bodymindspiritworks   LLC

"Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of phrasing the striving 'upward') must by now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency.

And yet there are also other regressive, fearful, self-diminishing tendencies as well, and it is very easy to forget them in our intoxication with 'personal growth' We must appreciate that many people choose the worse rather than the better, that growth is often a painful process…"

                                                                        + Abraham Maslow, "Motivation and Personality""

• Keen sense of reality - aware of real situations - objective judgement, rather than subjective
• See problems in terms of challenges and situations requiring solutions, rather than see problems as personal complaints or excuses
• Need for privacy and comfortable being alone
• Reliant on own experiences and judgement - independent - not reliant on culture and environment to form opinions and views
• Not susceptible to social pressures - non-conformist
• Democratic, fair and non-discriminating - embracing and enjoying all cultures, races and individual styles
• Socially compassionate - possessing humanity
• Accepting others as they are and not trying to change people
• Comfortable with oneself - despite any unconventional tendencies
• A few close intimate friends rather than many surface relationships
• Sense of humor directed at oneself or the human condition, rather than at the expense of others
• Spontaneous and natural - true to oneself, rather than being how others want
• Excited and interested in everything, even ordinary things
• Creative, inventive and original
• Seek peak experiences that leave a lasting impression

• Wholeness (unity; integration; tendency to one-ness; interconnectedness; simplicity; organization; structure; dichotomy-transcendence; order);
• Perfection (necessity; just-right-ness; just-so-ness; inevitability; suitability; justice; completeness; "oughtness");
• Completion (ending; finality; justice; "it's finished"; fulfillment; finis and telos; destiny; fate);
• Justice (fairness; orderliness; lawfulness; "oughtness");
• Aliveness (process; non-deadness; spontaneity; self-regulation; full-functioning);
• Richness (differentiation, complexity; intricacy);
• Simplicity (honesty; nakedness; essentiality; abstract, essential, skeletal structure);
• Beauty (rightness; form; aliveness; simplicity; richness; wholeness; perfection; completion; uniqueness; honesty);
• Goodness (rightness; desirability; oughtness; justice; benevolence; honesty);
• Uniqueness (idiosyncrasy; individuality; non-comparability; novelty);
• Effortlessness (ease; lack of strain, striving or difficulty; grace; perfect, beautiful functioning);
• Playfulness (fun; joy; amusement; gaiety; humor; exuberance; effortlessness);
• Truth; Honesty; Reality (nakedness; simplicity; richness; oughtness; beauty; pure, clean and unadulterated; completeness; essentiality).
• Self-sufficiency (autonomy; independence; not-needing-other-than-itself-in-order-to-be-itself; self-determining; environment-transcendence; separateness; living by its own laws).

       Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

Healthy individuals are those who exhibit maturity and ability to take responsibility for their own emotional being and destiny. Those who have integrity—not in the sense of morality, though it does include and lead to that but integrity in the sense of wholeness and coherent organization; not integrity in the sense of honesty, though it does include and lead to that, but integrity in the sense of immunity.

• Resiliency
• Determination
• Self-regulation
• Stamina
• Persistence
• Hope (broad horizons)
• Capacity to think systemically
• Ability to transform, which includes a higher capacity to deal with future crises
• Ability to modify the toxicity of the environment

• The capacity to separate oneself from surrounding emotional processes
• The capacity to obtain clarity about one's principles and vision
• The willingness to be exposed and to be vulnerable
• Persistence in the face of inertial resistance
• Self-regulation in the face of reactive sabotage
• Trauma lies in the self-organizing quality of the system and the response of the organism rather than in the event. In other words, the trauma is in the experience and the response to it, not in the event itself.
• The toxicity of an environment in most cases is proportional to the response of the organism or the institution, rather than to the hostility of the environment.
• What is essential are stamina, resolve, remaining connected, the capacity for self-regulation of reactivity, and having horizons beyond what one can actually see.
• There is no way out of a chronically painful condition except by being willing to go through a temporarily more acutely painful phase.
• People who are cut off from relationship systems, especially their family of origin, do not heal, no matter what their symptom.
• Most of the decisions we make in life turn out to be right or wrong not because we were prescient, but because of the way we function after we make the decision.
• A self is more attractive than a no-self.