If you could choose between having a million followers on Twitter or humility, which one would you pick? I thought so.49
No one outside a religious order actually wants humility. Nor will you find patience, empathy, forgiveness, or growth high up on anyone’s gift list for the holidays. These Five Gifts are like those poor animals in the shelter that keep getting passed over.
Humility, patience, empathy, forgiveness, and growth are unwanted because they break us open—again. Seriously, haven’t we been through enough?
Here’s the good news: We won’t break in the same way, with depression and despair. Any one of the Five Gifts will release what we no longer need to be carrying. Speak them to yourself or out loud. Write them on Post-its and place them around your space at eye level so they can keep reminding you that they are yours now, to be used whenever you want.
The Paradox of Unbearable Gifts
Anything that threatens the ego’s control over how we see the world can feel threatening, which is why I have come to think of these as “the five unbearable gifts.” Some of you get the paradox, while some of you want to know why you should want these gifts if they are so unbearable.
Logically, and under ordinary circumstances, you would never be looking for them. But when disaster strikes, these Five Gifts will help you to heal more quickly.
Humility, Revalued as an Atypical Gift
Although it’s undervalued and unappreciated in our ego-driven world, humility carries quite a few surprising benefits. In “Humility: A Consistent and Robust Predictor of Generosity,” Julie Exline and Peter Hill’s research finds that people with humility tend to be generous, grateful, and more authentic in their relationships. It may seem like an unlikely trait for leadership, but humility scores high as a leadership trait. Humble people tend to be more forgiving, too.50
In a fame-driven world, humility holds no value until life pulls the proverbial rug out from under our feet.
“Humility is not characteristic of our culture. It is just the opposite,” says Dai-en Friedman, senior monk at the Ocean Zendo in Sag Harbor, New York.
Over the past two decades, I have had the privilege of being her student. Our conversation about the Five Gifts has continued off and on for the past few years, and I am deeply grateful for her perspective.
“We become humble when the world shakes us to our roots and we begin to examine what’s important in our life,” she says. “The only choice we have is to resist or work with what’s coming up. That, in itself, causes humility.”
Humility replaces the “Why me?” app with “Aaah!,” the universal sound of release. When we step into the first gift, we stop judging ourselves or giving value to the judgments of others. We stand in awe of forces greater than we can comprehend—natural forces, as well as destructive archetypal forces, such as hatred and rage.
Humility: Antidote to an Epidemic of Violence
Known to spawn in rivers of hatred, intentional disasters have now reached epidemic levels. Our vulnerability to evil is real, and the world itself is in danger. Nobody likes reading that any more than I liked writing it. But as the frequency and intensity of disasters increase, the gift of humility can open the way to accept our vulnerability—as individuals, as communities, and as a species.
The late Nobel laureate Dr. Roger Sperry, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for discovering how the left and right brains work, granted me an interview a few years before his death in 1994. He was discouraged because we humans were the first species in the history of evolution who had designed and built the means to make ourselves extinct as a species, for no reason other than we were “smart enough” to figure out how to do it. As world leaders today compete by waving their nuclear penises, I wonder what Dr. Sperry would say. From a big picture perspective, our human arrogance now threatens our own survival on the planet.
Humility, Anyone?
“Conditions are urgent. This is a very historic time with the return of Nazism, anti-Semitism, and hatred for other people who are different. We face the threat of total annihilation of the human race at this time, in a way we have never experienced,” says Dai-en, adding that “all situations are teachings. Everything that is happening around us is a teaching on impermanence.”
Who among us was not humbled by that teaching on impermanence when two of the world’s largest buildings dissolved on September 11, 2001?
Dai-en says, “Impermanence is one of the greatest sufferings in humanity. We hold onto whatever we can hold onto. We build a big warehouse to give ourselves security. But there is no security because of impermanence.”
In the face of that, humility gives us inner strength in surprising ways when we step into letting go of what we think should happen.
“It Had to Happen to Someone”
Seeing this in action is striking. One of the first stories I wrote for CBS News was a profile of a legless man who wheeled himself around Rochester, New York, on a dolly while singing, laughing, and generally whooping it up. In his former life, it seems that Rocky was a professional gambler whose legs were shot off in a poker game.
When asked by a local reporter how he stayed so cheerful, Rocky said, “After it happened, I was very angry and I kept asking God, ‘Why me? Why me?’ But then I realized, “Hey, it had to happen to someone. And I guess that turned out to be me.”
With newfound self-acceptance, Rocky discovered his purpose. Twice a week, he wheeled himself to the hospital where his legs had been amputated and made his way upstairs to the geriatric wing. There, he taught little old ladies how to play poker.
Rocky’s humility makes him an unlikely hero.
The Christmas Tsunami
The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004, sent tidal waves into fourteen coastal countries, killing more than a quarter of a million people, injuring half a million, and displacing more than a million and a half, according to the British charity, Oxfam.
Dr. Ronna Kabatznick, a psychologist and practicing Buddhist, was on retreat in Thailand when the tsunami struck. Thailand’s famous beaches are popular rest and recreation destinations for tourists around the world, including Israeli soldiers on leave. When news of the tsunami broke worldwide, Israeli families were frantic to know what happened.
As an Orthodox Jew who has practiced Buddhism for decades, Dr. Kabatznick was so moved by the events of 9/11 that she and her husband, the poet Peter Scott Dale, decided to spend two years on retreat with the Dalai Lama in southern India and with two revered forest monks in Thailand. Their trip was wrapping up when she received a phone call from the chief rabbi of Bangkok, pleading for her to help an Israeli forensic team working to identify remains and help distraught families looking for loved ones.
It would not be her first exposure to death. Back in the States, Dr. Kabatznick belonged to a society that prepares Jewish bodies for burial.
“My purpose became quickly clear. I was to be a companion and support to survivors seized by overwhelming loss and what the Buddha described as the inevitable realities of life: sorrow, grief, pain, lamentation, and despair. I would receive their pain with compassion, and provide whatever comfort I could in the midst of this living nightmare.”51
I first met Dr. Kabatznick in the late 1980s, when she became my PhD dissertation advisor. Although we have become friends, I always look up to her as a mentor, teacher, and spiritual advisor. In Who By Water: Reflections of a Tsunami Psychologist, she draws upon decades of Judaic and Buddhist study as a foundation for her experience confronting mass death and chaos in the wake of one of the most destructive natural disasters in recorded history.
She writes, “None of us knows when our time is up. We can take every conceivable precaution, but nothing negates the fact that death is a fact and can come at any time.”52
Dr. Kabatznick also drew strength from a thousand-year-old prayer called Un’taneh Tokef. It is recited on Yom Kippur, the annual Day of Atonement as a “humbling recitation of the various ways we can exit this vale of tears.”
Who by fire and who by water? Who by sword and who by beast? Who by hunger and who by thirst? Who by earthquake and who by drowning? Who by strangling and who by stoning . . .”53
Those words gave her something to hold onto when she came face-to-face with piles of decomposing corpses.
“Hundreds of body bags were lined up in neat rows on a grassy area of the beach,” she writes. “Mourners were standing among them . . . the shock of grief needs both honor and time.”54
The scene triggered flashbacks to photos of bodies piled high in concentration camps.
“The horror was here, now, hitting me harder and harder. The answer to ‘Who by water?’ lay at my feet.”55
After two months working on-site as a tsunami psychologist, Dr. Kabatznick returned home to find that although the tsunami was a major news story that had been broadcast to billions of people around the world, none of her neighbors or friends wanted to hear about her experience. They told her it was “too depressing.”
In writing about her disappointment, Dr. Kabatznick notes that this became a part of her tsunami experience.
“We are not agents of our predicament but we are not helpless either,” she says. “We can act upon what is within our control by engaging in a wise response to whatever life brings. We can be agents of defeat or agents of transformation.”
The first gift—humility—reinforced her understanding that we can neither understand nor control the paradoxical tides of life.
“The source of suffering is wanting things to be different than they are. We are all up against the elements of earth, air, wind, and fire,” she says. “They control us; we don’t control them.”
Acknowledging our vulnerability strips away the armor around our hearts. Humbled by our loss, we soften and realize there is so much we will never comprehend.
“Life is a paradox. The ocean of compassion is also a sea of sorrow. What we think is beautiful contains ugly elements and what is ugly has the potential to become beautiful.”
Humility and Spirituality
Whether you call it an act of nature or an act of God, any event that ends in violence and death is a disaster of the soul. Your life just hurts.
Needing relief from that inner pain that affects your entire body can bring you to a crossroad you were not expecting.
“We may be like shattered pottery and withered grass, but there is so much more. A connection to the transcendent enables us to live a life of meaning,” writes Dr. Kabatznick.56
In “Religion/Spirituality and Wellbeing: Implications for Therapy,” Dr. David Glenwick found “religiosity, spirituality, and positive religious coping to be positively related to psychosocial adjustment and negatively related to stress and depression.”57
The instinct to connect with a force greater than yourself is as primal as your need for food, clothing, and shelter. The first gift recognizes and honors this spiritual need. Humility is a cornerstone of faith. We can see that when watching mourners joining hands and praising the Lord outside the church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, where twenty-six people were killed in a mass shooting on November 5, 2017.
Judy Grady lost her husband on September 11, 2001.
“9/11 is a journey that just doesn’t end. It’s constant,” she says. “You’re on it whether you like it or not.”
Recalling how she needed all her strength not to break down in front of her three sons, she attributes it to her faith. “I wouldn’t have gotten through it if I did not have faith. Faith in God, faith in yourself, faith in human nature, faith in Mother Earth that the sun is going to rise again tomorrow whether you are sad or not,” she says. “That is what will get you through.”
Humility in Action
For Alan Clyne, humility means service to communities in need. As an enlisted man in the US Marines for twenty-eight years, he served on five overseas tours: Desert Storm, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and two tours to Iraq. While stationed in California in 2010, he joined a church mission trip to Honduras. It was a journey that changed his life.
“Sometimes, we think of service as being in the military, but this trip showed me service to your fellow man in a capacity that is more spiritual in nature,” he says. “It takes humility, but when you reach out to people and accept them, you are able to connect with God and someone else through God.”
When he retired from the marines, he met Ed Thomas, a Vietnam veteran who founded World Mission Builders in the early 1970s. Clyne had a speech all ready until Thomas said, “Your work is done here in the military. Are you ready to go to work for real?”
Clyne remembered how he came back from Honduras feeling fulfilled and with a new sense of purpose. Thomas’ question moved him to discard his prepared speech and announce to the group, “I think my life has just changed.”
Since retiring in 2016, Clyne has gone on six missions for Thomas’ group.
“I have had a huge paradigm shift in terms of service to humanity. You go to a Third World country and you see a lot of different angles and a lot of need,” he says. “The humility that people in those parts of the world bring to their lives is something I missed out on. It is something we can all learn from.”
The Challenge of Humility
“Humility is a gift you have to use wisely,” says Dr. Kabatznick. “It has to be managed through assertiveness, and assertiveness needs to be handled with humility. Finding the balance between humility and right action takes time. They go hand in hand. But please, keep in mind that above all, humility takes a lot of patience.”
How do you know when you have received the gift of humility? Your entire being relaxes. The shoulders drop. Your breathing slows and deepens. You might even find yourself releasing an “Aaah,” the universal sound of letting go. It feels like something heavy has somehow drifted away and the air around you becomes lighter.
The Element of Water
Receiving the first gift—humility—is as easy as looking at a glass of water.
“The more you speak your truth, the more you build your humility,” says Patrician McCarthy, author of The Face Reader and In Your Element: Taoist Psychology—Everything You Want to Know About the Five Element Personalities. She is also President of the Mien Shiang Institute in Santa Monica. Mien Shiang is the 3,000-year-old art of Chinese face reading, which developed around the same time as acupuncture to help doctors diagnose illness.
Every four years since 2008, I have interviewed Patrician and two other face readers for HuffPost about their analyses of the presidential candidates’ faces. When she heard about the Five Gifts, Patrician generously offered to share her knowledge about the connection between the gifts and the five elements in Chinese medicine and Taoist psychology.
In Your Element describes how our personalities correspond to the five Chinese elements: water, fire, wood, earth, and metal. The spiritual and psychological aspects of each element also correspond to the Five Gifts. We can connect with each gift by incorporating its respective element into our environment. It may seem eccentric but this creative, indirect approach can instill the qualities of each gift by associating with a respective element’s spiritual and psychological strengths.
In Chinese medicine, humility is linked to service and to the element of water.
“To receive humility as a gift, add water to your environment and offer your service to others,” says McCarthy. It can be as simple as a glass of water set on a table next to a flower or a small bowl of water with a few petals.
If you are recovering from a flood or water damage, the prospect of adding water to your life is going to seem counterintuitive. (In the interest of full disclosure, it took three years before I stopped freaking out whenever I saw water on the floor. Friends and neighbors reported similar reactions. Nothing triggers a flashback to a water disaster like an unexpected puddle on the floor.)
If you are living in the aftermath of a water-based disaster, you can find the First Gift when you focus on flow instead of water. Doodle wavy, curving shapes and patterns. Wear flowing clothes. Get a small aquarium with blue or black fish and observe how they move around the fishbowl without ever getting stuck.
In Chinese medicine, humility is linked to service and to the element of water. A Native American elder agrees:
“Water isn’t just for drinking or washing. Water has its own spirit. Water is alive,” says Wabinoquay Otsoquaykwan, an elder of the Anishaabe Nation. “Water has memory. Water knows how you treat it, water knows you. You should get to know water, too.”
Humbl-ing
Humility, patience, empathy, forgiveness, and growth are abstract nouns. They refer to concepts and traits without material substance—for example, love, hate, fear, and courage. Each of the Five Gifts falls into this category. It can be obtained, but not bought; experienced but not weighed. It can be grasped by the mind, but not held in our hand.
When we tweak “humility,” as Tiokasin Ghosthouse explained as the Lakota way, we are now “humb-ling” as in “a state of being humble.” It’s like turning the word inside out so that you can hold it and walk with it at the same time.
Five Minutes a Day to Humility
Pick an activity from this list and practice it for five minutes a day for five days.
I am thankful to be alive.
I have my health, family, friends, and loved ones. What more do I need?
Even though the person I loved most in the world is gone and I feel
like giving up, I am doing my best to get through the day.
My home is gone, but I am still here.