ego
The Need for Approval | Ego | Evolution
Many people have read this piece and encouraged me to post it publicly. So, by popular demand…
It is an email I posted to a client near the end of their completion of the Personal Evolution Program, and in it I address a need for approval, ego development, the purpose and motivation for personal evolution…and the distinction between self-worth and value, and more…
Your self-worth is a settled matter if you will accept it as such.
Enjoy.
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Emotional Freedom Techniques [Part 2]
Be sure to read Part 1 here first.
Practical Steps to Emotional Freedom
Your practice, if you want to develop choice, facility, and ultimately, personal freedom and mastery over your own subjective experience, is the following:
Make a decision right now to take 100% responsibility for your subjective experience. Every bit of it. Your interpretations, your feelings, your emotions, your beliefs—accept that 100% of your subjective experience is generated by…you.
The Benefit of a Spiritual Practice [Part 2 of 2]
Be sure to read Part 1 of this article here.
Taking Responsibility
The more you take responsibility—for your emotions, your actions, your life the more you build self-esteem. It is not the person who upset you, it is that you became triggered—or that you lost facility. It is not that the cost of living is too high; it is that you are not generating enough income. It is not that someone treats you poorly; it is that you are ineffective at drawing appropriate boundaries. The locus of responsibility—and therefore power—is within you. Nothing is external. To blame someone is to give them tremendous power over you. When you forgo blame in favor of responsibility, you give up comfort, but you reap tremendous rewards—gaining power and building self-esteem.
The Need for Experimentation and Detachment | Organizing Principles
“There is no such thing as failure–only feedback for course correction.”
It is rumored that a missile is of course over 90% of the time. That the purpose of its guidance systems are to constantly course correct, course correct, course correct. Most of the time, with an effective guidance system, we know that even given that necessity for course correction, the missile hits its intended target with a reasonably high level of accuracy.
The Importance of Self Esteem
As I mentioned in an earlier episode of Evolutionary Sales, it is impossible to over-estimate the importance of Self-Esteem, or as I prefer to say: “esteem for the self”.
Why would I assert it is impossible to over-estimate the importance of Self-Esteem?
Its viability is your immune system for life–and the antidote to most of your day-to-day emotional and interpersonal struggles and challenges. Whether you take things too personally, fail to rebound from rejection quickly enough, have nagging self-doubts, seek validation, or question your ability to create the life you want…it could be considered a self-esteem issue. In fact, whether it is true or not, it would be useful to consider all upset as sourced in self-esteem or insufficient ego development.
Self-esteem is one of the most important, yet most overused and misunderstood concepts in popular psychology today.
What Self-Esteem Is and Is Not
Nathaniel Branden, PhD
Copyright © 1997, Nathaniel Branden, All Rights Reserved
This article is adapted from “The Art of Living Consciously” (Simon & Schuster, 1997).Four decades ago, when I began lecturing on self-esteem, the challenge was to persuade people that the subject was worthy of study. Almost no one was talking or writing about self-esteem in those days. Today, almost everyone seems to be talking about self-esteem, and the danger is that the idea may become trivialized. And yet, of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
Having written on this theme in a series of books, I want, in this short article, to address the issue of what self-esteem is, what it depends on, and what are some of the most prevalent misconceptions about it.
Self-esteem is an experience. It is a particular way of experiencing the self. It is a good deal more than a mere feeling—this must be stressed. It involves emotional, evaluative, and cognitive components. It also entails certain action dispositions: to move toward life rather than away from it; to move toward consciousness rather than away from it; to treat facts with respect rather than denial; to operate self-responsibly rather than the opposite.
Losing the Enlightenment: Victor Davis Hanson
From the Opinion Journal:
Our current crisis is not yet a catastrophe, but a real loss of confidence of the spirit. The hard-won effort of the Western Enlightenment of some 2,500 years that, along with Judeo-Christian benevolence, is the foundation of our material progress, common decency, and scientific excellence, is at risk in this new millennium.
But our newest foes of Reason are not the enraged Athenian democrats who tried and executed Socrates. And they are not the Christian zealots of the medieval church who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity. Nor are they Nazis who burned books and turned Western science against its own to murder millions en masse.
No, the culprits are now more often us. In the most affluent, and leisured age in the history of Western civilization–never more powerful in its military reach, never more prosperous in our material bounty–we have become complacent, and then scared of the most recent face of barbarism from the primordial extremists of the Middle East.
The 21st Century Marketplace
Welcome to the 21st Century Marketplace.
There has been a shift afoot in the marketplace for decades. A shift that is approaching critical mass. Consumers of products and services have so much choice and so much access to information that they are now free to choose those providers who most suit their preferences.
This…is good. It creates competition and depth like never before.
Evolutionary Radio: Session 4: Evolutionary Guidance
In this session of Evolutionary Radio, Ian Blei, founder of Optimized Results, is interviewing me on Personal Evolution, what it means to be an Evolutionary Guide, what clients report who work with me, why I offer a complimentary exploratory session, what people can expect from that session and much, much more.
Your options are much easier now. You can either use the in-line player by clicking on it below, or use one of the various links to download or play it in another window.
Fire Destroys [My] San Rafael Apartment
From the Marin Independent Journal August 7th, 2006:
San Rafael firefighters are investigating the cause of a two-alarm fire that destroyed a D Street apartment Sunday afternoon. No one was injured in the fire. “We have no idea what caused it,” Battalion Chief Ritt Hewitt said.
He said the fire’s origins were confusing, but not suspicious.
“It began in a room that was almost bare, except for some books and small electronic items,” Hewitt said. “We’re not sure what happened.”
Firefighters arrived at 412 D Street at 2:19 p.m. to find a small but intense fire burning in the apartment of Addrianna Reitenbach.
Identity and Identification
Part 1: Identification
“The ultimate spiritual practice is dis-identifying from that which you think is you—objects in your awareness…” —Ken Wilber, Kosmic Consciousness
On August 7th, 2006, my apartment burned down. I lost everything aside from my laptop and the majority of my clothing, which had luckily been moved the night before to another location.
What do you do when your house burns down and you lose virtually all of your possessions? In the context of Personal Evolution, it is an opportunity. An opportunity to dis-identify from that which you think is you—and that which you have grown attached to. It is also an opportunity to explore just where and to what ”things” you are identified, or more accurately—to what degree.
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