So...What Does Love FEEL Like...For Real? - Update

In light of recent considerations, I would like to state that I no longer believe "oxytocin" is the "Love Hormone". Instead, I have come to identify it as the "Faith Hormone". We are willing to "commit" to relationships, either naively or rationally, based on our "faith" in those relationships. For instance, a mother and father will make the effort to care for their child, a very challenging and energy demanding endeavor, because they have faith that their efforts will be worthwhile, that their child will grow up to be healthy, happy, "successful", etc. (whatever the parents' ideas of "success" might be). The child will submit to be cared for, will respond positively (with smiles, etc.), in part based on the "faith" it develops in its parents as its basic needs are being met consistently. Erik Erikson suggests that the crisis of "Basic Trust vs. Basic Mistrust" is the very first crisis of human psychosocial development. It also happens to be that when a child is nursing, both the child and the mother experience elevated levels of oxytocin (see link below). (There is quite a bit of research out there on what happens when oxytocin does Not work properly. Here is one such study on its possible role in Autism and Asperger's.)

Am I just "mincing words" here? I don't think so. Towards the goal of becoming more fully "Self-Aware" as human beings, and given everything I have already written about here, especially with regards to the pitfalls of "Romantic Love" (see links below), and even as a burgeoning understanding and "awakening" in my own life, I know very directly how this is positively affecting me and my relationships, and I can only hope (or "have faith") that this "clarification" could have a positive effect on others as well, and that is why I am "making the effort" to write (and re-write) about it here.

For now though, I will leave the blog below intact. This forum is a "process" place for me and I have already realized how my perspectives and/or paradigms have shifted over the course of my posts here. But, I'm okay with others observing the process as well as the "conclusions" and "clarifications" along the way.

Now back to the original post...


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In previous blogs, especially Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part II, and more recently, Reflections on Projections - Part 3, I have tried to present and support the idea that much of what we interpret as "feelings of love" are actually related more to spontaneously generated emotional/biochemical patterns. For instance, oxytocin is sometimes referred to as the "love hormone", as it plays a major part in "bonding" not only between mother and child, but later between adults who are looking to "mate". It so happens that dogs and other mammals also produce oxytocin, and that humans and animals bond with one another in part because of the mutual stimulation of oxytocin during their interactions. The bottom line is this: Oxytocin "feels good", and we tend to continue interacting with people who stimulate oxytocin production in us, making us "feel good" when we are around them. Of course, over time this "stimulating effect" may dissipate...significantly...and thus we "fall out of love" and move on to the next person who "stimulates" us.

Before I continue, I want to share from recent reading of A Guide for the Perplexed by E.F. Schumacher. In this book, Schumacher presents a consideration of "Four Great Levels of Being" as follows:

Level 1 = inanimate matter (i.e. elements) = no response ability, merely acted upon by external forces

Level 2 = plants = elements + life = limited response ability, interaction with sunlight and immediate environment

Level 3 = animals = elements + life + consciousness = greater response ability and some capacity for instinctually patterned manipulation of environment

Level 4 = humans = elements + life + consciousness + self-awareness (in varying degrees) = significantly expanded response ability and capacity for self-direction and manipulation of the environment*

What I would like to offer here is that when we are experiencing the "spontaneously generated emotional/biochemical patterns" that I refer to above, this is a biologically based experience; i.e. a "Level 3" experience. In most cases, it has nothing to do with Self-Aware Conscious Choice, i.e. Level 4 functioning. With regards to the production of oxytocin, we will bond with animals and they with us in much the same way we may bond with other human beings. In both cases, there is really no conscious effort involved.

And yet, to fulfill the possibility of our human nature, especially our capacity for Self-Awareness, and Self-Direction, we have to be capable of more than just a biologically-based, stimulus-response relationship to our environment and to each other. And that, my friends, takes Effort.

From my current point of view, that is actually what "Love" Feels Like; i.e. it feels like Effort. Furthermore, Life and Love "work" in much the same way.

Consider the following Basic Theory: Life = Love = Conscious Effort = Labor = Work = The "Counter Effort" to "Resistance" and/or "tendency" and/or "inertia" (biological and psychic patterns that tend to persist or play out in certain ways without conscious choice).

There are tendencies in the elements to be "flying apart" and yet there are forces that also counter those tendencies to help "hold them together". It takes a lot of "holding together" to make a molecule, even more, to make a cell, even more "holding together" to make a colony, etc., etc. This is the Integrative Quality of Life and I would also offer that it is the integrative quality of Real Love as well.

When Life manifests in a plant, it moves the plant to push up against the dirt that covers it as well as to sink its roots down into the ground. Life gives the animal the will to live, the will to seek out food and shelter, to expend its energy, to work, to survive, for as long as it can.

It is only in humans that the "Will of Life" (and Love) can be frustrated. It is only in humans that we encounter internal resistance to work, effort, and emotional/psychological growth. And even though biological growth will operate in many ways on its own, through poor diet, lifestyle, or environmental conditions we can thwart that as well.

As I have already suggested, part of the problem is that we have the capacity for "memory", self-reflective memory, that (apparently) is significantly different from that of other animals. We "remember" the experiences of "no effort" (in the womb), and "omnipotence"" (just outside of the womb). It is our brain's capacity for such "memory" and self-awareness that is part of our "problem". Other animals do not retain such "memories" as best we know. They do not imagine "going back to" those former states of "having all of their needs met with no effort of their own" or, in lieu of that, "being totally in control". They do not perceive "past" and they do not project into the "future". They live more moment to moment. Their consciousness, or conscious awareness is localized to the present moment.

With human birth comes biological shock and disequilibrium. As we grow and become more identified with (apparently) "separate self" we also come to the realization that we are Not Omnipotent (and neither are our parents); we are not "in control" as we "perceived" ourselves to be initially (and neither are they). As a consequence, we lose our sense of security. We feel completely vulnerable and helpless and we "react" to that.

I am beginning to suspect, that it is this "sense of" a profound loss of control that is one of the hardest "facts of incarnate life" that we have to face as human beings. Although there is probably a certain amount of "contraction" in response to the "vital shock" of birth, it will be compounded by our "reaction" to Not Being In Control of what we perceive to be "outside" of us and what we seem to remember having control over in the past (although it was only an Illusion). In my observation, much of life after this becomes, not necessarily a "struggle for power", as Thucydides describes it, but a "struggle for control", as it may (supposedly) give us a sense of security, which is not exactly the same. Power may be expressed in both positive and negative ways, but, so often, it is expressed in efforts to control others. (Of course, being no different from ourselves, others will also be trying to control us.)

It is also important to understand that part of our patterning almost invariably involves repressing aspects of ourselves and especially the full play of our emotions. For instance, if the only way I can control my mother's or father's attention (because as a child I sense that my life depends on it) is to "put on a happy face", to be "pleasing" to them, then I might repress my feelings of anger, fear, and frustration. Or, on the other hand, maybe my parents only pay attention to me when I am upset, so I repress my joy, and instead control them with my anger and temper tantrums. (Keep in mind though, children up to the age of seven or eight are not really "conscious" in the same sense as adults, as they are in varying degrees of what is referred to as a "hypnogogic state"; i.e. they are functioning as if they were under hypnosis, so they are merely patterning from a more biological place of "stimulus and response", even more so than adults. These "hypnogogic states" of infancy and early childhood are described more clearly in Bruce Lipton's book, The Biology of Belief.)

If our parents are overly permissive, we may become more domineering ourselves, and repress our own capacity for submission, even though, deep down inside, as children, we actually feel more secure when we have boundaries, when we are not left to "fend for ourselves" and/or to figure everything out for ourselves. Nevertheless, in our outward bravado, we are at the same time repressing our feelings of insecurity. On the other hand, our parents may be overly domineering and authoritative, and so we become submissive and, again, with no opportunities to practice being assertive, we are left to feel insecure about our abilities. In the most functional of circumstances, we grow up with appropriate boundaries, that still give us room to develop our own will and self-direction.

These examples are very general, but across the board, to the degree we have to respond to parental and social expectations, high or low, and most often, exaggerated and inappropriate, some parts of our true selves are going to get repressed. That "activity" starts early on, during the "hypnogogic" stages of early infancy and childhood. Consequently, it takes a great deal of self-awakening and self-awareness and conscious effort to first recognize and then overcome those patterns.

Finally, as Jung suggests, when we identify with ourselves as either "male" or "female" we start to repress the qualities of the opposite sex. This identification also starts to take place in early childhood (3-1/2 to 4-1/2 years of age), which is still during the "hypnogogic" period. So, again, lots of reactive/repressive activity going on there that gets quickly shunted into the subconscious, which means it is later available for (anima/animus) "projection", which is, again, an unconscious tendency.

However, if we are able to reach a certain point in our maturing process, we may come to realize that having control over others is not nearly as important (or ultimately satisfying) as having control over ourselves. In The Art of Loving Erich Fromm refers to this shift from "seeking love" to "giving love" or becoming a "producer of love". When we are able to recognize the deep psychic and biological state or activity of "self-contraction" in response to (apparent) separateness and (apparent) loss of control, then we can also learn to Feel Beyond that "pattern-patterning" and instead of directing our effort towards controlling others, and repressing ourselves, we can direct our effort more deliberately towards loving and accepting ourselves (i.e. becoming more Self-Aware) and loving and accepting others (i.e. becoming more Other-Aware).

Love of self includes the effort of self-understanding. This includes becoming aware of and more accepting of all those elements of oneself that are "tending" to be repressed or exaggerated; i.e. letting all of the balls come to the surface of the water. It means the effort of recognizing "projections" (shadow, anima, and animus) and re-integrating them into one's self-aware consciousness. Again, the work of "integration" is the work of Love (and Life). It also means recognizing one's needs and what one finds most meaningful in life, so that proper attention can be given to all of these aspects of "self".

The love of self includes the necessary effort of seeing to the normal and very real needs of one's physical body. In this regard, and for the most part, in this culture, love of self means working in order to earn money that is then used to buy food, clothing, and shelter. So that work is an effort of self-love. Resistance to such work is reciprocally, a resistance to loving oneself. If one is responsible for children, then working to earn money to pay for food, clothing, and shelter for them is also an expression of that love. Instead of buying food from the store, one could also work to grow a garden to provide food for oneself and/or others, but again, this "effort" would be an expression of one's love for oneself (and/or others). Included in the love of self and taking care of one's body is the effort of getting regular exercise, and since we have successfully managed to reduce physical effort in so many other areas of our lives, it takes even more Deliberate Effort in this culture to meet the body's natural need for physical activity and effort.

Possibly most important of all is the effort of understanding others. It is within the closest of our interpersonal spheres that so much of what is repressed "comes up" and out and is "projected" and/or exaggerated. It can provoke our "reactivity" on the deepest levels, and yet -- Every effort made to move beyond such "reactivity" and "projection" and "tendency" is an Effort of Love.

To "fall in love" does not take effort, whether it is "falling in love" with a potential mate, or "falling in love" with one's children. In both cases, the real effort is in coming to a full understanding of the other person as they are, and supporting them in more fully realizing whatever human potential lies within them for their own sake, and not just as a means of controlling that potential as it might serve our needs.

This plays out in the interpersonal sphere, and it plays out in the greater culture as well. I think the main thing I want to make a connection to is the idea that work and effort are rooted in love, they are love expressing itself. And as Fromm also suggests, being able to "concentrate" one's effort produces the highest quality product.

If you look at what has happened with "mass production" culture it has effectively diminished one's opportunity for intensive work. Trust me, I know, it does not take that much effort to sit at a sewing machine and produce the same action over and over again. It does, however, take much more effort to sew a single garment that fits properly. The difference in Quality is very, very clear.

We have tried in so many ways to "make life easier" - but, that means we don't have to work as hard and therefore (if my theory holds), we don't have to Love as Deeply, and - surprise, surprise - we are stalled in our development, and many feel the "meaninglessness" of it all. We are frustrated in life and in love. Many people keep expecting either some "Apocalyptic End" or (spontaneous) "Metaphysical Shift". In either case, there's not supposed to be a lot of Real Effort involved in Solving the Problems of Human Existence.

At the beginning of Chapter 2 of The Art of Loving Fromm suggests, "Love [is] the Answer to the Problem of Human Existence". Substitute "Effort" for "Love" and I'd say the sentence makes just as much, if not more sense. It really is going to take A Lot of Human Effort to solve the problems currently facing all of us. For instance, how many (more) people are willing to forego the convenience of their automobiles and Make the Effort to, say, Ride a Bicycle instead? How many potential parents are willing to forego endless nights of passively watching television and Actually Read A Book on Child Development (or Several Books), before making the Conscious Decision to conceive and raise a child? How many individuals are willing to spend time and effort coming to a better understanding of themselves, of becoming more Fully Self-Aware as an ordinary human being? How many people are willing to make the effort to feel beyond their "reactivity", to recognize and re-integrate their "projections", to recognize when they have become anima or animus possessed, and to learn to have more functional relationships with their "significant others"?

When are we going to appreciate that the Efforts of Love and Life are Actually Present All Around Us? From the seedling reaching for the sun, to the rodent gathering seeds to eat. From the mother who cares for and nurtures her child, while also overcoming her tendencies to hold-on or control. From the worker who gives their full attention to the task at hand, who takes pride in doing the very best job he or she can, to the lover who gives their full attention to knowing and understanding their partner, not as a means to manipulate and control, but because they understand their partner's need to be seen and understood for who they are as an ordinary human being.

I will offer, that the potential of this "Fourth Level of Being" has not yet been fully realized, in fact, we've barely begun to scratch the surface. And yet, there is great contentment in the Feeling of Being - Fully Self-Aware, even if it does take A Lot of Effort to get there!

To You, my readers, I say: Thank you for all of your Efforts...and Thank You for taking the time, and Making the Effort, to read this blog. I hope my Efforts in writing it will help keep us all moving in the direction of fully reaching our potential as Human Beings having a Human Experience!

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*Schumacher also suggests there may be a Fifth Level of Being, that of being "perfectly self-aware", and "perfectly self-directed", etc. I will acknowledge, that such a One may actually already exist, that it is the Divine Self in which and from which all and All arises. However, I am no longer inclined to think that we should be striving to Be That One, to attain Perfect Self-Awareness ourselves, necessarily. I think to become a fully Self-Aware Ordinary Human Being is Good Enough. Furthermore, this is the "Level of Being" that has yet to be fully stabilized in the course of evolution on this planet. There are many conscious human beings here, but the degree of Self-Awareness and Self-Direction varies considerably from one person to another. In other words, there is plenty of room for improvement, without making "perfection" or "union with the Divine" our goal. In fact, to make "union" our goal denies the reality of Always Already Present Prior Unity. Consequently, I have begun to hold such "efforts" suspect in part because they could also be a "grasping" for the experience of our earlier pre-natal and post-natal emotional/biochemical states, rather than a functional acceptance and "working within" the actual limitations and actual possibilities of human "Level 4" existence. If there is "Oneness" to be "obtained", then let it be the "Oneness" of fully integrated consciousness within Each of Us as Individual Human Beings, because that is what we are really experiencing ourselves to be. So, why not intensify our efforts to figure out what That is all about?

On "Loving Yourself"...

This subject came up on Facebook today and I really wanted to give a thorough response as follows. I have decided to quote it here rather than making a Really Long (un-formatted) "comment" on FB.

From: "The New Guide to Rational Living" by Albert Ellis, Ph. D., and Robert A. Harper, Ph. D., Chapter 10 - Tackling Dire Needs for Approval. (There are newer versions but this happens to be from the 1979 Edition, Pp. 94-101 - I wish I could quote the whole chapter, but I'm going to start about half way in.)

...Your accepting yourself and devoting yourself to outside activities may constitute reciprocal goals. For if you really follow your own basic bents and do not overly concern yourself about what others think of you, you will have so little time to spend in self-centered worrying that you will feel virtually forced to find absorbing interests on the outside. By the same token, if you throw your energies into outside activities and actively devote yourself to other people and things, you normally will tend to feel less concerned about what others think of you and, hence, to respect your own values.

Put somewhat differently, if you devote yourself enthusiastically to long-range hedonism--to activities that you consider desirable and enjoyable from a long-term perspective--you will clearly accept yourself because you do what you really want to do and do not falsely follow what someone else thinks you should do. Our clients and associates frequently ask: "I can see that accepting myself rather than desperately needing the love of others constitutes a more realistic orientation. But how will this help me love other people? As I less and less concern myself about whether others approve of me, won't I find it more and more troublesome and unnecessary to give a damn about them--to relate lovingly to them?"

No, for several reasons. First of all, if you direly need love, you will feel so preoccupied with obtaining it that you have as much chance to honor your own choices or to love others as a dope addict has to relate freely and self-confidently to the person who supplies him with drugs.

Secondly, if you surrender your dire need for love, you will still retain, in most instances, a strong desire for acceptance by others. People often wrongly assume that your not direly needing love means the same thing as your feeling love has no value. Not at all. You can easily enjoy well-written stories and plays even though you have no need to do so. Why can you not, then, enjoy and seek intimate relationships without believing that your life depends on them?

Thirdly, when you free yourself from your demands that you receive love, you can better love. You can see more clearly the lovable traits of others; stop hating them when they do not immediately respond to you; learn what you really enjoy in relationship; risk committing yourself to loving, even when you know that a given affair may not work out well; and feel unanxiously free to experience and experiment with loving because you realize that although you may lose your beloved you can never lose yourself.

Another frequently asked question: "Granted that loving has more rewards than desperately needing love, should I therefore give up all my desires for approval and recognition?"

Answer: Certainly not. Complete self-sacrifice or the total surrender of your own desires for approval can prove just as foolish as your obsession with winning esteem of others. Again for several reasons:

1. You act quite normally when you want to express your own unique conceptions of the world to others and want them to take pleasure in some of your expressions. You would hardly seem human if you did not derive some satisfaction from relating to others.

2. Wanting acceptance from others constitutes one of the main essences of desire; and men and women entirely free from desire again do not appear entirely human. According to the Hindu classic the Bhagavad-Gita, the strongest individual "has indifference to honor and insult, heat and cold, pleasure and pain. He feels free from attachment." A few select individuals find this a worthy ideal. But we doubt whether many humans could ever attain it.To lean so far over backwards to get rid of psychological pain that you also eradicate all pleasure does not seem too rational to us. By all means try, if you will, to eliminate your extreme, unrealistic, self-defeating desire; but not desire itself!

3. From a practical view, if you ardently want various things--such as material goods or more leisure--you had better win the approval or respect of certain people such as your parents, teachers, or bosses. Though you may wisely eliminate your inordinate demands that others love you, you'd better sanely retain, in any social group, some wishes for acceptance by other group members.

Granted that having an inordinate need for others' love will serve to defeat your own ends, and that having some wish for acceptance seems eminently sane, the question arises: How can you somehow manage to attain a middle-of-the-road policy in this respect?

First and foremost, by admitting that you do have a dire need for love in many instances; by making a continual effort to observe this need in operation; and by then continually challenging, questioning, and disputing it....

....If you do have a dire need for love; if you accept the fact that you have it; and if you keep challenging, questioning, and disputing it, it will ultimately, and often quite quickly, start decreasing. For remember: It remains your need; and you keep sustaining it.

Other methods you can use to combat and minimize your inordinate love needs include the following:

1. Ask yourself what you really want to do, rather than what others would like you to do. And keep asking yourself, from time to time: "Do I keep doing this or refusing to do that because I really want it that way? Or do I, once again, unthinkingly keep trying to please others?"

2. In going after what you really want, take risks, commit yourself, don't desperately avoid making mistakes. Don't act needlessly foolhardy; but convince yourself that if you fail to get something you want and people laugh at or criticize you for your failure, they may have a problem. As long as you learn by your errors, does it make that much difference what they think?

3. Focus on loving rather than on getting love. Try to realize that vital living hardly consists of passive receiving but of doing, acting, reaching out. And just as you can force yourself to play the piano, do yoga exercises, or go to work every day, you can also often forcibly commit yourself to loving other humans. In so doing, your dire needs for love will probably decrease.

[What follows is probably the most significant part to me...LB]

4. Above all, don't confuse getting love with having personal worth. If you must see yourself as having any intrinsic worth or value as a human (which we would not advise, since we think that any kind of self-rating, positive or negative, tends to bring pernicious results), you'd better claim to have it by virtue of your mere existence, your aliveness, your essence -- and not because of anything you do to "earn" it. No matter how much others approve you, or how much they may value you for their own benefit, they thereby can only give you, as Robert S. Hartman explains, extrinsic value, or worth to them. They cannot, by loving you, give you intrinsic value--or the worth you have to yourself. If intrinsic value exists at all (which we seriously doubt, since it seems a well-nigh undefinable Kantian thing-in-itself), you get it because you choose, you decide to have it. It exists purely because of your own definition. You emerge as "good" or "deserving" because you think you do and not because anyone in any way gives you this kind of intrinsic value.

If you can really believe this highly important truth--that you need not rate yourself, your essence at all (and that you can choose to call yourself intrinsically worthwhile just because you decide to do so)--you will tend to lose your desperate need for others' approval. For you need--or think you need--their acceptance not because of the practical advantages it may bring, but because you foolishly define your worth as a human in terms of receiving or not receiving it. Once you stop this kind of silly defining, the dire need for their approval generally evaporates (though the strong desire to have them like you may well remain). Similarly, if you rid yourself of your dire need for approval, you will find it relatively easy to stop rating yourself as a person, even though you continue to rate many of your traits, and to accept yourself merely because you remain alive and kicking--and for that reason alone "deserve" to continue to exist and to have a maximally enjoyable life.

To underscore this last point about human worth, consider the case of Herbert Flisch, a forty-year-old successful businessman who recognized, after eight sessions of rational-emotive therapy, that almost every single one of his actions for the past four decades had stemmed from his dire need to win the approval of his parents, wife, children, friends, and even employees. At his ninth session he asked:

"Do I understand you correctly to mean that if I stop trying to win everyone's approval and do what I think I would like to do (and what would not at the same time defeat my own ultimate ends) that I'll then love myself because I'll consider myself more worthwhile?"

"No," the therapist replied. "Those of us who have worked to develop this system of rational-emotive psychotherapy have come to realize that worthwhileness proves just as illegitimate a concept as its counterpart, worthlessness; and that, in fact, just as soon as you tend to think in terms of personal 'worth' you must almost automatically tend to think, at the same time, in terms of personal 'worthlessness.'

"Thus, if you consider yourself 'worthwhile' today because you function effectively, make wise decisions, or think bright thoughts, you'll tend to consider yourself 'worthless' tomorrow because you then function less effectively, make some unwise decisions, or think dull thoughts."

"But wouldn't I have no worth if I never functioned effectively?" asked the client.

"No, definitely not. Even if you had mental deficiency and never functioned well, you would then have no extrinsic 'worth'--meaning that others might not find you a suitable companion or employee--but you could have, intrinsically, as much 'worth' to yourself as any other more efficient individual. You would have 'worth', in other words, if you believed you had. But if you believed, as you obviously do, that inefficiency makes you 'worthless,' you would then feel exactly that."

"So I remain worthwhile if I think I do--no matter how inefficiently I may actually perform in life?"

"Yes--except that, as I said before, the very concept of 'worth' has dangers, since it implies the concept of 'worthlessness.' Just like the concept of heaven implies the concept of hell. In fact, the way we usually employ the terms, to have 'worth' really means pretty much the same thing as to behave angelically or heaven-directed; and to have 'worthlessness' means to behave demonically or hell-directed. Doesn't it?"

"In a way, I guess it does. I can see what you mean," said the client.

"Moreover, if you have concepts of 'worth' and 'worthlessness,' even if you avoid extreme self-designations in using these concepts, you will tend to remain preoccupied with varying degrees of 'worth.' Thus, you will tend to say to yourself: 'Today I have great worth; yesterday I had less; I hope and pray tomorrow I can have more'

"This kind of concept of 'worth' (and, hence, of the lack of worth or less worth) carries with it irrational and undesirable aspects of guilt, self-disrespect, self-blame, shame, anger, hostility, and other self-sabotaging emotions. The counter-concept, that you have neither 'worth' because of your effectiveness nor 'worthlessness' because of your ineffectiveness, but that you merely exist, this concept, difficult as it seems for almost all people to see and accept, safely eliminates the notion of intrinsic 'worthlessness' and self-damnation."

"I'll have to give this some more thought," said the client. "But, it does seem to have something to it. However, how does it tie in with self-acceptance?"

"It has a most important tie-in with self-acceptance. For self-acceptance means fully accepting yourself, your existence, and your right to live and to devise as happy a life as you can for yourself--no matter what traits you have or performances you do. It does not mean self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect, or self-regard. For all these terms imply that you can accept yourself because you do something well or because other people like you. Self-acceptance, however, merely means that you accept yourself because you remain alive and have decided to accept yourself. Only a relatively limited number of talented, intelligent, competent, or well-loved people can gain self-esteem or self-confidence. But anyone, merely because he chooses to have it, can gain self-acceptance."

"Does self-acceptance mean that I consider myself worthy or deserving of living and enjoying no matter what I do?"

"Yes, though we don't like the words worthy or deserving, since they imply a rating--that you have to do (or refrain from doing) something in order to feel 'worthy' or 'deserving.' When you have what we call self-acceptance, you make minimal assumptions about your (and other people's) intrinsic worth or value."

"What minimal assumptions?"

"Several: One, you exist. Two, you can probably, by continuing to exist, achieve more pleasure than pain, thus making it desirable for you to keep living. Three, to a considerable degree, you can help minimize your pain and maximize your pleasure. Four, you decide--and this constitutes the essence of self-acceptance--that you will try to live and make your existence as pleasurable and as unpainful as you can make it. Or, putting it another way, you choose as the main purpose of your existence short-range (here and now) and long-range (future) enjoyment. Not achieving for the sake of achieving. Not receiving adoration from others. Not proving your greatness as a person. Not getting into heaven. Just plain damned enjoyment!"

"So instead of my continuing to ask myself, 'What worth have I?' 'How do I keep proving myself?' 'How can I outstandingly impress others?' or 'What do I have to do to ennoble myself?' I'd better, instead, ask, 'How the devil can I avoid needless pain and find out what I truly enjoy in life and do it?' Right?''

"Exactly right! You make the purpose of your existence having a present and future ball--in whatever idiosyncratic and harmless ways you experimentally discover."

"You mean that I may then enjoy myself and accept myself and my existence as more enjoyable. But that I still will not really exist as more 'worthwhile'--only more alive, happier?"

"Right. And you will not, we hope, blame yourself or punish yourself whenever--as an imperfect human--you do something wrong or unwise. You will accept yourself with your foolish thoughts, feelings, perceptions, or actions, and use the experience that you get as a result of these unwise acts to help you enjoy yourself and behave more rationally in the future. What greater acceptance of self (and through that, potential acceptance of and tolerance for other humans) could you then have?"