Page 72 ... Into the Light

On Having and Finding Respect

Respect

This starts with the individual’s sense of self and that sense of self is a by-product of very early developmental experiences.

Its clearest defining qualities are related to time and how time and interaction with affective adults was spent … with those who reflect how that individual was viewed by them during the child’s first 30 to 60 months of life.

It Is True That:

It is a necessity that we must first have respect for ourselves … it then follows naturally … that we next have to have respect for the rules we chose by … which we agree to … and conduct our living accordingly and build our social order around.

On the other hand if we do not have this sense of respect instilled at a very early age then ... it is with great effort and difficulty that we will move through our lives.

Respect is something that is purely experiential … it can be obtained anytime … but first we must know what it is that we are looking for … and then … where it is we must search to find it. 12 Step programs help enormously here as do other self help programs. The book Iron John asks the question “Where is the Key hidden?”

One of life’s conundrums is that sooner or later we get ourselves involved in attempting to make something happen or a series of things happen … herein lies the problem; a necessary ingredient for those things to happen is we need to respect ourselves to accomplish or complete the tasks we have set out for ourselves to complete … now the complexity sets insomuch that for the most part most of us don’t carry the necessary tools to cause the respect to be there because it is not part of our working tool kit … it somehow got overlooked … thus the task at hand that should not have been all that difficult becomes a very difficult task.

The Basics of the concept is:

• A person cannot respect himself unless he knows the truth of himself.

For most the truth about us is lost back in the early beginnings … at times and places where we simply had to begin to pretend to be someone else just to be able to get along in our families of origin That Hurt(s).

It is also true that our every effort is to maintain the lid on this painful thing so that it does not get out and hurt us again. The problem is that (neurotic) defense strategies themselves become more painful than the pain they were masking but our only defense to pain is to build another neurotic structure … mask … false self … to protect us from our pain of our reality.

Finding our lost self-respect is a prerequisite to healing; something a kin to Peter Pan recovering his lost shadow from Wendy’s drawer. Now we have a place to look … and a direction to go in.

Daily Reflection

Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understood Him and sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying only for the knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out.