Natural Health and Herbal Remedies Blog – information on herbal medicine

What is your reputation with yourself? What you think of yourself determines in large measure what you will think of others.

“I sort of feel okay about me. Not good, not bad. Just okay,” said one husband.

“Well, then,” answered the wife. “What does that make me? Why did I marry just okay? I think I deserve A-plus.”

My interviews of sex offenders and persons debilitated by paraphilias, when sex is separated from love, indicate that one common thread unites all of these persons: They all have extremely low self-esteem. Sex becomes more important than people. They seem to treat others sexually as they feel about themselves. They become driven by a sexual compulsion for “it” rather than him or her. How you feel about yourself will predict to a great extent how you feel about your marriage and how your partner will feel about himself or herself.

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As we begin to practise awareness, we become aware of our own behaviour and our subtle motivations. Slowly and subtly these insights into our self break through. What was initially destruction can become construction.

When the insights first come they are fleeting glimpses of how we could be. They disappear and reappear as we begin to assimilate them and begin to build on them. We begin to see that responsibility for our peace and happiness is ours, and ours alone. We cannot shift the responsibility of ourselves to other people or to other factors.

Sometimes we are able to assimilate the insights easily, at other times it calls for hard work. Sometimes the insights can herald changes so basic they are accompanied by fear.

As we become aware of these insights we begin to see we are letting go of more than the disorder. Life begins to take on a different meaning. Our ideals and values change. Things which were once important to us no longer seem so, yet it appears there is nothing else to take their place.

This can be very threatening and disturbing, despite our desperate longings to be ourselves. The pre-disorder identity has gone; its place was taken by the ‘disordered’ identity. This in turn is breaking down, leaving us no sense of identity, no sense of self, to take its place. The feeling of total annihilation can seem closer than ever before.

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Even when all possible care has been taken, something unexpected may still be found during an operation. This happens especially with emergency operations, when there is not enough time to completely evaluate the situation before operating. However, it can happen with any operation. This means that you need another safeguard. You need to know what might still be found that would make the proposed operation inadvisable or impossible. Ask directly. You need to know how your surgeon would want to deal with each possible situation. Again, ask directly. You have the right to set limits on what you will permit. For example, you may not be prepared to have your breast removed (mastectomy) or to have your bowel ending in an opening on the abdominal wall (colostomy) or to have both ovaries or both testicles removed. Before making a final decision, try to find out what would be likely to happen if you refuse a certain procedure. In other words, try to make a really informed decision when setting your limits. Horrified as you may be at the idea of a colostomy or mastectomy, it is possible that the consequences of not having these procedures could be worse.

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