Most people do not erode their self-esteem over big issues but over small ones, little acts of betrayal and hypocrisy forgotten (repressed) very quickly. But the computer in your subconscious mind for...
It is a mistake to look at someone who is self assertive and say, "It's easy for her, she has good self-esteem." One of the ways you build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy to...
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.
The opposite of self-assertiveness is self-abnegation--abandoning or submerging your personal values, judgment, and interests. Some people tell themselves this is a virtue. It is a "virtue" that corro...
Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.
Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.
Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals.
We are parts of one universe, true enough. We stand within an almost infinite network of relationships. Yet each of us is a single point of consciousness, a unique event, a private, unrepeatable world...
It is humiliating to realize that when you drive yourself underground, when you fake who you are, often you do so for people you do not even like or respect.
In a world in which the total of human knowledge is doubling about every ten years, our security can rest only on our ability to learn.
The challenge for people today--and it is not and easy one--is to maintain high personal standards even while feeling that one is living in a moral sewer.
All positive interactions with other human beings involve, to some degree, the experience of visibility-- that is, the experience of being seen and understood.
Suffering is just about the easiest of all human activities; being happy is just about the hardest. And happiness requires, not surrender to guilt, but emancipation from guilt.
The idea of original sin--of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives--inherently militates against self-esteem. The very notion of guilt without volition or respo...
Never marry a person who is not a friend of your excitement.
In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their se...
Out of fear, out of the desire for approval, out of misguided notions of duty, people surrender themselves--their convictions and their aspirations--every day. There is nothing noble about it. It take...
It is naive to think that self-assertiveness is easy. To live self-assertively--which means to live authentically--is an act of high courage. That is why so many people spend the better part of their...
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.
What is required for many of us, paradoxical though it may sound, is the courage to tolerate happiness without self-sabotage.