Superiority/Inferiority Complex
Pop culture
As a child, I recall hearing the combined words, superiority/inferiority complex, from my father. It may have been pop culture, psychological terminology that seeped into common everyday people lingo, to explain the attitudes of those suffering from these dramatic diseases! Something about these words stuck, and they are surfacing now as I look around at humanity; which do you suffer from dear one? Do you see yourself as inferior and subject to those that are your superiors, or are you so complex as to believe, that you call the shots and others must do your bidding?
Spiritual sickness
As an adult who loves to study people, using myself as a well poked and prodded subject, I am reflecting back on the sense I had then, the curiosity of a child, about illnesses that appeared symptomatically without physical ailment: in other words, it is like having a virus of the soul, with feverish behaviours of tossing and turning with discomfort, without a diagnose of actual illness. Mental illness may be what we want to call these conditions of discombobulating disorders, but I am more inclined to label them spiritual sickness.
The malady of the soul
The malady is soulful dear reader, with longing and loneliness built right into the equation:
- People want to be loved, but they have not been taught how to be, loving
- People want to be noticed, but they do not see others
- People want to be acknowledged, but they do not speak life to those in front of them
- People want to get, and have yet to learn how to give
Perfect relational sacrifice
I think of Jesus, setting the example of perfect relational sacrifice, instructing those that heard and heeded his voice, on how to be loving humans in the world. With God, there is a formula for us to follow, when we are willing? to be taught.
Here is the formula:
- Instructions
- Warnings
- Promises
Causing disturbances
You and I dear reader, we have had some great and some truly lousy examples in our youth, humans in our lives that modelled excellence in their human relations and alternatively, heinousness, causing disturbances in our spirits. Sometimes the confusion came from a parent that displayed the extremes of love and hate, a mixed bag of emotions that as little people we could not make sense of: we did not have the words to describe what we were experiencing, let alone someone to help us sort out our immaturely formed thoughts. The damage was done, and it is in adulthood that we get to make sense of it all, if and when we are willing?
My history
I realized in the 4th of 5 coaching courses, that to love like Jesus means that the love is not always returned. I realized that I was not nearly as loving as he is, because I wanted, and wanted, to be loved, noticed, acknowledged, and receive from others what was missing inside of me. I had an outside in approach to fulfilling my life. I wanted other human beings to make things better for me, for my aching breaking heart. The inferiority complex I suffered, was the feeling I had that I needed to try really hard to get and keep the love of others.
What is your inferiority complex made up of dear one?
You taking the time to ask yourself this question will give you self-awareness that may set you free from that dastardly dragging feeling you have of being hopelessly lost and desperately searching for solutions in all the wrong places.
Made for love, by love
The thing is, we are made for love, by love. This is an astounding concept to grasp. There is nothing we can do to earn it and nothing we can do to keep it:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
It is free for all, even when we are great/excellent, or lousy/heinous in our human relations. Scripturally, we are:
- Instructed: in godly ways, with
- Warnings: when we do not heed and
- Promises: for how things will turn out for us when we live according to the wisdom conferred in The Bible
When we are willing dear reader, we can become more like Jesus:
“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25).
And then there is this:
“Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10).
We are instructed two fold in the scripture above: 1. Do not fall down at the feet of fellow human beings, worshipping them with an inferiority complex 2. Worship God, our Sovereign Superior
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the LORD, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the LORD who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
I want to be more like Jesus: transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another
How about you dear reader?
What do you want?
