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Second Question
SEARCH
DRINK
DISCOVER
DISCOVER
"For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:"--Proverbs 6:23
The second question for counseling is: How do you handle the ego attacks so that you can choose to benefit from correction?
ABOUT YOUR THINKING NOT YOU The best strategy is to make sure that you consider (frame, interpret, construe, perceive, view) the correction to be about your thinking and NOT your being. You can think about this as acting: detached, objective, without personalizing, with perspective, unsentimental, distanced, separated, differentiated, disentangled.
PRACTICE USE OR USA NOT CSE To have the inner strength to focus on your thinking and NOT your being, you need to practice either USE or USA instead of CSE. USE is unconditional self-esteem. USE means that you have value regardless of your thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. USA means unconditional self-acceptance. USA means that you accept your self regardless of your thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. CSE, conditional self-esteem, means that you value your self based on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. That is, you have conditions (criteria, standards, requirements, demands) that must be meet in order for you to consider your self valuable.
PRACTICE OF CSE VERSUS USE The practice of CSE means that you are focused on your ego, your being good or bad depending on what you know, do, have, or experience. If this is your choice, then you will react to criticism as an attack on your being no matter how well you hide that reaction from yourself and others. The practice of USE means that you are focused on your thinking, feeling, and doing and NOT your being. Your being is secure in the fact that its value is predetermined by your belief that your self has high value--period. You value your self because of your self. That is, you value the self because of the nature of your self. There is no challenge to, disputing of, or changing of such a value. The value of your self stands unchanged by experience as the nature of your self stands unchanged by experience. You realize that the self does NOT change by what you do--only the ego changes by what you do. The ego being the definitions of self as a replacement for self.
THE CHOICE IS ONLY YOURS Will you choose to conditionally value your self, others, and life? This means you will be ego bound and will work to help others to also be ego bound. Or, will you choose to unconditionally value your self, others, and life? This means that you will let ego go and will be free to be.
THE "HOW" QUESTION How will I make it possible for myself to benefit from correction instead of personalizing it? Will I use either USE or USA so that I might remain detached and use correction to improve my thinking?
First Question in Counseling
QUOTATIONS VARIOUS SOURCES
"A fool is only a fool because he won't see he is a fool."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery."--James Joyce
"Failure doesn't have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person."--Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 206
"When receiving correction, the wise seeks to learn and the fool seeks to justify with excuses."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:"--Proverbs 3:11
"Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die."--Proverbs 15:5
"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."--Hebrews 12:6
"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"--Hebrews 12:7
"But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."--Hebrews 12:8
"For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God."--I Peter 2:20
"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism."--Norman Vincent Peale
"By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit."--Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 194. Order A Guide to Rational Living
"If we eliminated all errors, we would also eliminate much discovery, art, insight, learning, and creativity that results from facing errors."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"No one wants advice--only corroboration."--John Steinbeck
"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't."--Erica Jong
"Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it."--Gordon R. Dickson
"There is no point to correction unless there is there is the possibility of correction."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."--Proverbs 27:6
"When you lose, don't lose the lesson."--Anonymous
"Justifying a fault doubles it."--French proverb
QUOTATIONS SCRIPTURE
"A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:"--Proverbs 1:5
"Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety."--Proverbs 11:14
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise."--Proverbs 12:15
"Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil: but to the counsellors of peace is joy."--Proverbs 12:20
"Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established."--Proverbs 15:22
"Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end."--Proverbs 19:20
"Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war."--Proverbs 20:18
"Take counsel, execute judgment; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts; bewray not him that wandereth."--Isaiah 16:3
"Extol not thyself in the counsel of thine own heart; that thy soul be not torn in pieces as a bull [straying alone.]"--Ecclesiasticus 6:2
"As timber girt and bound together in a building cannot be loosed with shaking: so the heart that is stablished by advised counsel shall fear at no time."--Ecclesiasticus 22:16
"Give not over thy mind to heaviness, and afflict not thyself in thine own counsel."--Ecclesiasticus 30:21
"A man of counsel will be considerate; but a strange and proud man is not daunted with fear, even when of himself he hath done without counsel."--Ecclesiasticus 32:18
"And let the counsel of thine own heart stand: for there is no man more faithful unto thee than it."--Ecclesiasticus 37:13
"Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action."--Ecclesiasticus 38:33
"Gold and silver make the foot stand sure: but counsel is esteemed above them both."--Ecclesiasticus 40:25
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