Honoring the Self: The Pyschology of Confidence and Respect

Often, when a person declares, “I feel guilty over such and such,” what the person really means but rarely acknowledges is, “I am afraid that if mother or father knew about what I had done, I would be condemned.” We frequently find that the person does not actually regard the action as wrong. In these circumstances, the solution to the problem of “

Altruism, as an ethical principle, holds that a human being must make the welfare of others his or her primary moral concern, placing their interests above those of self; it holds that an individual has no right to exist for his or her own sake, that service to others is the moral justification of one’s existence, and that self-sacrifice is one’s f

With the rapid development of science, technology, and industry, they saw, for the first time in history, the individual’s liberated mind taking control of material existence.

The rebellion against the inevitability of death results in a rebellion against the challenges and opportunities of life. If I refuse to live fully, I cannot die. So: fear of autonomy entails fear of self-responsibility entails fear of identity entails fear of aloneness entails fear of death. That which does not exist cannot perish. This issue is o

It is particularly important to understand that a blindness concerning important aspects of self leads to a blindness concerning important aspects of the environment. A person who denies a need for companionship and nurturing, for instance, may be oblivious to opportunities to satisfy that need, such as signs of interest and friendship from people

The more insecure or self-doubting we are, the more likely we are to turn any disappointment, any defeat, any failure to get what we want into evidence of our incompetence, inadequacy, and unworthiness. But that is a correctable problem, not a built-in one.

The will to be efficacious—the refusal of a human consciousness to accept helplessness as its permanent and unalterable condition.

If we are caught up in contemplating the beauty of nature, or experiencing the thrill of skiing down the side of a mountain, or listening to a great piece of music, or looking into the eyes of the person we love, we may indeed be utterly and ecstatically self-oblivious. Everyday boundaries of self may seem to have melted at the level of immediate f

Having the will to be efficacious does not mean that we deny or disown feelings of inefficacy when they arise; it means that we do not accept them as permanent. We can feel temporarily helpless without defining our essence as helplessness. We can feel temporarily defeated without defining our essence as failure. We can allow ourselves to feel tempo