COURAGEOUS RESPONSIBILITY PRACTICAL SELF-ACTUALIZATION

The first benchmark, according to Abraham Maslow, for living the self-actualizing life is a total absorption into a being-valued significance— the personal “genius” state of flow. The second and third ones focused on the ability to exercise one’s power of choice as you live your life responsibly. Maslow spoke about choosing growth and choosing one’s way as you learn to listen to your own internal voice. Now for the fourth and fifth benchmarks.

4) Taking responsibility for Self “When in doubt, be honest rather than not. ... ‘When in doubt” covers us so we need not argue too much about diplomacy. Frequently, when we are in doubt we are not honest. ... then playing games and posing. ... Looking within oneself for many of the answers implies taking responsibility. That is in itself a great step toward actualization. This matter of responsibility has been little studied ... Yet it is an almost tangible part of psychotherapy. In psychotherapy, one can see it, can feel it, can know the moment of responsibility. Then there is a clear knowing of what it feels like. This is one of the great steps. Each time one takes responsibility, this is an actualizing of the self.” (45)

The doubt here is a doubt about yourself and what to do to be your best self. So when you are in doubt about actualizing yourself, how do you respond? Maslow says, “Be honest.” This is a call to be real. He also notes that most people are not. Instead of honestly stating what’s going on for us, we play games. We posture ourselves and worry about what people will think of us and so we put on masks to cover-up our doubt. But posturing behind the PR that you’ve created for yourself or losing yourself in your own press is how you can lose yourself— lose your real self. Yet if we’re serious about living the self-actualizing life, it is at those very moments when taking responsibility for ourselves enables us to be true and honest with ourselves.

“Responsibility” here is another meta-state— it is the state of accessing your innate powers for responding to the world and events. Then, from that awareness, you accept and take ownership to your response-powers. Doing this creates the gestalt of a very special state, a complex state that we call responsibility. Maslow says that doing this is, in itself, “a great step toward actualization” and that it is “act actualizing of the self.”

We stress this in Neuro-Semantics by using the Meta-Stating Pattern of accessing, owning, and developing our fundamental state of our “power zone.” This is based on recognizing that all of our powers boils down to four powers and these four powers make up every “power,” every resource, and every skill. This de-mystifies “responsibility” and issues in a very specific

awareness where you response-ability begins and ends. It begins within you— in your very thinking-and-emoting and it extends to what you can say-and-do. beyond that, you may have influence, but not control. “Control” of your response-power ends in what you are “able” to say and do.

What does “taking responsibility for yourself” mean? It means recognizing and owning that what you transmit by speaking and doing is your response and you cannot transfer to that to others. It is yours. No matter what influencing factors or contributing factors you can point to as you attempt to “explain” your actions and words— ultimately, they are yours. Fully accepting that is an act of self-actualization. Blaming and fault-finding in others or in situations blocks self-actualization.

5) Courageously Be Oneself — Listen and Speak as Yourself “We have talked of experiencing without self-awareness, of making the growth choice rather than the fear choice, of listening to the impulse voices, and of being honest and taking responsibility. All these are steps toward self-actualization, and all of them guarantee better life choices.” (45)

Using an illustration from “the art world,” Maslow described the experience of being captured by a small group of opinion-makers. To be influenced by them is to focus on what you think that you should value and appreciate instead of what you actually do think and value. Instead, “We must teach people to listen to their own tastes. Most people don’t do it.” And why not? Fear. Fear of being ridiculed or put down. To listen to our own voice and tastes takes courage. To be honest with ourselves and with others takes courage.

“Making an honest statement involves daring to be different, unpopular, non-conformist. . . . To be courageous rather than afraid is another version of the same thing.” (46)

This courage describes a facet of self-actualizing which involves embracing change and challenge. The courage to be oneself is the courage to grow, to keep on learning, and to develop. To do this, acknowledge your uniqueness and look within for what you have to give to the world. And this requires the courage to be self-referent in terms of “authority” rather than external. That is, in terms of being the “author” of one’s life, do we look within or outside? We are all born with an external-authority reference sort and part of growing up and taking responsibility means bringing it in so that we have an internal-authority sort with an external check.