What exactly is honor anyway?
It’s standing up for the right thing, as defined by our instincts, feelings and all around awareness.
It’s respecting only truth, regardless of the the cost.
It’s behaving in a manner we have nothing but respect for.
It’s being fair, never taking advantage, just because we can.
It’s treating others with the respect they deserve, regardless of how much power they carry, what color they are, how big they are, or how attractive they are.
Have I missed any?
What quality do all these things have in common?
We all start life this way!
We begin life with full out self-esteem. We also begin life with all of the qualities of honor. All life does.
Truth is simply acceptance of reality!
For many of us, resigned to live without the power that proper nurture would have given us, we come across pressure from others, and temptations.
Quite often there is an easy way to satisfy that pressure.
There are no warning signs!
We have no way of realizing the terrible and tenacious consequences of behaving in ways that ignore our honor.
Believing something we know to be untrue is a good example!
It may get us through the moment all right.
Surprisingly though, that’s not the end of it!
The aftereffects just never end! We know what we did all the time, forever.
We will never again feel the same way about ourselves!
We have just begun to destroy our own self-esteem!
We cannot get it back!
It seems like our honor is the same as our self-esteem.
The two qualities certainly vary together in perfect harmony!
Once we have compromised our honor, we no longer feel any need to protect it!
Our behavior then becomes anything that works!
We are lost. We want our sense of value back. There is no longer any way to do it!
Realistically, it’s not our fault.
The fault is a lack of nurture, which would have given us the strength to be loyal to ourselves!
Our fault or not though, we are now stuck with a poor sense of our own value!
Living like this, we are no longer a nice person!
We have fallen off of our own pedestal!
How can we ever trust ourselves again. How can we feel as good about ourselves as we should, and as we used to?
Therapy doesn’t help with this.
Therapy allows us to integrate bad feelings, which were driving our behavior. It allows us free will again.
We can act as we choose, without the familiar inner trauma forcing us into the same old destructive behaviors.
It does not cause us to value ourselves like we want to, and used to. Not right away.
On the other hand it sets the stage!
Therapy, or otherwise sharing the worst of our feelings out loud to trusted others, allows integration of our hurting and orphaned feelings. This puts us in an entirely different condition, a far better one!
Our opinion of our own value is now able to self-heal!
It will heal. It takes a long time!
Hopefully we can learn to repair this more quickly, preferably during the therapy process.
Our perception of our own value seems to be coming from an extremely deep place.
Coaxing feelings of admiration for ourselves back, enjoying self-value without reservation, is probably going to remain the most difficult part of any therapy!
It may turn out to be as simple as our perception of a long history of our own admirable behavior, behavior that we are extremely proud of.
This post is part of clarity-of-innocence.com
Thanks for listening.
Good luck on your own journey,
Take care,
Norm.
I welcome considering other thoughts.