Relationship management

Identifying Self Value

It’s all very well saying that we should value ourselves. But what is self value? And how do we measure it -and therefore safeguard and increase it?

John Berger recently wrote a wonderful defence of the German Nobel Prize winning writer Gunter Grass (The Guardian: August 21,2006). Grass had been pilloried for not revealng that he had joined the Waffen SS at the age of 17. Berger’s response describes very closely what I believe to be the essence of ‘self value’.

"That he was naive when he was 17 means only that he was 17. Inside a story there are no mistakes, only the living through of mistakes. And he has lived through his, better than most of us would have done".

Grass, says Berger, ‘lived through his mistakes" by devoting himself "to grasping, narrating and explaining, with extensive fellow-feeling, the contradictions, cruelties, abysmal losses, wisdom, ignorance, cowardice and grace of people (person by person) under extreme historical stress. Very few other writers of our time have such a wide knowledge of articulate and inarticulate experience. Grass never shut his eyes. He became a writer of honour".

He lived though his mistake by ensuring that it became part of his life; by working with the grain to transform it into the pearl of his life’s work. He understood that the value of his life lay in living through his mistakes and successes – as experience – with his eyes open.

What would have happened if he had ‘confessed his sins’? Would his eyes have been opened wider? Would he have awakened himself more to the experience of his own life; to the value of his life? Or would he have been forced to devalue his life to the actions of the seventeen year old boy?

The word ‘redemption’ comes from the Latin verb ‘redemptio’. And one of the oldest meanings of ‘redemptio’ is to ‘to farm revenues’ – to cultivate one’s assets. And that is what I believe Self Value entails. The cultivating of the most precious asset we have: our Self.

Redemption does not start with the premise that we are a liability unless we do good; but that we can do good because we are an asset.

And how do we farm our revenues? How do we maximise our asset? How do we ‘make the most of our selves’?

By making ourselves as aware as we possibly can be of our selves: by probing how we think, feel, emote and behave in situations; by exploring the impact we have on our fellow beings and our world – and then reflecting on the chain of mutual reactions we create with one another. And by applying our selves in the world and the world in our selves.

By learning.

And how do we learn? By observng, enquiring, reflecting, feeling, applying and integrating.And observing again.

And, as you can see, we can not make the most of ourselves, or increase awareness of our selves, unless we recognise and value our fellow beings. If I think you have no value then we have no impact on one another. But I know that is not true: all beings and I do have some impact on one another. So, I must be closing down my own awareness in order to believe that you have no value.

By reducing my awareness of your value I reduce my awareness of mine.

That is why choice is such a precious gift. When we remove it from others, we remove it from ourselves. When we trespass against others we trespass against ourselves.

So, to summarise:

What is Self Value?

It is the recognition that the Self is the Asset; that it "can do good because it is an asset"; that the Self is the stone from which the scultpure is continuously shaped. Without the stone there is no sculpture.

How is Self Value maintained and maximised?

By taking responsibility for that Self and making ourselves as aware as possible of how we think, feel, emote and behave in our mutual relationship with the world.

How is Self Value diminished?

When we diminish the awareness of both our own selves and that of our fellow beings; when we impose and abuse; when we prevent ourselves or others from discovering our Self Value

So, can Self Value be developed?

Self Value is. We do thing of value because we ‘are value’. The asset is there, whatever we do. It’s our awareness and management of it that impacts our actions. The more aware we are of the asset, the better we are able to use it.

Self Value: doing or being?

That’s the trouble with words: we use them in so many different ways that they lose…value.

We talk about the value of a house; of a painting; of a job – even of a relationship. Just take the ‘value of a house’ as an example. That could be what we can sell it at; what we like about it; what experiences we’ve had in it as a family or how the designers/artists/viewers/critics rate it. Different things all reduced to one word: value.
Every second coach will probably tell you how vital it is to value yourself. But what does self value mean? Are you supposed to value yourself for what you do? Or for how you look? Or, perhaps, for how kind and compassionate you are?

So what happens when you do something ‘badly’? When you deliver a shoddy piece of work?

What about when you ‘lose’ your looks?

As for ‘kind and compassionate’: what happens when you’re not kind? Do you stop valuing your self?

Or are you only supposed to value yourself when you’re doing ‘good’ things; when you’re looking good; or when you’re clever and capable and successful?

The trouble with valuing ourselves for how we present ourselves to the world (in other words, for how we perform or look)is that our presentations can not be totally consistent. The result is that our ‘value’ then goes up and down like a yo-yo. As a publicly quoted company we’d be a disaster.
And if you’re valuing yourself on your performance, you even start undervaluing your successes because you know that next time you may ‘fail’. "I did ok, today, but tomorrow I could mess up. So how much value do I really have?"

You start to value yourself by your failures rather than your successes.
And here’s the clincher, for me: if we value ourselves according to our performance to the world – then we’re not only valuing ourselves according to what we (inconsistently) do but according to how the world judges our performances. We surrender our own value – our sense of self – to others.

Our ‘value’ becomes pleasing the world/audience/lover/church/boss/ market.
But do you know what? It’s not always in the interests of ‘the world’ to give us accurate feedback on ‘how we’re doing’. The boss, for example, may worry that if she tells you how great you are, you might ask for a raise, or look for another job or want hers.
And how do you react? Somewhere in the range of: accept it or not. If you accept it, then you’ll value yourself lowly and strive to meet (what you think are )the boss’s expectations. If you don’t then you’ll try and rationalise it away: "She’s a manipulative tyrant and she has no idea what quality means". Either way, you reduce your value of yourself. In the first instance by accepting someone else’s perception. In the second, by feeling humiliated that the boss’s opinion did not match yours and your hopes.

Value based on how you present youself to the world is a disaster.

So, what value should we place on ourselves?

The Value of Being.

It is the fact that you are that enables you to do.

Not the other way round.
Your starting point, surely,has to be your sense of self in the world; how you see your self in the world.

How can you do something of value unless there is value in you, the doer? And if you only value yourself for what you do, what message are you sending to your colleagues, friends, partners and children? That you’re only as valuable as your last action?

Valuing ourselves and others according to our performance – or ‘presentation to the world’ as I put it earlier – means ignoring a fundamental reality: beings are much more than their actions. Their value is in their ability to be; to project; to conceptualise; to create; to make mistakes; to learn; to walk into a room and listen; to be another to you.

And those of us who value themselves in their doing -their performance for the world – rather than in their being, reduce themselves to the limits and distortions of the judgments of others. Limited because others (never mind how close they may be to us) can not climb inside our skins and view the world as we view it; distorted because they will always judge some part of our actions by the way it affects them.

The more we submit to the judgement of others the more we lose our sense of self; the less value we place on our being-in-the-world, the less we’re able to achieve the integrity of self-valued being and self-valued doing.

If we have a strong sense of self, if we value our sense of being in the world, then it follows that we will do things that have integrity with that value.

TO BE CONTINUED