Pillars of Self-esteem: Principle One - Living Consciously (Part C)

By: Liz Seger

Summary:
Self-esteem is the reputation you have acquired about yourself by choosing to build your self-identity. Which of these 16 potential choices have been most important in helping you live consciously? Why?

What It Means to Be Living Consciously

Which of These Potential Choices Speak Directly to You?

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We've refined our definition of self-efficacy and self-worth, recognizing that pride is an important component of our self-worth and not the negative feeling that most of us have been taught to avoid. We realize that pride in our accomplishments and in our own value is a very important factor in gaining a healthy sense of self-esteem.

And we've also looked at consciousness as a basic tool of our survival. On the life chain, the higher the consciousness the more evolved each species has become. As we mature and become more aware of the world around us, we have more and varied experiences, which, in turn, increase our consciousness about the world and us.

In his book, "The Six Pillars of Self-esteem," Nathaniel Branden states, "Your mind is a basic tool of survival. Betray it and self-esteem suffers." If you are living in a mental fog or preoccupied all the time and not mindful of what is going on around you, you cannot feel competent or worthy. You know you aren't giving life your total best. So you lose your inner sense of discernment, and you avoid acting on what you know inwardly and perhaps outwardly to be choices that are best for you.

You perhaps have parents or grandparents who put off going to the doctor for a symptom they "know" is cancer or some other dreaded disease, when, in fact, most times the problem is something treatable or not fatal at all. And, even if what they know is true, medicine has come a long way and may have newer treatments available to prolong one's life.

By avoiding the facts (not being mindful about our own bodies or our jobs or our children), we may postpone for awhile what we don't want to accept, but eventually we have to painfully accept what is and then take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Through the choices we make to think or not think, to take responsibility or evade, we determine what kind of person we are and will become. Our self-esteem will either suffer or be enhanced, dependent upon our choices. Think of self-esteem as the reputation we acquire with ourselves, and that reputation we hold about ourselves affects our ability to live consciously.

What It Means to Be Living Consciously

Living consciously entails the following:

Developing a mind that is active rather than passive
Tapping an intelligence that takes joy in its own function
Being "in the moment" without losing the wider context
Reaching out to relevant facts rather than withdrawing from them
Being careful to distinguish among facts, interpretations and emotions
Noticing and confronting your impulses to deny or avoid painful and/or threatening realities
Being concerned to know "where you are" relative to your various (personal and professional) goals and projects and whether you are succeeding or failing
Checking to see whether your actions are in alignment with your purposes
Searching for feedback from the environment so you can adjust or correct your course of action when necessary
Persevering in an attempt to understand in spite of difficulties
Being receptive to new knowledge and willing to examine old assumptions
Being willing to see and correct mistakes
Seeking always to expand awareness -- a commitment to learning -- therefore, a commitment to growth as a way of life
Seeking to understand the world around you
Recognizing not only external reality but also an internal reality -- the reality of your needs, feelings, aspirations and motives so that you are not a stranger or mystery to yourself
Affirming the values that move and guide you -- as well as the roots of those values -- so that you are not ruled by values you have irrationally adopted or uncritically accepted from others

Let's briefly examine each of these 16 potential choices for living consciously.

Developing a mind that is active rather than passive

With this concept, we encounter one of the most fundamental ideas of living consciously and self-assertion: our ability to think and seek awareness, clarity, and knowledge. Implicit in this is also self-responsibility: "I am the only one responsible for me, my actions, my thoughts, my own existence, my own happiness."

News flash -- no one is coming for you. There is no white knight, no magic genie who is going to whisk you away. You are responsible to you and for you. No one, no matter what someone thinks or says or does, is responsible for you. They may want to convince you they have your best interest at heart (and sometimes they do) or that they know better than you -- but don't you believe it. Only you can make yourself happy; someone else can't or shouldn't do it for you.
Tapping an intelligence that takes joy in its own function

Have you ever watched babies as they explore their environment; it's all entertainment for them -- their toes, their squeaks, the mobile, the dog's tail, whatever. Each encounter is a moment of both joy and growth. As adults, however, we choose how we look at each encounter, each moment. It can be joyful or fearful or painful or exhausting -- it's all how we choose to view it. As persons with disabilities, we can choose to view all of our experiences as any of the above or all of the above.

If we do it mindfully, we come to realize that, no matter how painful or joyous our lives are, it's all part of being who we are. It's purposeful, part of the "big" plan, if you subscribe to the idea that we are all here for a purpose, and part of our lessons in the Earth School, as Gary Zukav in "The Seat of the Soul" calls it, is to be aware and make consciousness not a burden but a delight and a source of satisfaction.
Being "in the moment" without losing the wider context

Being "in the moment" -- I know this has "hippie dippie" connotations to some of you. It evokes images of self indulgence and lack of self-responsibility. However, being in the moment isn't about unabated hedonism. It's about being really present when you are doing something and not having your mind elsewhere while you're interacting.

At this moment, my cat is "in the moment." She wants my full and undivided attention; she doesn't want me sitting at a computer, typing and not paying attention to her royal majesty. So she is walking over my keyboard, knocking over my pens and pencils, flopping on my written text and showing me her belly, which she wants me to-rub or scratch. She is in the moment with me, and, for a time, I will stop what I am doing and be in the moment with her. She doesn't care that I have work to do; this is her play time now. My work will get done eventually and playing with her for a few moments will give us both pleasure and joy and be a small respite for me until I have to get back to my work.

Dr. Phillip C. McGraw in his book, "Self Matters" talks about an incident in his life when he wasn't in the moment -- the first 12 years after he finished graduate school. He got his doctorate, went into practice with his father, did therapy and went through the motions. He had a wife and kids, but, as he says, he wasn't really there. He didn't want to be there; he was preoccupied with all the same things we all are in life -- making money, having a home and a car. He was just like a lab rat going through the paces -- until one day, after much soul searching, he said, "Enough, I can't live like this anymore." He told his wife he was quitting his job and they were moving and he was starting a new life far away from what he had been doing. He was tired of living up to and through everyone else's expectations of him and not being present in his life.

And with that change in his choices, Dr. McGraw became a successful consultant in selecting potential jurors. He enjoyed going to work every day, he enjoyed being with his wife and children and participating in their lives, without being preoccupied about other things. He was one of the consultants on the Oprah Winfrey beef trial in Texas, and meeting Ms. Winfrey opened up another new set of opportunities for him. That has made him even more excited about the work he does and who he has become.

You don't have to become trapped being in the moment all the time. No one would get anything done if we did that constantly. But when you are with friends, your children, and your family for a time, the dishes can wait, and the report will get done sooner than later. Mr. Clean isn't going to come and do a white glove test on your house, and, if he does, so what? Take the time to really be there and enjoy being in the moment with them. It's self-empowering and self-affirming, and isn't that what you're shooting for?
Reaching out to relevant facts rather than withdrawing from them

Only your values, needs, wants and goals can determine what is relevant to you. However, it is also important to be alert to and curious about "new" information that can cause you to modify or change your course of action or assumptions. Is there something new to learn which can widen your viewpoint. Or do you close your mind to anything new and different or stick to the ways you've always done things or thought about things.

The late Queen Mum is a perfect example of someone who, despite her age, kept relevant with the world around her and was always curious about the world. Her great grandson, Prince William, recounted that his great grandmother made him laugh after imitating a rapper and then teased him to tell her where the "good" parties were at university so she could come and "get down" with him. He said he told her, "No way, Granny, you can dance me under the table." She was 101.
Being careful to distinguish among facts, interpretations and emotions

Have you ever been in a situation with a boss or a parent or a teacher and you see a frown on his face? Or the person snaps at you? Right away, you think, "Oh, I've done something wrong" or "that person hates me or why me" -- but later find out that the person was just having a particularly bad day and it had nothing to do with you at all. That is what this means.

When something goes amiss, it is your responsibility to examine and analyze the facts surrounding what happened and look at how that situation can be examined not just from one perspective but from many points of view and then choose the emotion that you are feeling in respect to the situation. What really is happening, how you interpret what is happening and what your emotions are about that event are three different things -- not one -- and being able to distinguish between the three effectively helps you stay grounded with reality.
Noticing and confronting your impulses to deny or avoid painful and/or threatening realities

We all try to avoid things that will cause us pain or threaten us; this is a human reaction. But we also need to override these impulses, to increase our self-awareness and to live consciously. It can be very seductive to run away or escape or become unconscious again because it is just easier. But it isn't as empowering to our self-esteem. If anything, it is destructive.

Branden states, "Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider -- not to look away but to look more attentively. Self-esteem asks not for flawless success but earnest intention to be conscious."
Being concerned to know "where you are" relative to your various (personal and professional) goals and projects and whether you are succeeding or failing

Let me give you a personal example of this in action. My friend, Jo, and I have been enrolled in a web design course online. From the beginning, we had been given wrong information. We had to wait for a textbook. We'd been told we didn't have to buy it but subsequently found out we did have to buy it, and it was pivotal to the course.

The time range they gave us for the course has been cut in half, and we realize now that there is no way we will be able to complete the assignments let alone do the final exam in time for the college time line. The professor indicated it was our responsibility to find out the correct information, and he didn't care what the college has told us.

So we've decided that we will not do the exam but complete the assignments to teach ourselves and find other resources to help us along in our studies. Since neither of us is planning a career in web design, the grade or writing the final exam isn't relevant to us. What is relevant is the information we need to learn to design the web site for our business. The textbook gives us that information, and we can get further assistance from friends and associates who have designed web sites. We know we can succeed at this but not in the formalized way of a college course.

We could beat ourselves up over this and say how stupid we are, but that is not empowering nor will it get us the information we need. However, we also know that it will be a long time before we take another course from this college, which is not self-responsible for its actions.
Checking to see whether your actions are in alignment with your purposes

Are your actions in alignment with your purposes? To use the vernacular, do you talk the talk and walk the walk? In other words, do you say what you're going to do and actually do it?

When I was in elementary school and telling people I was going to go to university eventually and the "experts" predicted I wouldn't get out of elementary school, let alone high school, people (including some of the teachers I had) probably thought, "Oh, yeah -- sure she is!"

However, I applied myself in high school and got accepted into all my choices for colleges and even a few I applied to on a lark and didn't expect to get accepted at. I did graduate from university --- twice, with two bachelor degrees. Yes, it took me away from some fun times, but it was something I really wanted to achieve. That kept me on purpose. And that's part of my personal integrity, which is a vital part of my self-esteem.

It's true you should dream big and do all you can to make that goal come true, but you also must know your limits.
Searching for feedback from the environment so you can adjust or correct your course of action when necessary

These last three points kind of follow one another. You know what you want to do and you know what you have to do to achieve it, but, if you hit an obstacle, do you know how to adjust your plan and are you willing to follow through on that adjustment?

I'll go back to the example I gave you about my friend, Jo, and I trying to complete the web design course online. We've encountered nothing but obstacles from this course (from registration onward), and, yes, we could have walked away and said, "Oh, to heck with it." However, both of us invested money in buying the textbook (which was a sizeable amount), and so we decided, between the two of us, that we would teach ourselves the information and use other resources to keep us on point with designing a web site for our business. We received only negative feedback from the college and the professor, so we adjusted ourselves and our goals and what we have to do to meet those goals.

You have to be willing and able to look at the feedback you are getting around you and honestly sift through it to find out if it is relevant to your plans. Then realistically make adjustments and keep on going on with whatever you want to do.

The story of the little Dutch boy who kept his finger in the hole of the dyke to keep the water from spilling into the town comes to mind. He did what he had to do. But the expression, "What you resist, persists," also comes to mind, too. The longer you resist an idea or a concept the more times you will revisit that obstacle until you are willing, as Fagan in "Oliver" once sang, "Sit me down and think it through again."
Persevering in an attempt to understand in spite of difficulties

Persevering isn't the same as resisting. When you persevere, you use all the feedback you've gathered to help you achieve your goal; you're willing to re-adjust and re-adjust again, if need be, to reach what you want to achieve. It may be like our web design course, or it may be a concept in one of your studies at school, or it may even be a health challenge you're facing. You just keep plugging away no matter what they throw in front of you to achieve your goal.

As you continue, you find the help you need to get you past the hurdle. But you just don't stop - unless, after a time, you determine that it isn't what you really want or need to do at that time.
Being receptive to new knowledge and willing to examine old assumptions

This one has hit home for me in a personal way. I am a fan of John Denver. I belong to many John Denver sites on the Net, and, of late, there have been letters to the Aspen Times about John's working relationships, friendships and associations -- kind of like, "John thought more of me," or "I had more influence with John than you did."

It's been very interesting to observe the reaction of his fans. There are some who think, if there is anything not in alignment with their personal views of the man, it is a besmirchment of his legacy and condemnation of the man. Others, on the other hand, enjoy reading this kind of information (this new knowledge, so to speak) and are receptive to different voices from different directions, which broadens their views of who John Denver was and how he influenced people.

And so it is with anything you encounter -- be it media information or something your co-workers or boss say. Don't automatically reject all information as biased because it is different from what you "know" to be true.

Then again also don't accept everything you hear or read as gospel either and take on the last opinion you hear as your own without examining it. Let new information come to you, examine it, test it out to see if it meshes with your goals, values etc., and try to look at it from a different perspective than your own. You'll find that being more open to new information and knowledge helps you shine a light on the dark corners of your own knowledge and experiences and gives you clarity.
Being willing to see and correct mistakes

Do you have to be right no matter what, no matter what the facts are, because it's a winning thing for you to be right?

Brandon states, "Living consciously implies that my first loyalty is to truth, not making myself right. All of us are wrong some of the time, all of us make mistakes, but, if we have tied our self-esteem (pseudo self-esteem) to being above error, or over-attached to our positions, we are obliged to shrink consciousness into misguided self-protection. To find it humiliating to admit an error is a certain sign of flawed self-esteem."

It is said that the evolutionist Charles Darwin wrote down every contradiction to his theory of evolution so that he would be able to re-examine it and not trust the contradiction to his memory. He was willing to at least think about errors in his theory and admit them if he had to.
Seeking always to expand awareness -- a commitment to learning -- therefore, a commitment to growth as a way of life

Recently the term "lifetime learning" has become a part of our lexicon, whereas before it was believed by some that once you finished formalized schooling, learning was done. We've learned that, to keep our brains healthy, we must continually be finding new sources of information and new things to learn. Learning continues throughout our lives. That is why you see so many seniors going back to school or joining Elderhostel programs to learn different things than what they know or knew about the world. It's empowering to learn, and you still keep on learning, whether you want to believe it or not, until the day you die.

A John Denver lyric from the song, "I want to Live" (written when he was a UN ambassador for UNICEF) illustrates this concept beautifully: "I want to live, I want to grow, I want to see, I want to grow. I want to be all I can be, I want to live." Expanding, growing and living fully with consciousness contributes to a well- developed self-esteem -- to do anything else is like self-abuse.
Seeking to understand the world around you

Oftentimes we get so caught up in our own little world, our own concerns, that we only see what is in front of us. Our own point of view of the world is "the only one." But that's not so, and that is what contributes to the major disconnections in this world -- disconnections which lead to war, violence, murder, hatred and extremism.

It is up to us to go beyond ourselves -- beyond our personal and political and religious and societal borders to find not only the differences but the commonalities. It doesn't have to be about you versus me but rather you and me working together.

It takes a lot of work to learn about other cultures, other countries and other points of view than the one we know that has been handed down to us for generations. After September 11, we all found out where Afghanistan is located and what Islam is and isn't. It was a Western wake up call, especially in North America, where we had become complacent -- thinking terrorism happens somewhere else but not in our communities.

Living consciously is to understand the full context in our lives.
Recognizing not only external reality but also an internal reality -- the reality of your needs, feelings, aspirations and motives so that you are not a stranger or mystery to yourself

We've all met them; we may be them: very competent people in book knowledge with degrees coming out the whazoo. But they don't have a clue about what is going on inside themselves.

"The wreckage of their personal life," says Branden, "is a
monument to the magnitude of their unconsciousness concerning the internal world of the self. They deny and disown their needs, rationalize their emotions, intellectualize or spiritualize their behaviors -- while moving from one unsatisfactory relationship to another or remaining for a lifetime in the same one without doing anything practical to improve it. I am not living consciously if my mind is used for everything but self-understanding."

I have a friend, JJ, who is like this. Unhappy with herself and unhappy with her marital relationship, she pursues different personas online and wreaks havoc in other's marital relationships and personal relationships. When she is offered help, she refuses or ignores it, but yet she complains about how wrong her life is, how awful it is. She does absolutely nothing to change herself or her life. She's rapidly alienating her friends and probably her family as well.

Debbie Ford, in her "The Secret of the Shadow" book, refers to "self-help junkies" -- men and women who go from one self-help seminar to another, seeking to find the answers to their lives. They know all the mantras and all the affirmations, but they don't put what they have learned into action for change, and they keep making themselves physically if not mentally sick and then wonder why things don't work out for them.

That is not to say that one should reject outside help. Recognize the fact you may need outside help and then go about getting that help and putting into practice a counselor's suggestions.

Dr. McGraw talks about a family who came to him for counseling. No one was taking personal responsibility for what they were doing in the family to cause chaos. As soon as Dr. McGraw made suggestions about how they could change their dynamic, they turned on him, in fact saying, "We don't want to change; we enjoy the chaos. We'd rather stay in what we know makes us all nuts than change and possibly create more problems for ourselves." He finally gave up and dismissed them from therapy.

In other words, Branden poses a key question we can all ask ourselves: "Do I know what I am doing when I particularly like myself and what I am doing when I don't?"
Affirming the values that move and guide you -- as well as the roots of those values -- so that you are not ruled by values you have irrationally adopted or uncritically accepted from others

Abused women often adopt their partner's "criticisms" of them as a true reflection of who they are, and that oftentimes keeps them in the control of the abuser. They actually believe they are worthless, that no one but the partner will want them or love them, and that's why so many of them press charges but then renege or recant their stories.

So do people who have been abused either sexually or emotionally or physically. They believe their perpetrators' assessments of themselves and unconsciously and critically adopt them as real and true without examining them for their validity.

Dr. McGraw suggests four questions to ask yourself. They test the authenticity of your self-identity or self-concept. He says be thorough and be ruthless -- and "bottom line don't listen to your crap anymore. If it doesn't pass the test for authenticity, then dump it and dump it now."
1. Is it true?
2. Does holding on to the thought or attitude serve your best interest?
3. Are your thoughts and attitudes advancing and protecting your health?
4. Do your thoughts and beliefs get you what you want?

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Which of These Potential Choices Speak Directly to You?

Which of these 16 potential choices have been most important in helping you live consciously? Why? Join the discussion at http://www.esight.org/forward.cfm?pid=167

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