Pre-Addendum to Self-Care

 The title is referring to the fact that although this is a succeeding text to the prior post, it will precede it on this page.

A friend of mine complained that I didn't provide enough of a model for how one should hone one's own sense of self-worth.  She wants to think about things before they happen, maybe practice it in her own mind, but life doesn't often provide us with that opportunity.  Our lessons are usually thrust upon us unawares. Besides, I thought I'd done a pretty good job of using a real-life example: conflict with others.  Who isn't familiar with that?  And if you aren't, you soon will be.

To a certain extent, a sense of self-worth is earned slowly through the many tests of a lifetime.  It's kind of a side-effect of time and maturity.

What I didn't explain was how one affirms oneself, thinking that these are things one learns for oneself, in one's own way.

I think one learns to affirm oneself by taking one's stand upon what is within rather than looking outside of oneself, or to other people, to set one's course.  Our friends, and sometimes our frenemies, are often helpful in mirroring back to us our own false reads upon a situation or set of circumstances.  But eventually the time will arrive when one's internal sense of what is right in a certain instance -- what is right for us, in other words -- will be at odds with the opinions of those upon whom we might otherwise rely.  In the end, it is your own sense of judgement which has to steer your ship.  It isn't so much about being "right" in an objective sense -- if there truly is any such thing -- as it is a matter of personal self-knowledge and self-honesty.  The day comes when you can no longer make excuses for yourself.  You must live by your own light, go your own way, or lose yourself along another's.

It's a balancing act between your head and your heart.  If you seek to live by your head alone, i.e., by logic, then good luck with your life.  Our hearts don't really lead us astray.  It's our identification with our desires and the belief that their fulfillment is "happiness" that is really the crux of the issue.  We presume that the satisfaction of desire, winning our desired end, will result in what we call "happiness."  It's the curse of Western culture.

Ten years ago I wrote thirty pages about desire on a blog, deconstructing it for myself.  Desire does tend to lead us into learning, but often it's painful learning.  Besides, desires are endless.  They never end.  They're never truly sated.  As the Buddha noted, either you suffer through their fulfillment, which is necessarily temporary, or the pangs of the longing of unfulfillment creates suffering, or one's focus and energy is depleted in an endless round of seeking, suffering, or satiation which never ends.  Then you're nothing more than a hamster in a wheel, chasing desire, running like hell and never getting anywhere.

I only mention this because people sometimes confuse their desires with the promptings of their heart. Don't.  The voice of the heart differs from that of desire.  Desire is insidious.  The voice of the heart is quieter, more subtle.  Unless you choose to ignore your heart's directional signal, in which case, sooner or later, the promptings of your own heart will be screaming at you.

You can numb your heart, if you try.  You can ignore it by an act of will (read: ego).  But then you're in a boat adrift without a paddle.  Because the apparent opposition between the head and the heart occurs when the function of one is encroaching upon the respective territory of the other.

Your heart tells you what is important in life.  What is most important to you, personally.  Your hopes, dreams, wishes, ideals.  Your head tells you how to get there.  That's the order, and you can't reverse it without throwing your entire life into an uproar.

Heart leads, head follows.  Heart sites the goal, head helps determine the way.  Heart is the "why" and the "what."  Head is the "how."  Lead with your heart, and let your head support that.

That's a basic premise for determining how to take your stand upon the truth within.  Your heart must recognize what that truth is for you.  Your head can't do that.  The head at best can be cleverly selfish when it encroaches upon the sphere of the heart.

So, when I said you must affirm yourself in the previous post, what I meant was that you must first ascertain, and then follow -- despite the clamor of the voices of others -- the truth within, the voice of your own heart,  and you must pursue that course if your life is to truly be your own.

Don't let go of that internal gyroscope -- which you must feel -- or else you really will be lost.

Choose Me or Lose Me

 I'm always amazed at the amount of pain and abuse people will put up with in the name of love.  The obvious, repeated, twisted folly of lies, cheating, damage that we witness others endure, sometimes for years, in their sad attempt to win what the other person will never, ever give them:  acceptance, value, validation, worth -- in other words, love.  All those things we mistakenly seek outside of ourselves.

Of course, it's much easier to see the patterns of others than our own.  Harder to discern the origin of, much less disentangle oneself from, the compulsive behaviors that are the earmark of our own unconscious, negative, and love-negating patterns.

I've sometimes had friends tell me, to my chagrin, "You know, love isn't supposed to hurt.  It isn't supposed to be that hard."  When I've heard that statement, I've wondered in the privacy of my own mind, "Am I just shadow-dancing yet again?  Is this not love....again?"

I'm not sure I've ever known real, reciprocal love.  Who among us has?  What is far more common is to see people unconsciously acting out patterns of behavior scripted in their own murky deeps, of which they seem completely unaware.  But you can't live an entire life -- I wouldn't think -- without figuring out that you have shadows which you are projecting onto living people, and that you're largely dealing with these phantasms from your own mind rather than the individuals outside yourself.  I would suspect that there are psychologists who posit that the entire realm of human relationship is merely an enactment of projections from our mutual psyches, through which we stumble, presumably to learn and grow.  

There is a close correlation between those internal phantasms and the individuals who can receive those projections.  You have to find the right player, otherwise the image won't light up in that luminous way.  If you've been raised by an abusive parent, and sworn that you will never pair with any such person in your life, and yet find yourself unerringly drawn to just such a dynamic, again and again, I think you have to wonder:  is there any hope at all?  Are we doomed to re-enact these patterns ad nauseum?  And one wonders whether this Shakespearean comedy of errors has any rhyme or reason, or whether we're all fated to wander forever lost in the shadowland we call "love."

I think there is a way out.  Although I've done many years of talk therapy in my life, it really didn't help much.  None of the therapists could figure me out.  I got tired of trying to explain my perspective to them.  Surely human beings have learned, throughout the ages, how to extract themselves from their own worst behaviors or dilemmas, without so-called expert help?

Once I had someone walk me back through my preconceptions about "love."  I was to say the first thing that sprang to mind regarding the word.  Each time, I was asked to go back behind the previous statement, and summarize the belief behind it.  I went back through 7 preconceptions about love.  Each of them was totally skewed.  I never reached a healthy perspective.  My own skewed conception of love was that layered and irreducible.  That was thirty years ago.  What have I learned since?

I've learned many things.  I've learned that I can love.  I've learned that I can love, lose the person I loved, and survive without caving in or contracting into the fetal position.  Life does go on.  To some extent, time is a healer.  But not without a little bit of help from us -- it doesn't happen in and of itself.  We need to participate, consciously, in our own healing.

Looking back on my own experience, and my seeming failure in the world of psychological self-reflection, I think our psychological health reduces to realizing, and viscerally experiencing, our own intrinsic self-worth.  This seems to be playing out across the world stage at the moment.  But it plays out in our individual lives as well.  You -- we all -- have intrinsic worth based simply upon our existence as human beings.  On the world stage, this plays out as hatred, bigotry, social struggle and strife.

In our individual lives, it often plays out in a similar fashion.  We find ourselves face to face with someone who wants to negate or discount our worth as a human being.  Someone who wants to steamroll us.  Someone who attacks.  At that moment, sooner or later, you have to stand up for yourself.  Because no one else will do it for you.  You have only yourself to depend upon.  Something inside you registers the outrage of the moment.  In some fashion, you must stand your ground, draw a line in the sand, and not back down.  It can feel ugly, that moment of conflict.  It's not often smooth.  But eventually, one gets better at doing it in a way that is less charged, maybe even less defensive, and sometimes, it is actually done with grace.  To learn to do that takes time.  

If you're inclined to negate your own worth based upon your sense of shame, failure, terrible crimes, or betrayal of others, think again.  These are all part of internal patterns of behavior rooted in your own woundedness.  Not even your wounds define you.  Underneath all that, you are a human being deserving of respect and, yes, love -- 

Nowadays we hear much about narcissists and sociopaths.  Yes, unfortunately there are people in life whom you cannot trust.  Perhaps they will never reverse those behaviors.  You don't need to fall victim to them.  There are ways to counter and protect oneself from such individuals.  There are many helpful videos online which teach one how to identify, and deal with, a narcissist.  Then there's that old adage, be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove.  Which means be willing to give others the benefit of the doubt -- to an extent.  And then you have to recognize the situation for what it is, remove yourself if necessary, or protect yourself accordingly.

That's partly what I meant by the title of this post: establish your value, firstly in your own mind.  Then stand by that.  If someone else fails to recognize your value, move on.  Don't waste your time trying to convince them otherwise.  It's an unnecessary expenditure of your energy.  Your equal will recognize you instinctively.  Those who aren't, won't.  Walk away and move on.  Save yourself from the implicit suffering involved in looking for validation from those who are unable, or unwilling, to recognize who you are and what you have to give.  Save those pearls.

It seems to me that all these appropriate or healthy behaviors of ours are rooted in one vital experience -- our belief in, our felt-sense of, our own self-worth.  You must learn to affirm yourself.  Because others may never do that for you.

That root experience of self-respect is the foundation for ever having the ability to experience love.  And since love is a flow, a give and take, an expenditure and a return -- you have to be open on both poles -- you have to be able to both give and receive -- I think those two abilities demand trust, and first and foremost, trust in oneself.  Trust in oneself -- despite one's past or one's own baggage -- is grounded in the simple experience of recognizing your own self-worth.  As I said, it is intrinsic.  It is a fundamental quality of your being human.  It underlies your ego, your personality, and the supposed accumulated baggage of your lifetime.  It is an essential and existential human quality.

May you find a solid sense of your own worth, and on that foundation build the ability to love and trust; first yourself, and then another.  Something tells me this is the foundation stone of all real love.  May we all find that trust and love.