Kat Posted October 3, 2007 Author Share Posted October 3, 2007 October 3 – Self-Esteem Every DayIn feeling visible to your lover, you discover new aspects of who you are. Love stimulates self-discovery. That is one source of its excitement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 October 4 – Self-Esteem Every DayThe desire for psychological visibility is not the same as the desire to be validated by someone. The desire to be seen and understood is not the same as the desire to be approved of. The desire to have your goodness recognized and perceived is different from waiting to find out from someone else whether you are good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 October 5 – Self-Esteem Every DayThe desire for sexual as well as psychological union is part of romantic love. Through the exchange of intense pleasure, lovers celebrate life, self, and each other in a single act. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 October 6 – Self-Esteem Every DayPleasure allows us to experience life as a value and yourself as a value. There is no knowledge more precious than that of the value of life and of self. And sexual joy at its most intense provides this knowledge—not abstractly, but with the vividness and intensity of direct sensory perception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 October 7 – Self-Esteem Every DaySex is unique among pleasures in its integration of body and mind, or body and spirit—providing, of course, that you can take pride in your choice of partner. When your choice is a source of shame or embarassment, that is another story entirely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 8, 2007 Share Posted October 8, 2007 October 8 – Self-Esteem Every DayIn sex, more than any other activity, you experience the fact that you are an end in yourself and that the purpose of life is happiness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kat Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 October 9 – Self-Esteem Every DayIf sex involves an act of self-celebration; if in sex you desire the freedom to be spontaneous, to be emotionally open and uninhibited, to assert your right to pleasure, and to flaunt your pleasure in your own being—then the person you most desire is the person whom you feel freest to be who you are, the person who you (consciously or subconsciously) regard as an appropriate psychological mirror, the person who reflects your deepest review of yourself and of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 10 – Self-Esteem Every DayA healthy masculinity or femininity is the consequence or expression of an affirmative response to your own sexual nature. This entail a strong, enthusiastic awareness of your own sexuality; a positive (fearless and guiltless) response to the phenomenon of sex; a disposition to experience sex as expression of the self rather than as something alien or darkly incomprehensible; a positive and self-valuing response to your own body; an enthusiastic appreciation of the body of the opposite sex; a capacity for freedom, spontaneity, and delight in the sexual encounter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 11 – Self-Esteem Every DayThe essence of romantic love is this: I see you as a person, and because you are what you are, I love and desire you—for my happiness in general and my sexual happiness in particular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 12 – Self-Esteem Every DayFascination, attraction, passion may be born at first sight. Love cannot. Love requires time. But later, looking back, if your initial feelings are supported and reinforced by subsequent knowledge and experience, it can feel that love began at first sight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 13 – Self-Esteem Every DayOften you are most intolerant in your lover of those qualities you have disowned in yourself. So paying attention to what angers you or makes you impatient can be a doorway leading to self-awareness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 14 – Self-Esteem Every DayAn immature woman looks at her lover and, deep in her psyche, there is the thought, "My father made me feel rejected; you will take his place and give me what he failed to give me. I will create a home for you, cook your meals, and bear your children—I will be your good little girl." An immature man looks at his bride and thinks, "Now, I am a married man; I am grown up; I have responsibilities—just like Father. I will work hard, I will be your protector, I will take care of you—just like Father did with Mother. Then he and you and everyone will see that I am a good boy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 15 – Self-Esteem Every DayOn one level it is true enough to say a characteristic of immature love is that the man and woman do not perceive each other realistically; fantasies and projections take the place of clear vision. Yet on a deeper level, often they do know whom they have chosen. They pretend to be blind—so that the drama of later suffering can play itself out and they can fulfill the disappointment they always knew as their "destiny." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 16 – Self-Esteem Every DayTo take responsibility for our life and happiness, we need to relinquish the belief that frustation and defeat are our natural and inevitable fate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 17 – Self-Esteem Every DayIndividuals high in self-esteem are usually attracted to others high in self-esteem; those with medium self-esteem usually seek out others with medium self-esteem; and likewise for those with low self-esteem In such cases attraction does not refer to a momentary sexual response but to the enduring attachment we are likely to call "love." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 October 18 – Self-Esteem Every DayThe first requirement of happiness in romantic love is a vision of yourself that contains the rightness of being loved, the naturalness of being loved, the appropriateness of being loved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 19 – Self-Esteem Every DayPeople who love themselves do not find it incomprehensible that others should love them. They are able to allow others to love them. Their love has ease and grace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 20 – Self-Esteem Every DayThe tragedy of too many people is that they cannot allow happiness just to be there; they cannot leave it alone. Their sense of who they are and of what their destiny is cannot accomodate happiness. So they are driven to find ways to sabotage it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 21 – Self-Esteem Every DaySome people have a view of self and of the universe that obliges them to struggle for happiness—"some time in the future"—perhaps next year or the year after that. But not now. Not at this moment. Not here. Here and now is too terrifyingly close, too terrifyingly immediate. They suffer from happiness anxiety. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 22 – Self-Esteem Every DayRomantic love is for grown-ups; it is not for children. It is not for children in a literal sense or in a psychological sense: Not for those who, regardless of age, still experience themselves as children. Romantic love requires some measure of autonomy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 23 – Self-Esteem Every DayAutonomous men and women have grown beyond the need to prove to anyone that they are good boys or good girls—just as they have grown beyond the need for their spouse or romantic partner to be their mother or father. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 24 – Self-Esteem Every DayAutonomous individuals have a greater capacity to roll with the punches, to see the normal frictions of life in perspective, not to get their feelings hurt over trivia; even if they are hurt occasionally, they do not experience such moments as catastrophes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 25 – Self-Esteem Every DayAutonomous lovers respect their partner's need to follow his or her own destiny, to be alone sometimes, to be preoccupied sometimes, not to be thinking about the relationship sometimes, to be concerned about other vital matters that may not involve the partner in any direct sense, such as work, personal unfolding and evolution, and personal developmental needs. Give this freedom to yourself as well as to the person you love. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 26 – Self-Esteem Every DayOnly when you stop fighting the fact of your ultimate aloneness are you ready for romantic love. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 October 27 – Self-Esteem Every DaySo much of the joy of love—so much that nurtures love—has to do with showing and sharing who you are. To be afraid of self-disclosure is to be afraid of love. Mutual self-disclosure opens the door to many of the most precious values romantic love can offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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