality of what it means to be human.
This doesn’t mean we give up on change or aspiration. Humility is not the end of becoming, but the foundation from which more honest growth emerges. It enables us to apologise genuinely, to revise our viewpoints, to learn from those we once dismissed. It grants us the courage to start afresh, not because we believe we will get it right this time, but because we are no longer striving to be above the chaos. We are in it, with others.
What would it mean for a culture to value this kind of humility? To prize reflection over dominance, tenderness over certainty, not as weakness but as maturity? I don’t know. But I think it begins here: with the willingness to sit with our own groundlessness. With the refusal to turn humiliation into hardness. With the choice, again and again, to bow—not out of defeat, but in reverence to the complexity of being alive.
Rory Singer
References
Lewis, C.S. (1952). Mere Christianity. London: Geoffrey Bles.
Epstein, M. (1995). Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective. New York: Basic Books.
Nouwen, H. (1996). The Inner Voice of Love. New York: Doubleday.
Allender, D. (1990). The Wounded Heart. Colorado Springs: NavPress.
Benoit, H. (1955). The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought. London: Rider.
Śāntideva. Bodhicaryāvatāra (8:16), trans. Padmakara Translation Group.
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. New York: Viking.
Friston, K. (2010). “The Free-Energy Principle: A Unified Brain Theory?” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127–138.
Further Reading
Mark Epstein, Thoughts Without a Thinker
Śāntideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva
Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape
Dan Allender, The Wounded Heart
Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Hubert Benoit, The Supreme Doctrine
Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
Mark Solms, The Hidden Spring
Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life
Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
You can also read this post on our Substack journal, Unfolding.