The 7th strongest contributing factor to spiritual luster is affirming of self. How well do you value and empower yourself? Psychology is full of ways of elevating your self-esteem, yet psychology is all about your world-self… how to live better in a threatening world. Affirming of self has to do with developing a sense of inner worth that helps you achieve goals and improve the quality of your life. Affirmation includes willingness, the first step toward change. Beyond this, affirmation proceeds to consent and agreement.
Beyond psychology
When you dig into this notion beyond the human psychological domain you become more open to recognizing your essential identity as a child of God. You gradually grow to think of your true-self, not in an egotistical sense, but rather to value your real-self as God values you.
With advancing spiritual maturity you gradually consent to your highest status in God’s universe; you learn to embrace your holy-self as the primary driver of your life. You abandon your ego-self, surrender your world-self and organize your holy-self according to God’s plan. “Into your hands I commend my soul.” Your inner-self, your true-self requires your intentional nurturance and vital acceptance.
In his compelling book, Into Your Hands Father, Fr. Wilfrid Stinissin states: “In the third stage (of spiritual development) we surrender ourselves and our faculties so completely to God that God is able to use them as God wills. In the second stage, it is I who does God’s will, I do it for God. In the third stage, on the other hand, it is God who uses me: God does it through me.” (p. 77)
From my book: Freedom from Low-Self Esteem … here’s a taste of the book from the Introduction:
“As a counseling professional, I’ve seen many, many clients, indeed hundreds of clients over the years. Certainly I was aware of LSE, but I now realize I didn’t truly know or even understand LSE. I always assumed that LSE was an unfortunate appendage of a more dominant psychiatric diagnosis, or the result of dysfunctional family-of-origin dynamics. I saw LSE as the “side-car” result of something else in the patient’s life; I never fully realized that LSE was the “main event, and not simply a side-show.”
LSE inhibits you from truly embracing your true inner self. LSE makes it difficult to nurture ourselves; you feel distant from your true-self: you feel insecure; you fear confrontation; you seem unable to promote the real ‘you,’ and you never seem to grasp how good you are. In short you feel unworthy!