SELF-LOVE: SPRING OF SERENITY
The destructive assortments of negative tensions that rob us of peace of mind are many and far-reaching like the branches of an oak tree. However, according to Dr. Robert Schuller, the tap root of that tree out of which all negative tensions spring is a lack of self-esteem or negative self-image.
If you denigrate yourself, belittle your God-given abilities, and negatively say to yourself, “I cannot do it.”; “I am no good”; then you have inadequate self-image and this will produce troubles for your mind as well as your body.
Modern medicine along with modern psychology agrees with modern theology, Schuller believes, that loving oneself rightly is an essential prelude to living a full, happy, and fruitful existence.
The truth is that every human being has problems with his self-image. We are all born with negative self-image. According to Rev Schuller, the “original sin” which drove Adam to hide in the “bushes” means that ever since, all human beings are “born in bushes.” “It means we are all born detached from a relationship with God, and consequently suffer from birth with a terribly weak and insecure ego.”
![IT must be one of the most difficult – and exasperating – tasks in the world to be the President of a nation like Ghana. For you may travel all over4 the world, talking to the leaders of “the developed nations”, to try persuade them that the pandemic that is afflicting the world, Covid-19 (with its variants) is a truly global destroyer and thatnowhere is safe from it, until everywhere is safe. You may deploy your most eloquent language to point out that although, the scientists of the “developed countries” have managed to manufacture a vaccine that has been seen to work against the pandemic, the politicians of the “developed countries” are, contrary to undertakings they have made to the World Health Organisation (WHO) hoarding the vaccine in their countries. Reports suggest that whereas the governments of the “developed countries” are targeting 100 percent of their populace for vaccination, and getting closer to their objective every day, less than 10% of the populace of the developing countries have so far been vaccinated, as a result of a lack of vaccines. Is this fair? you ask. Air travel (you continue) has made international contacts extremely easy. And since the Covid-19 virus and its latest variant (Omicron) in particOman Ghana versus Covid-19 08 www.ghanaiantimes.com.gh GHANAIAN Times Features TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2021ular, are very transmissible. So it is in everyone's educated self-interest to see that all people on the planet are fully vaccinated. As a result of your Government's efforts, you hear that plenty of vaccines have arrived in your country and you are emboldened to announce that your Government will soon be able to vaccinate its entire adult population. Then, you get the shock of your life: an intelligence report tells you that some mischievous people are spreading the fake news that if a person allows himself or herself to be vaccinated, the “vaccine will make that person vote for your governing NPP whether he/she wants to do so or not!” WHAAAAT! How does one counter such fake news? If the Government say it is not true, the conspiracy theorists shoot back, “And are you so naïve as to expect them to admit that the vaccine will make you vote for the NPP?” Wow! Are people so wicked that despite the gains that the world has already made through vaccination (such as the elimination of small pox from the world and the near-extinction of polio and yellow fever) they try to dissuade others from taking advantage of anti-Covid vaccination? Especially since people who are clever enough to invent such fake news must know of the horrible pain that Covid-19 subjects people to, before it finally kills them? What makes the anti-Covid vaccination story doubly awful is that its seeds are sown on pre-fertilised ground. In the past, some wicked scientists in the developed countries have allowed themselves to be used by their [usually racist] governments to administer harmful vaccines and other medications to people, using the lie that such interventions can save them from certain disease. One of the most devastating such deceptions occurred in the United States in 1932. Below is the horrible story as told on the OFFICIAL website of the US CENTRES FOR DISEASE CONTROL [CDC]: https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm QUOTE: THE U.S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE SYPHILIS STUDY AT TUSKEGEE In 1932, the USPHS, [US Public Health Service] working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphillis. It was originally called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphillis in the Negro Male” (sic) [now referred to as the “USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee”]. The study initially involved 600 Black men — 399 with syphillis, 201 who did not have the disease. Participants’ informed consent was not collected. Researchers told the men they were being treated for “bad blood,” a local term used to describe several ailments, including syphillis, anaemia, and fatigue. In exchange for taking part in the study, the men received free medical exams, free meals, and burial insurance (sic)! By 1943, penicillin was the treatment of choice for syphilis and becoming widely available, but the participants in the study were not offered treatment. In 1972, an Associated Press story about the study was published. As a result, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs appointed an Ad Hoc Advisory Panel to review the study. The advisory panel concluded that the study was “ethically unjustified”; that is, the “results [were] disproportionately meagre, compared with known risks to [the] human subjects involved.” In March 1973, the panel advised the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to instruct the USPHS to provide all necessary medical care for the survivors of the study. The Tuskegee Health Benefit Programme was established to provide these services and in 1975, participants’ wives, widows and children were added to the program. In 1995, the program was expanded to include health, as well as medical, benefits. The last study participant died in January 2004. The last widow receiving THBP benefits died in January 2009. ... I973, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the study participants and their families, resulting in a $10 million, out-of-court settlement in 1974. On May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton issued a formal Presidential Apology [over the study.] UNQUOTE In Ghana, the fake news that the anti-Covid vaccine would make people “vote for the NPP” has already begun to cause disagreements in some households. A family known to me has had to dismiss its house-help because she obstinately refused to take the jab. To illustrate the way the way the political message contained in the fake news has been camouflaged, I offer a version of the last conversation between the head of the household and the house-help: BOSS: Hey, “A”, you are very lucky! Instead of you going around to look for the vaccinators, they are coming to our estate! HOUSE-HELP: They are coming here? B: Yes! H: But Boss, I told you that my brother took the jab and had to be admitted into hospital. B: It doesn't mean that you too will become ill if you get the jab. It affects different people in different ways. Look, as you know, I have had all my own jabs and I have never been ill – as you know! H: But Boss, if you have taken all your jabs, then you are PROTECTED, are you not? B: Yes, I am. H: In that case, even if I become infected because I have not taken the jab, I cannot transmit the disease to you and YOU will be all right? B: I can't say that! Because, as I have explained to you, the pandemic can affect different people in different ways. H: Then the jab is useless? B: Listen, I can't take any risks with such a dangerous disease. Either you take it or you leave, I am sorry. I cannot allow you to expose me and my family to the risk of catching Covid. As I reported earlier, the House-help chose to leave. Both her Boss and I are convinced that it wasn't mere logicthat made her decide not to take the jab. She was probably under the influence of a church/cult. Or political propaganda! • Omicron cases at Kotoka International Airport are amongst the unvaccinated](https://ghanaiantimes.com.gh/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/GT-8.pdf-Adobe-Acrobat-Pro-DC-4-220x150.jpg)
This alienation from God, brought about by the fall of Adam Rev Schuller reiterates, deprives us of the self-assurance, self-affirmation, self-confidence generating relationship with God, which leaves us so emotionally starved that we become vain, rebellious and self-serving, all because at the onset of our lives we are born with an inadequate self-love.
Erik Erikson’s studies of the stages of child development throw light on this concept. Dr. Erikson, “the father of child psychiatry,” tells us an infant is born untrusting. Agreeing, Dr. Schuller, of Crystal Cathedral, says that the point is profoundly theological – we are all born with a negative self-image. “Somehow we must be born again and emerge trusting and enthused about the kind of persons we can be with the help of God.”
What Self-Love Is Not
Some people upon hearing words of SELF-LOVE misinterpret its meaning. Self-love is not narcissism, vanity, or self-admiration. It is not being enamored or entranced with your personal appearance.
Self-love is not self-glorification. It is not the continuous attempt to impress others with your importance, with the position you occupy or the awards and accolades won.
Self-love is not being arrogant or snobbish. It is not the condescending attitude you have when you feel you are superior to other persons. It is loving others as yourself no matter what their origins are, background, race, or religion.
Self-love is not self-will. Self-will is actually the defensive, and even potentially dangerous and demonic behavior of an insecure, non-self-loving person. “Even as self-love is the tap root of peace of mind, so self-will is the polluting source of destructive tensions.”
Self-will is that raw, rough, inconsiderate selfishness that takes the attitude, “I want what I want when I want it.” Self-will is that rigid, unyielding, stubborn spirit of a person who, at his deepest level, is insecure to ever compromise; too lacking in self-love to generously share himself; too void of self-assurance to ever publicly admit he made a mistake.
A stubborn self-will is the tension-generating behavior of a deeply insecure person. What a tragic cycle of tensions is set in motion. A mental climate of antagonism, hostility, resentment, jealously, and frustration is produced. All this, of course, produces new tensions and troubles for the self-willed person, and each new tension only seeks to reinforce and harden his desperate, defensive, and insecure behavior. “He is caught in an ever-widening whirlpool of tensions!”
What Self-Love Is
Basically, self-love embodies respect for yourself; what the ancient Greek called, “reverence for the self.” This is expressed in a number of different ways: self-love is patient and kind; self-love is not jealous or boastful; self-love is not arrogant or rude; and it does not insist on its way.
Self-love is a healthy pride. It is being proud of who you are. Without self-love, many people are ashamed of their ancestry of humble beginnings. No matter where anybody’s predecessors came from, there is and was a culture unlike any other in the world. Something to be proud and humble about as a descendant of that culture.
The self-loving person also develops and expresses a very healthy self-confidence. The lack of self-confidence, Dr. Schuller believes, is one of the major roadblocks to peace of mind, happiness, and success in life. “For self-confidence is the belief in your own ability to come to grips with problems and solve them; to know that you can and will succeed at worthy tasks; all of which equips you emotionally to meet life’s challenges with equanimity and imperturbability.”
The self-confident person, in turn, dares to be an honest open person. He accepts himself as a unique individual. He reflects a basic integrity of character.
He becomes genuinely and infectiously enthusiastic. Only honest persons can be enthusiastic. Insecure persons keep their little dark secrets locked and hopefully hidden from public view. So they develop a tense, psychic, invisible emotional barrier that constantly restrains their inclination to be enthusiastic. This, psychologists believe, is an acquired mechanism designed to keep oneself from “talking too much” and virtually “letting the cat out of the bag,” and exposing one’s true and blacker self. Honest persons, by contrast, are truly free. They are naturally enthusiastic because they have nothing to hide.
The person who is enthusiastic about himself, in turn, is self-assured and relaxed. He finds it easy to give in, back down, admit his errors, and change his mind when new light is shed. Such a person creates a mental climate of trust respect, and affection. People start treating him beautifully. They really do help him with creative criticism which reduces his mistakes, boosts his achievements and strengthens his relationships, all of which reinforces his self-respect. “He starts a fantastic peace-of-mind cycle. For he relaxes tension around him producing peace in his life and in the lives of others.”
You can see, now, that self-love is indeed the core to a genuinely peace-centered mind. Consequently, as you build a strong self-love, you will, in the process, be strengthening other positive personality traits, such as: self-discovery, self-discipline, self-development, and self-dedication. All of which, Dr. Schuller assures, adds up to achieving responsible personhood – both the end and the means of peace of mind. You will also find vast areas of untapped resources within yourself when you start relaxing.
Ultimately, when you develop a positive self-image, you will know that God can live and move and have His being within you. When you experience God in your consciousness, you will believe even more strongly in His still small voice within you. This, then, will tremendously boost your growing self-confidence. “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”
