Self-respect

     I've written a lot about "How I Am: Being Human" but the essence of it all is encompassed by this idea: Self-respect is always and everywhere in the context of others and otherness.  "How" one tends to the complex tasks of Internity - the discoveries, expressions, connections and meanings of daily life - all reveal Self-respect.  The dependent, independent, interdependent and intra-dependent cycles of one's life each reflect realizations of Self-respect.  The healthy fostering of one's Potential physiology (survival needs), psychology (safety needs), sociology (belonging needs), mentality (fun and learning needs), emotionality (power needs) and spirituality (freedom needs) can only happen with Self-respect.  Intentional Relationship with one's genetics, family, community, peers, education, environment, temperament and calling is possible but only with Self-respect.  Original, sexual, imaginative and mortal Experiences contain the intensities of the heart's desire but can only be authentically honored and practiced with Self-respect.  Consciousness, Challenges, Choices and Changes can all be genuine and responsible acts of enlightened Perception but only through the lens of Self-respect.  To have, to feel, to act, to love, to speak and be heard, to see and to know all expose one's understanding and purposeful behaviors relative to Self-respect.  One's emotional integrity or disconnected opposition; one's empathetic or judgmental values and feelings; one's competent or overcompensating beliefs and thinking patterns; all display levels of Self-respecting awareness and guidance.  Both the awareness of, or dissociation from Self-respect present behavioral glimpses of one's interior story.  Self-respect, therefore, is a natural expansion of Internity - discoveries, expressions, connections and meanings - always and everywhere in the context of others and otherness - the "How I Am" of "Being Human."  So, I ask again...   

How are you?

    

     The Consciousness, Challenges, Choices and Changes of this question, "How are you?" live within the virtually infinite combinations of ego possibilities in the above diagram.  Self-evaluation is the main component and in the words of James Hillman, "The task is to find the gold in the volcano."  My main comment at this point is that each element can be considered singly but every element factors into and influences every other.  And as complex as all of that may be, keep in mind that there are no concrete answers - only clues to better questions regarding ego health.
     As vital as all the above realities are to healthy living within the world there are even deeper realities that reign within the divinity of "How I Am."  In my next posting I intend to address how "Being Human" gets more fascinating by looking specifically at the deeper psychological Self of the collective unconscious and its transformative Potentials, Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions.    

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