Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Self-Validation, or Living from the Inside Out
From the moment we open our eyes when we wake up, we are required to make decisions and choices. They come to us out of necessity, survival, ambition, desire, delegation, and a hodge-podge of external pressures. We are constantly weighing one thing against another. If we look carefully, we could probably find an idiomatic expression in every language that coincides with "choosing the lesser of two evils" and "choose wisely" and "decide now; don't wait; act fast", "buy now and save..."
To live is to choose. To be human is to decide.
Yet, in the multitude of decisions we are called on to make from one moment to the next, including the ones we didn't see coming when we woke up, there is one decision that constantly needs renewing. We may not be aware of it, and yet, from the moment we arrive on the planet, a thousand influences around us constantly present themselves in an effort to influence that one decision.
The decision I speak of is that of self-trust, self-definition and self-validation. This is the three-legged stool every human being sits on. Remove one leg and the stool falls, and we fall with it.
Think of the myriad of influences that impact one of these three priceless ingredients of being a self-actualized human being. I'm referring to influences that exist outside of us, the ones that are external to our inner being. Many are positive and nurturing; many are not. Every one of them will define us, pending our acceptance, and our acceptance depends on how much authority we place in the source of the influence. We sometimes don't realize that we are the sole authority, the one and only expert, on who we are and what that means. We sometimes give that power away, and along with it, the power to choose for ourselves what will and will not be part of our self-validation.
These influences constantly present their "case" for who we are, who we should be, how valuable we are, what we should be doing, and how, and when, and how fast...and we accept those external definitions, sometimes consciously, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes out of conviction or fear or guilt or a longing to belong, and one accepted external definition builds on the rest.
Once we accept them, they become ours, for good or bad; they become truth for us as individuals. However they came to be, regardless of their value or truth, the moment we swallow them down they become our personal truth, and all personal truths tell us who we are.
So we go through our day deciding things, and yet we allow this most crucial decision of all, upon which the foundation of our personal peace, self-love, hope and stamina depends, to be influenced by what exists outside our inner being.
How might our other decisions be informed, if we begin our day by reaffirming our right to trust ourselves, define ourselves and validate our own existence? Scary thought? Yes. That means total self-awareness, self-acknowledgment and self-responsibility. Moreover, it means an identity crisis, because we sometimes become very secure with even the most hurtful self-definition. We may feel that the person we believe we are is preferable to anything else, because we have come to know ourselves in that light, even if we our maintaining a very negative self-image.
We may even go so far as to reject a more positive self-image, because that would mean we have to change, and we've become self-secure with our skepticism, cynicism, guilt and worst-case-scenario thought patterns. So some of us don't take compliments well, or are floored by blessings, or mistrust positive outcomes. We may even resort to reminders of experiences we've had that made us feel devalued.
If one's self-image is built on the negation of self-worth, on guilt, on a sense of having been cheated or deprived or betrayed by those in whom we vested the right to define us, then we can't help but be angry, insecure and convinced we are "not good enough". Even so, rather than trade that old familiar painful self-context, we will stick to our guns and go down crying, because this is the familiar face we wear when we look in the mirror and we don't know who we are unless we are that person.
And yet humanity is pure courage, by nature.
How might our relationships with others be improved if we declare our emotional independence from those external definitions which are not our own? How might we be healthier, since what we feel emotionally informs our entire outlook, and our outlook informs our physical well-being? How might we be stronger, live longer, be rock-solid for our loved ones, refuse disparagement, refuse anger, refuse guilt, refuse confusion, if we begin this day by deciding we are that person we decide we are, we like that person we are, we accept that person, just as we are right now in this moment, and acknowledge that nothing else can justify our existence or give value to our lives but our own inner council? How might we be stronger when we realize that this decision is ours alone to make and cannot be made by any other?
You can wake up each day, shoring up your three-legged stool, with a simple renewal of your unconditional definition of self-acceptance and self-appreciation for the fact that you are the one and only "you" on the planet, and you don't have to justify your presence here. You are; therefore you are meant to be.
This doesn't leave one's conscience on the outside. Because anything worth doing--including being yourself--is worth doing right. It's our innate desire to show the best of ourselves to the rest of the world. That's something you have to trust yourself on. But only when we can understand what moral integrity means to us in a context of self can it have real meaning in our lives. We may follow guidelines all our lives without understanding why we do; by understanding them in a personal way, as individuals, they become ours. But again, this means we have to trust ourselves.
Self-trust. Self-definition. Self-validation. Living from the inside out.
You can do this.
To live is to choose. To be human is to decide.
Yet, in the multitude of decisions we are called on to make from one moment to the next, including the ones we didn't see coming when we woke up, there is one decision that constantly needs renewing. We may not be aware of it, and yet, from the moment we arrive on the planet, a thousand influences around us constantly present themselves in an effort to influence that one decision.
The decision I speak of is that of self-trust, self-definition and self-validation. This is the three-legged stool every human being sits on. Remove one leg and the stool falls, and we fall with it.
Think of the myriad of influences that impact one of these three priceless ingredients of being a self-actualized human being. I'm referring to influences that exist outside of us, the ones that are external to our inner being. Many are positive and nurturing; many are not. Every one of them will define us, pending our acceptance, and our acceptance depends on how much authority we place in the source of the influence. We sometimes don't realize that we are the sole authority, the one and only expert, on who we are and what that means. We sometimes give that power away, and along with it, the power to choose for ourselves what will and will not be part of our self-validation.
These influences constantly present their "case" for who we are, who we should be, how valuable we are, what we should be doing, and how, and when, and how fast...and we accept those external definitions, sometimes consciously, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes out of conviction or fear or guilt or a longing to belong, and one accepted external definition builds on the rest.
Once we accept them, they become ours, for good or bad; they become truth for us as individuals. However they came to be, regardless of their value or truth, the moment we swallow them down they become our personal truth, and all personal truths tell us who we are.
So we go through our day deciding things, and yet we allow this most crucial decision of all, upon which the foundation of our personal peace, self-love, hope and stamina depends, to be influenced by what exists outside our inner being.
How might our other decisions be informed, if we begin our day by reaffirming our right to trust ourselves, define ourselves and validate our own existence? Scary thought? Yes. That means total self-awareness, self-acknowledgment and self-responsibility. Moreover, it means an identity crisis, because we sometimes become very secure with even the most hurtful self-definition. We may feel that the person we believe we are is preferable to anything else, because we have come to know ourselves in that light, even if we our maintaining a very negative self-image.
We may even go so far as to reject a more positive self-image, because that would mean we have to change, and we've become self-secure with our skepticism, cynicism, guilt and worst-case-scenario thought patterns. So some of us don't take compliments well, or are floored by blessings, or mistrust positive outcomes. We may even resort to reminders of experiences we've had that made us feel devalued.
If one's self-image is built on the negation of self-worth, on guilt, on a sense of having been cheated or deprived or betrayed by those in whom we vested the right to define us, then we can't help but be angry, insecure and convinced we are "not good enough". Even so, rather than trade that old familiar painful self-context, we will stick to our guns and go down crying, because this is the familiar face we wear when we look in the mirror and we don't know who we are unless we are that person.
And yet humanity is pure courage, by nature.
How might our relationships with others be improved if we declare our emotional independence from those external definitions which are not our own? How might we be healthier, since what we feel emotionally informs our entire outlook, and our outlook informs our physical well-being? How might we be stronger, live longer, be rock-solid for our loved ones, refuse disparagement, refuse anger, refuse guilt, refuse confusion, if we begin this day by deciding we are that person we decide we are, we like that person we are, we accept that person, just as we are right now in this moment, and acknowledge that nothing else can justify our existence or give value to our lives but our own inner council? How might we be stronger when we realize that this decision is ours alone to make and cannot be made by any other?
You can wake up each day, shoring up your three-legged stool, with a simple renewal of your unconditional definition of self-acceptance and self-appreciation for the fact that you are the one and only "you" on the planet, and you don't have to justify your presence here. You are; therefore you are meant to be.
This doesn't leave one's conscience on the outside. Because anything worth doing--including being yourself--is worth doing right. It's our innate desire to show the best of ourselves to the rest of the world. That's something you have to trust yourself on. But only when we can understand what moral integrity means to us in a context of self can it have real meaning in our lives. We may follow guidelines all our lives without understanding why we do; by understanding them in a personal way, as individuals, they become ours. But again, this means we have to trust ourselves.
Self-trust. Self-definition. Self-validation. Living from the inside out.
You can do this.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Ah this is better
Well the blog looks a bit better now, more normal, less squished. Hopefully it will stay this way.
:) Janet
:) Janet
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Something weird is happening here at Blogger
So things will look a little strange around here until I can sort it out.
But I guess starting fresh is always a good idea :)
But I guess starting fresh is always a good idea :)
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