What Self-Esteem Is and Is Not by Nathaniel Branden, Part 2:
Self-esteem is not the euphoria or buoyancy that may temporarily be induced by a drug, a compliment, or a love affair. It is not an illusion or hallucination. If it is not grounded in reality, if it is not built over time through the appropriate operation of mind, it is not self-esteem.
The root of our need for self-esteem is the need for a consciousness to learn to trust itself. And the root of the need to learn such trust is the fact that consciousness is volitional: we have the choice to think or not to think. We control the switch that turns consciousness brighter or dimmer. We are not rational – that is, reality-focused – automatically. This means that whether we learn to operate our mind in such a way as to make ourselves appropriate to life is ultimately a function of our choices. Do we strive for consciousness or for its opposite? For rationality or its opposite? For coherence and clarity or their opposite? For truth or its opposite?
BUILDING SELF-ESTEEM
In “The Six Pillars of Self Esteem,” I examine the six practices that I have found to be essential for the nurturing and sustaining of healthy self-esteem: the practice of living consciously, of self-acceptance, of self-responsibility, of self-assertiveness, of purposefulness, and of integrity.
I will briefly define what each of these practices means:
The practice of living consciously: respect for facts; being present to what we are doing while are doing it; seeking and being eagerly open to any information, knowledge, or feedback that bears on our interests, values, goals, and projects; seeking to understand not only the world external to self but also our inner world, so that we do not out of self-blindness.
#nathanielbranden #selfesteem
'My vegan diet brought on early menopause': She's a poster girl for the meat-free revolution. But in a shocking confession, cookery author and social media guru VIRPI MIKKONEN, 39, admits it ruined her health (so she's eating burgers!) by Sally Williams, Part 1:
Early last year, Virpi Mikkonen was alarmed by the appearance of a rash on her face.
There were other problems: a bout of flu that was hard to shift; crumbling nails; feeling low; and, most worrying, her periods stopped. A blood test revealed her follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels had sky-rocketed to the level at which women hit the menopause. Virpi was 37 and having hot flushes. ‘I thought, what’s wrong with me? I am healthy, I exercise,’ Virpi says. ‘I was really scared.’
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At the time, Virpi believed herself to be eating the healthiest of all diets: gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, meat-free, refined sugar-free. And what’s more, she’d built a career inspiring others to eat it, too.
As ‘Vanelja’, Virpi is an award-winning blogger and entrepreneur championing plant-based eating. She has written four cookbooks, which include vegan alternatives for ice cream, pizza and cakes, and has 164,500 followers on Instagram.
Though based in Finland, she writes her blog and best-selling books in English, and this, together with pretty photos of her recipes on Instagram, has earned her a sizeable following among British foodies. Vogue called her ‘social media gold’. Think of her as the Finnish equivalent of Deliciously Ella, the British food writer and creator of the coconut-and-oat energy ball which costs £1.79 a piece. Virpi’s version: Dreamy Blueberry Thyme cake, a ‘raw cheesecake’ made from dairy-free oat milk.
Yet the ‘clean’ vegan diet that she was promoting as a route to health was making her sick. She sought help from a specialist in Chinese medicine, who diagnosed a ‘yin deficiency’ (health depends on a balance of yin and yang, according to traditional Chinese medicine). She said Virpi should stop eating so much raw food — yet salad, juices and smoothies were the backbone of her diet.
#virpimikkonen #vegan #veganism #meat #plantbased
What Self-Esteem Is and Is Not by Nathaniel Branden, Part 1:
This article is adapted from “The Art of Living Consciously”, Simon & Schuster, 1997.
A DEFINITION
Four decades ago, when I began lecturing on self-esteem, the challenge was to persuade people that the subject was worthy of study. Almost no one was talking or writing about self-esteem in those days. Today, almost everyone seems to be talking about self-esteem, and the danger is that the idea may become trivialized. And yet, of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
Having written on this theme in a series of books, I want, in this short article, to address the issue of what self-esteem is, what it depends on, and what are some of the most prevalent misconceptions about it.
Self-esteem is an experience. It is a particular way of experiencing the self. It is a good deal more than a mere feeling – this must be stressed. It involves emotional, evaluative, and cognitive components. It also entails certain action dispositions: to move toward life rather than away from it; to move toward consciousness rather than away from it; to treat facts with respect rather than denial; to operate self-responsibly rather than the opposite.
To begin with a definition: “Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness. It is confidence in the efficacy of our mind, in our ability to think. By extension, it is confidence in our ability to learn, make appropriate choices and decisions, and respond effectively to change. It is also the experience that success, achievement, fulfillment – happiness – are right and natural for us. The survival-value of such
confidence is obvious; so is the danger when it is missing.” #nathanielbranden #selfesteem
"In 1963 and 1964, experiments (Carroll, 1964) showed that the effects of glucose and fructose were radically affected by the type of fat in the diet. Although 0.6% of calories as polyunsaturated fat prevents the appearance of the Mead acid (which is considered to indicate a deficiency of essential fats) the “high fructose” diets consistently add 10% or more corn oil or other highly unsaturated fat to the diet. These large quantities of PUFA aren’t necessary to prevent a deficiency, but they are needed to obscure the beneficial effects of fructose." Raymond Peat, PhD
Video from, Corn Refiners Association HFCS Commercial
#highfructosecornsyrup #polyunsaturatedfats #unsaturatedfat #pufa #meadacid #fructose #glucose #sucrose #essentialfats
