Needless to say, when we have a strong attachment to being right about things, we stand very little chance of truly waking up

To be proud is not, in this sense, to be confident or to have ‘good self-esteem’, or anything like that. It is rather to be too full of ourselves owing to a great need to always be right about matters. Needless to say, when we have a strong attachment to being right about things, we stand very little chance of truly waking up. Our self-control (and control of others) is suffocating us and making legitimate growth impossible. We need to be right about things either because we have been badly hurt in past relationships (and we now equate ‘being wrong’ with getting hurt), or because the idea of losing control brings up too much anxiety for us. The anxiety and general fear of being shamed, or of losing control, commonly underlies excessive pride.