This is http://www.essayz.com/a9101081.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %BEING OURSELF WITH INTEGRITY WITHOUT CONFORMITY 910108 It is possible to be ourselves with integrity without conformity. It is not possible to be ourselves with integrity through conformity. Seeking acceptance, love, affection, respectability, self esteem, fulfillment, satisfaction through conformity imprisons us in the past and inhibits growth---for conformity must be achieved in terms of pre-conceived standards which are rooted in the past. We may seek conformity in terms of standards: 1. imposed upon us by others, 2. offered to us by others, 3. implied by others, 4. perceived in others by ourselves, 5. projected into others by ourselves, 6. projected into us by others, 7. internalized into ourselves by ourselves, 8. imposed upon ourselves by ourselves, 9. etc. Each kind of conformity is rooted in the past and can imprison us in ways which inhibit growth. Once we internalize the fact that it is possible to be ourselves with integrity without conformity, we may learn to respect ourselves with integrity without conformity to standards which imprison us in the past, and so inhibit our growth. Then we may grow in health. Once we have learned that it is acceptable to respect ourselves with integrity without conformity, we may learn to respect others with integrity with out conformity; and so help to free others to be themselves without conformity so that they may grow in health. The freedom to grow in health depends upon being and respecting with integrity, without conformity which imprisons. Being ourselves with integrity without conformity depends upon how we approach our relationships, and so upon how we approach each other and our freedoms to be ourselves without conformity. We cannot be ourselves with growing integrity while we are stuck trying to conform ourselves into preconceived patterns of how we should be who we should be---according to preconceptions of how we should achieve: love, affection, respectability, self esteem, fulfillment, satisfaction and salvation. While we are trying to be conformed we cannot grow through internalizing new key conceptual combinations which are essential to personal and communal integrity. Integrity has to do with essential connections which entail communication which is reliable because it is open and honest. People and communities that enjoy integrity are well connected, and are well, because they are well connected. They are healthy through integrative connections which involve honest communications. In the absence of integrative connections which involve honest communications, it is impossible to enjoy personal and communal integrity. We cannot enjoy honest communications if we are not free to be ourselves with integrity without conformity. To enjoy personal and communal integrity we must give the gift of security, so that we may communicate openly and honestly. Only when we freely accept the gift of security we can be ourselves with integrity without conformity. We cannot accept the gift of security if it is not given, and we cannot give the gift fully if it cannot be accepted. The gift of security is not given (and is not accepted) by people who seek security through defenses. Defensive people are not secure, because they do not give and do not accept the gift of security. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================