Self-Deprecating vs Self-Aggrandizing
Hello lovely Positivity & Gratitude community <3 I hope all of you are doing well!
Today we are talking about self-deprecating: what it is, why we do it and if there’s a nice substitute to it. Feel free to share what you personally think about it and let’s have an insightful discussion.
Self-deprecating (adjective): trying to make yourself, your abilities, or your achievements seem less important. By definition, it doesn’t seem like a nice thing to do but we all understand it on some level. The other day I and some of my friends were just discussing Bodo, a Sino-Tibetan language. Latiko means number zero (0) in Bodo, and my initial comment when I heard it was - “latiko people find me attractive.” Now there is actually no harm in saying this, because to some people and momentarily even to myself, it would just seem like a funny joke. It made all of us laugh and gave space to have a light conversation, but it came on my expense highlighting, I may have appeared to be insecure about how attractive I perceive myself. To me, it’s really hard to tell if I was just joking or if I actually believe there is some truth in it. The ability to be able to laugh at yourself is actually pretty great and we are often told to not take ourselves so seriously but what can rightfully be said about self-depreciation is it should be done in moderation.
We self-deprecate to hide our fears, or maybe even our insecurities. We want to appear funny in front of others even if (knowingly or unknowingly) it comes on our expense. Often times, we self-deprecate because of low self-esteem or us wanting to joke about what we consider our shortcomings before anybody else does, thinking it might hurt less. Doesn’t it seem more convenient to joke about something we consider a flaw and while we are at it, make people laugh? Sometimes we feel, people will relate, and most times people do. However, if we think about it, we wouldn’t like our friends to joke about themselves in that way. Our reflex would be to tell them, “no, you are actually really nice!” or “you are amazing, don’t say things like that about yourself.” So why say differently to ourselves?
Now a nice question to ask would be, is there a better substitute for it? And to that, the answer is a big yes! Being self-aggrandizing, which means promoting oneself as being powerful or important seems to a tool which is really handy. I will share a few examples how we can use it and I hope all of you try it yourself if you tend to self-deprecate yourself a lot, or even if you don’t, it’s good to feel empowered!
1. Instead of saying, “latiko people find me attractive,” I could have said, “latiko people would say I am not pretty because I am actually pretty cute!”
2. Instead of saying, “I am good for nothing,” we can say, “I love how so many opportunities to learn something new show up for me!”
3. Instead of saying, “my life is a joke, and I’m the punchline,” we can say, “I love how I don’t take myself so seriously and am actually able to humour difficult things happening in my life, must be my superpower!”
It wouldn’t hurt to say this from time to time to ourselves ^ hyping yourself up is actually very beneficial for you so it’s more than okay to accept your qualities and be proud of the things you have learned in the past!
thank you so much @Starmedia for helping me with this post!
references:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/self-deprecating
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Awesome post lumi! Thank you =)
It's so easy to let jokey comments turn into real feelings about ourselves, so if it's going to happen why not make them positive jokey comments!
@Gozzil
totally agree! thank you for participating in the discussion and sharing that you feel the same 
@lumieremilkyway
It was actually a timely reminder for me. Last night I was talking to a couple of friends about making a guinea pig my profile pic on social media, and I was about to say, "their faces are just much cuter than mine" but instead I said, "their faces are adorable, not as cute as mine obviously, but still pretty good". Both were said jokingly, but the second one didn't add to my negative self talk. It's a silly little thing but all these things add up over time.
@Gozzil
aw Gozzil, I am so glad to hear this! I'm so happy that you said the latter. the second indeed did not add to any negative self-talk but instead was a much better alternative because it might have made you feel a little better about yourself. oftentimes, we just brush it off saying it won't really matter, it's just a joke but what we say become our reality and just for the fun of it, why not hype ourselves up instead of feeding more into our negative or not-so-good thoughts, it really adds up over time. thank you so much for sharing this personal example!