Pride Comes Before the Fall

Pride. It’s such a powerful word, isn’t it? On one hand, it can be the fuel that pushes us forward on the road to healing and self-growth. But on the other hand, when it’s tangled with comparison, it can make us blind to to the blocks we hold on to. It took me years to truly understand the difference between healthy pride and unhealthy pride, especially after experiencing trauma. And let me tell you—it wasn’t easy.

In 2020, everything shifted. My life, as I knew it, crumbled under the weight of the trauma I had carried for so long. The emotional wounds I’d suppressed came rushing back with a vengeance. It wasn’t just physical pain—it was an emotional upheaval that felt like I was suffocating in a sea of my own shame and confusion. I had spent so many years trying to protect myself from the hurts I’d experienced as a child, and yet, the very walls I built for protection had trapped me in a never-ending cycle of self-doubt.

That’s when I realized something profound: in the midst of this pain, I was still clinging to pride. I had to acknowledge that my desire to prove I was better than those who had hurt me was holding me back. Caroline Myss, in her book The Advanced Energy Anatomy, speaks of how “pride is an energy that arises when we deny that we have made mistakes.” And boy, was that true for me. I wanted to convince myself that I was somehow above the pain, was an accident, but was truly the result of poor choices.

At that point, I was still trapped in the cycle of proving myself—proving I was more than just a victim, proving I was “better” than the people who had caused me pain. But here's the thing: no matter how hard I tried to deny it, I was still playing the victim role. The healing process wasn’t about comparison, or winning some race to “enlightenment.” It was a spiraling journey, one where I had to go down into the depths of my darkness and rise again, over and over. This realization was, in itself, the start of my liberation. Joe Dispenza in Becoming Supernatural says, “To change is to be in a state of discomfort.” And that discomfort was my greatest teacher.

But this path was not easy, especially when I was being bullied and judged by others for my healing journey. You see, when you’ve been through trauma, especially from an abusive relationship, there’s a tendency to shift blame. As victims, we want to point fingers, and sometimes, we deflect responsibility by blaming others involved, just to soothe our egos. For me, there was a woman who played a significant role in my trauma. She wasn’t just someone who contributed to my pain—she actively tried to tear me down while I was working on myself. She like me was the victim of another man's poor decision making. Rather than seeing our similarities, she actively tried to place herself superior to me. Her pride in her poor decisions, made me think, I was actually doing the healing work and she was not. My pride had been tainted through her distorted perception of me.

"Without a sense of ownership over your experience, you cannot truly begin to heal." The Body Keep Score

But the truth is, as victims, we’re often more focused on blaming others to protect ourselves from the responsibility we carry in our healing process. I was ashamed of being a victim, ashamed of the choices I had made that allow this kind of pain in my life. The deeper I got into my healing, the more I started to realize that I needed to release that toxic pride and stop blaming others. I needed to take full ownership of my healing, my emotions, and my journey. I need to keep my judgements of other out of it. This realization wasn’t easy—it was painful and humbling, but it was necessary.

In Transcending the Levels of Consciousness, David R. Hawkins explains that as we move toward higher consciousness, we must release judgment. I had to stop comparing myself to others and realize that my journey was unique. No one else could walk this path for me. No one else could judge the steps I needed to take in order to heal from MY experience. It was mine, and mine alone. Healthy pride comes from acknowledging your progress—no matter how small—and taking ownership of your healing. But the moment that pride turns into superiority, is where it gets tricky: while pride in your progress is important, it's also easy to get swept up in the ego and feel superior to others. This is the most dangerous form of pride because it completely blocks you from moving forward. “The moment we stop judging ourselves and others, we can see the divine energy in all things,” writes Lynn Andrews in Medicine Woman. If we allow ourselves to think we’re “better” than others because we’ve healed more or are more “evolved,” then we’ve missed the whole point of healing. Healing is not about becoming “better” than someone else—it’s about becoming the most authentic version of ourselves.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take pride in our progress. We absolutely should. Healing from trauma takes courage. It takes self-compassion. And it takes confronting the ugliest parts of ourselves, including our ego. As I look back on the abuse, the bullying, and the judgment, I can see now that I didn’t need to prove anything to anyone. The journey was always about me: about reclaiming my voice, about understanding the depths of my trauma, and about healing—not for anyone else, but for me.

Healthy pride doesn’t mean competing with others. It means being able to look at yourself, at the parts of you that are wounded, and saying, “I’m doing my best. I’m healing at my own pace.” That’s where the real power lies. It’s not about looking around and seeing who’s ahead of you, who’s behind you, or who’s “doing it better.” It’s about owning your own path and celebrating your small victories. Because, let’s be real, the journey of healing is hard enough as it is without measuring it against others.

As I started to shift my mindset, I also began to see that healing from trauma isn’t linear. We don’t just climb higher and higher until we’re “better.” There are steps backward, spirals down into darkness, and moments where you’re brought to your knees in surrender. But each time you rise, you rise stronger. Penny Pierce, in her book Frequency, says it best: “In the end, it’s not about perfection. It’s about progress.” And this progress, as messy and painful as it may be, is the true essence of healing.

If you’re reading this and feeling like your healing journey is too messy, too slow, or too painful—remember, that’s okay. You don’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. You’re on your own path. And that’s something to be proud of.