I wonder how you might define the term self respect.
The generally accepted definition talks around being, true to oneself and living life around one's sense of values and beliefs. It's about setting parameters for one's own thoughts , attitudes and behaviours and to be understanding of oneself, self-compassion and setting boundaries and it's a sense of worth, value and validity.
Many feel it and many do not, the latter is quite sad really, but it can certainly be easily shaken and broken - life has a way of dishing out some challenges and those can rock a person's sense of self respect to the foundation.
An example of this could be a person in an abusive relationship which they fail (for whatever reason) to confront, address or fail to stand up for themselves. The longer that goes on the worse the person's sense of self respect may get and it's a slippery slope.
Last week I had to address a situation in which an individual who's sense and feeling of self respect had ebbed to a very low point and their behaviours were descending downward rapidly because of it. It was terrible to watch and worse to have to deal with because I felt somewhat out of my depth with the person's core issues. I tried though and I think it's moving in a better direction or, at the least, the slide has arrested and the person is a little more stable. I'll watch closely for signs of a backward slide.
I use the word discipline a lot. Why? Because having discipline is one of the main reasons my life hasn't been a fucken mess.
I'm not impervious to the rigors of life, the stresses and complexities and all the other shit stuff that can happen, but through having discipline, the discipline to see, acknowledge and work on things that need fixing, improving or changing,
I've been able to find better ways to move forward, better paths, better futures and a better me. Have those things always worked out perfectly? Of course not, but having had the discipline to seek solutions and improvements, made a genuine attempt and effort to grow and develop and move tings towards better results, certainly gave me a good feeling of self respect and that counts for a lot. Win or lose, showing discipline and actively working towards something is a solid way to increase the feeling of self respect. Doing nothing, wallowing, being lazy and such behaviours will help one do nothing but slide backwards.
I wonder about others, you folks for instance, and thought I'd pose a couple questions that you may or may not like to respond to.
Have you felt a lack of self respect and if so what caused it, how rapid was the decline and what did you do to address it; also, what results came from your effort to reverse the negative situation?
I would you would like to comment feel free to do so below, I enjoy seeing people's thoughts and like it when they share experiences because we can learn a great deal through other people's success and failures and how they dealt with them.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
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Image(s) in this post are my own