Our Private Selves Part 4
February 11, 2026
Our Private Selves Part 4
What you think of yourself in the dead of night when no one’s watching, when no mirror reflects it, might be the most consequential opinion you’ll ever have. But what if, in this situation, we are wrong about ourselves?
One category of things we often keep private is our self-opinion. Just think of the standards we believe we meet, exceeded, or fail to meet, and those self-judgments which we do not want to say out loud, and those we do.
Let’s look at this through the lens of the Enneagram and Psychology. If we tend to overrate or underrate ourselves, that is usually a function of the unhealthy ego. Take the phenomenon of overrating first for example. In Jungian psychology, overrating is called “inflating” the self. The ego inflates or elevates our self-image and self-worth for its own reasons. It may be compensating for what in reality is a poor estimation of itself. Or it may be aware that its performance, talents, and strengths are exceptional, well above those of other people. But instead of balancing their high self-esteem with humility, they fall into pride or hubris.
Inflated selves falling into hubris can take two primary paths. The first is to flaunt their abilities, winnings, and strengths in front of others, which leads to arrogance. And when this becomes an obsession, it is narcissism… self-absorption with an egocentricity fed by the reactions of others. In this case, we do not keep our self-esteem private. Instead, we broadcast it. A typical remark could be: “I am the best artist in this area by far… my pieces hang in all the major galleries around. After you look at this month’s article the gallery did on me, I want you to tell me what you think.”
The other path of an inflated self is to keep our sense of superiority to ourselves and use it to affirm our supremacy privately. This is another form of pride and hubris, not outward, but inner arrogance. This is when our own private opinion of ourselves can be even more potent than flaunting it because it is kept inside as a reference point. A typical remark said underneath one’s breath could be: “Just listen to them spouting off their irrational ideas as if they knew what they were talking about… what a fool they are. I am in a completely different and would never do that.”
Under-rating ourselves can be another function of an unhealthy ego. Downplaying ourselves or self-abasing can paradoxically get others to praise us. Their praise may feed our pride, helping us counteract abysmal self-esteem. Another type of poor self-esteem is usually inward and kept within ourselves because the sense of inferiority is deeply rooted. Self-abasement only adds to our inferiority.
In truth, we may change our self-assessment from time to time as we grow, leap forward, or stumble backwards. Instead of labeling ourselves, deceiving ourselves, under or overrating ourselves, we can take heart that we are a work in progress. Self-understanding is best paired with love. We need love to do the hard, often painful work of knowing ourselves.
Coming to terms with who we are is a spiritual quest. Regardless of our ego and personality, stressors and changes, our soul has enduring and transcendent qualities that are without question, divine. These qualities are at our core. We can go through the muck of all our deficiencies, compensations, inflations, flaws, and defects, trying to expunge and resolve them. This has its place on the psychological level, and we may find relief and even integration in the personality.
However, the spiritual treatment of these deficiencies goes deeper into our basic loss of contact with being and the grief our soul experiences. Though it requires the hard work of facing our deficiencies, which is oftentimes grueling, it also requires our purest self, tethered to the Divine, to transform them. Knowing our divine qualities and embodying them informs our inner work profoundly and helps build our private opinions of ourselves in reality. The essential quality of grace helps us see the truth, not in self-condemnation, but in love.
Spiritual practice: Write about how grace is important in your inner judgments.
Self-inquiry: What are some reasons you may want to discover your core qualities?
Prayer:
Dear God, As I come to know myself, I can rely on one thing for sure: you are with me in this walk, and you give me everything I need to see myself in truth. For this, I am so grateful. Amen
