Humility is the hardest thing to learn. It’s even harder to be humble in a healthy way, and not become self-hating (which is actually a sneaky kind of pride), or overly dependent on the narratives of others.
As you begin to open yourself up to the reality of your flaws, and work to observe, listen, and empathize with the ways in which your shortcomings affect others, you may run across someone who (intentionally or not) tries to gaslight you.
Sensing an opening, some people may seize on your humility and use it as a way to shift the weight of their own shortcomings on to you.
They will begin with truth. They’ll tell you truths that are hard to hear, but since you’re working on humility, you’ll listen and take them seriously. It may seem a bit one-sided, but you’re willing to forgo your defense and accept they ways in which you are wrong.
Feeling this victory, they will push further. They will begin to suggest more and more of their challenges are due to your shortcomings. They will try to get you to a place where you accept not just blame for your failings, but blame for everything.
They will try to rewrite history, and get you to accept that what you thought was A was really B.
What’s tricky is sometimes what you thought was A really is B. Sometimes you are deceived, and pride prevents you from seeing it. Humility is a necessary step to examine these errors.
But if humility causes you to give up all self-judgement and simply accept the judgements of others, you’ve got to pull back. It’s no longer humility, it’s merely shifting the responsibility of judgement from yourself to others.
You are responsible for finding and admitting your errors and adjusting. That’s humility. You are also responsible for seeing and admitting when you are not in error and not adjusting based on other people’s feelings. That is strength. You need both.