Pillar of self esteem

No matter how nurturing our environment, rationality, self-responsibility and integrity are never aromatic, they always represent an achievement. We are free to think or to avoid think, free to expand consciousness or to contact it, free to move toward reality or to withdraw from it.

Living consciously requires an effort. Generating and sustaining awareness is work. Every time we chose to raise the level of out consciousness, we act against interior. We pit ourselves against entropy, the tendency of everything in the universe to run down toward chaos. In election to think we strive to create an island of order and clarity within ourselves.

The first enemy of self-esteem we may need to overcome is laziness. Sometimes, of course, laziness is abetted by fatigue, but not necessarily. Sometimes we are just lazy, meaning we do not challenge inertia, we do not choose to awaken.

The other dragon, we may need to slay is the impulse to avoid discomfort our fears, it may bring we make real to ourselves thought, feelings or actions that disturb our equilibrium, it may shake up our ultimate aloneness, it demands that we relinquish fantasies of a rescuer. Self-assertiveness entails the courage to be authentic with no guarantee of how others will respond, it means that we risk being ourselves. Living purposefully pulls us out of passivity into the demanding life of high focus, ti requires that we be self-generations. Living with integrity demands that we choose our values and stand by them, whether this is pleasant and whether others share our convictions, there are times when it demands hand choices.

It is easy to see that high self-esteem people are happier than low self-esteem people. Self-esteem is the best predictor of happiness we have. But in the short term, self-esteemed requires the willingness to endure discomfort when that is what one’s spiritual growth entails.

First we avoid what we need to look at because we do not want to feel pain. Then our avoidance produces further problems for us which we also do not want to look at because they evoke pain. Then the new avoidance produces additional problem s we do not acre to examine and so on. Layer of avoidance is piled on layer of avoidance, disowner pan on disowned pain. This is the condition of most adults.

Here is the reveal of the basic pattern. First we decide that our self-esteem and or happiness matter more than short term discomfort or pain. We take baby steps at being more conscious, self-accepting, and responsible and so on. We notice that when we do this we like ourselves more. The inspire us to push on and attempt to go father. We become more truthful with ourselves and others. Self-esteem rise. We take on border assignments. We feel a little tougher, a little more respectful. It became easier to comfort discomfiting emotions and threatening situations, we feel we have more assets with which to cope. We become more self-assertive. We feel stronger. We are building the spiritual equivalent of a muscle. Experiencing ourselves as more powerful, we see of fear or pain, but they have lessened immeasurably and we are not intimidated by them. Integrity feels les threatening and more natural.

If the process were entirely easy, if there was nothing hard about it at any point, if perseverance and courage were never needed, everyone would have good self-esteem. But a life without effort, struggle or suffering is an infant’s dream.

One of the ways this is accomplished is by helping people see that doing what is difficult but necessary need not be a big thin. We do not have to catastrophize fear or discomfort. We can accept them as part of life, a face them and deal with them as best we can and keep mocking into the direction our best possibilities.

But always, will is needed. Perseverance is needed. Courage is needed.

The energy of this commitment can only come from the love we have for ur own life.

This love is the beginning of virtue. It is the launching pad for our highest and oles aspirations.