Pride: Disrespect by others is one thing, self-disrespect does far more harm

Photo: Carlos de Toro @carlosdetoro on Unsplash.

Sometimes, the voice we use on ourselves is the cruelest one of all.

It’s not the voice of a bully or a skeptic. It’s our own.

It tells us we’re not enough.

It insists we’re failing.

It whispers that other people are better, brighter, more deserving.

And over time, if we keep listening, we begin to believe it.

Self-disrespect doesn’t always come in loud declarations. It’s quiet.

It looks like shrinking back from a dream because we think we’re unworthy.

It’s brushing off a compliment because we don’t feel like we’ve earned it.

It’s denying ourselves rest, joy, or even kindness because we’ve convinced ourselves we don’t deserve it.

We call it humility. We call it realism. But really, it’s just a slow erosion of our spirit.

And when we treat ourselves that way long enough, something tragic happens—we lose our spark.

We stop trying.

We corner ourselves into the opposite of inspiration.

Where once there was wonder, we now feel like impostors.

Where once there was a deep well of creativity and courage, we find it dry.

Where once there was the voice of possibility, there’s just silence.

I remember when I first moved to Chicago at 18 years old, fresh from the slower pace of a Hawaiian island.

I was this brown-skinned kid who spoke with softness, not slickness. My rhythm didn’t match the sharp tempo of city life.

The people here seemed wired for speed—fast thoughts, fast moves, fast mouths. And there I was, pausing to think, to breathe, to feel.

I didn’t look like the polished, preppy boys strutting across campus with their pressed shirts and confident strides. I didn’t talk like them, didn’t joke like them, didn’t even know how to stand like them.

And I was gay.

Quietly.

Newly.

Confusedly.

I was just beginning to understand what that meant. I had no guidebook, no roadmap, just a heart full of fear and hope and longing.

In a city that felt sharp-edged and glittering, I felt round and dull. I didn’t fit into any of the categories. I wasn’t completely out. I wasn’t straight-passing. I wasn’t confident. I was just—foreign.

Foreign to the city.

Foreign to the culture.

Foreign even to myself.

I started to think something was wrong with me.

I thought my island ways were backward.

I thought my skin, my accent, my quiet demeanor made me less.

I thought my queerness made me broken.

I looked in the mirror and saw only the distance between who I was and who I thought I had to be. And so, I folded in. I pulled back. I let myself believe I was unworthy of attention, friendship, love.

And in doing so, I dragged myself into a pit of utter loneliness.

I wasn’t homesick for Hawaii—I was homesick for the version of me that still believed I had something to offer.

But then something unexpected happened.

There were people—beautiful, ordinary people—who reached for me.

Almost all of them were strangers who became friends.

They didn’t try to change me.

They didn’t ask me to speed up or toughen up or talk less “island.”

They saw me.

They celebrated me.

They told me I wasn’t broken—I was a mirror the world needed to see itself differently.

They helped me realize that I wasn’t the problem.

I was the disruption. I was the resistance. I was a quiet revolution walking into a world too accustomed to its own noise.

My way of being wasn’t backward—it was a challenge to the harshness of big-city life. My softness was a form of protest. My culture, my kindness, my queerness, my questions—they weren’t weaknesses. They were radical in a world that forgot how to breathe.

That’s when I began to climb out of that pit—not because I found a way to blend in, but because I began to see that I wasn’t supposed to.

The truth is, we cannot birth anything beautiful from a place of self-hate. Flowers don’t grow in poisoned soil.

And inspiration—real, soul-stirring inspiration—needs room to breathe.

It needs to be met with tenderness.

It needs to know it’s safe.

You are allowed to believe in yourself.

You are allowed to speak kindly to yourself.

You are allowed to make room for your own gifts, your own story, your own light.

Disrespecting yourself will never make you more worthy. It only blinds you to the worth that’s already been there all along.

So take a breath.

Step out of the corner.

Let your shoulders drop and your heart soften.

Say something gentle to yourself today—just one sentence.

Then tomorrow, say another.

And maybe, just maybe, the inspiration will come back.

Not in a flood, but like the first light at dawn—quiet, soft, and full of promise.