The Importance of Self-Respect part I
Do you respect yourself? It is so very easy to say you do, but do you actually respect yourself sincerely? Perhaps it’s that you’re only thinking honestly about it now. It’s most likely not many of us even rarely consider this important question of self-respect. And without truly understanding what it is to experience self-respect, it is often taken for granted. We tend to just go about our lives focus on what’s happening out there, outside of ourselves.
Were consistently questioning why things are happening in seeming disregard to our personal lives. Our thinking in this way is due to our dependence on respect coming from outside ourselves. Not the nurturing respect which is born from within us. We may not even consider our lack of tolerance for life is all about us forgetting about this inner experience of the power of self-respect. It seems like we spend a good portion of our time pursuing respect from others and even from life itself as we complain. Respect from others is not a need which is primary in life, not even needed secondarily. To tolerate life and its challenges it’s respect for the self which is primary and when we gain this power there’s no need to complain.
The truth of it is, the only place we can really experience the power within the conscious experience of respect is when we’re supporting ourselves consciously. That is when we’re respecting ourselves. Then and only then can we be more accepting of life and others, the way it is, and the way they are. It is then all of life reflect the value of respect we are mirroring from ourselves.
If we are looking exclusively to get the experience of respect from others, and we’re not supporting that outer level of respect from the space of self-respect; we are living in the shadow of falsehood. We then become dependent on those outside relationships with others for the core of the experience of our experience of respect. Gaining self-power wont happen this way. Attachment to them for respect will not create true respect. Self-respect is the prerequisite for all respect and is the foundation for all personal growth. Self-respect is a guide for evolving consciously through life. Why you ask? Self-respect, in particular, allows us not to fall into the need to play the role of a victim. This is due to the respect being a multifaceted power which carries with it a degree of self-protection that comes from a level of self-wisdom; a partner of self-respect. This wisdom, this level of understanding, is the essence of the experience of self-respect which provides self-care.
Without owning respect, which makes it self-respect, we have lost ourselves into the chaos of life without the foundation needed to discern the value of our experiences brough to us through life and others. Therefore, it can be said, to own self-respect is to find our own core power which has been lying dormant due to believing respect can only come from outside of yourself. This is a great illusion which causes much of or pain and sorrow.
