Part I of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem book by Nathaniel Branden. He demonstrates why self-esteem is basic to psychological health, achievement and positive relationships. You will learn in this part of the book about:

• The importance of self-esteem, its definition and the basic pattern.
• The impact in your life.
• Self-efficacy and self-respect and worthiness.
• The face of Self-Esteem and the illusion .

In the second part of the book Nathaniel Branden introduces the six pillars itself, filled with personal experiences and powerful exercises for each of the pillars:

• The practice of living consciously. The principle of living consciously is unaffected by degrees of intelligence. To live consciously means to seek to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes, values, and goals. To be the best of our ability, whatever that ability may be and to behave in accordance with that which we see and know.
• The practice of self-acceptance. The principle of self-acceptance has three levels of meaning: to be on your own side, the willingness to experience rather than to disown whatever may be the facts of our being at a particular moment, and the idea of compassion, of being a friend to yourself.
• The practice of self-responsibility. In taking responsibility for our own existence we implicitly recognize that other human beings ar not our servants and do not exist for the satisfaction of our needs.
• The practice of self-assertiveness. To practice assertiveness is to live authentically, to speak and act from my innermost convictions and feelings.
• The practice of living purposefully. This principle entails taking responsibility for formulating one's goals and purposes, being concerned to identify the actions necessary to archive them. Monitoring behavior to check that it is in alignment with those goals and paying attention to the outcomes of one's actions.
• The practice of personal integrity. Is the integration of ideals, convictions, standards, beliefs and behavior. When our behavior is congruent with our professed values, when ideals and practice match, we have integrity.

Finally at the third part of the book, Nathaniel Branden explains the importance of self-esteem in five areas:

• Workplace
• Parenting
• Education
• Psychotherapy
• Society

Nathaniel Branden includes in his book a thirty-one week sentence-completion program . The main idea is to apply these pillars to your daily life.

About the Nathaniel Branden :

Nathaniel Branden is psychological theorist, a practicing psychotherapist Los Angeles. Nathaniel Branden is the author of thirteen books, including his memoir, judgment Day: My years with Any Rand. Nathaniel also lectures widely to professional and corporate groups.

Table of Contents

Excerpts from Nathaniel Branden book

By “self-esteem” I mean much more than that innate sense of self worth that presumably is our human birthright that spark that psychotherapist and teachers seek to fan in those they work with. That spark is only the anteroom to self-esteem. Self-esteem, fully realized, is the experience that we are appropriate to life and to the requirements of life. More specifically, self-esteem is:

1. Confidence in our ability to think, self confidence in our ability to cope with the basic challenges of life; and
2. Confidence in our right to be successful and happy, the feeling of being worthy, deserving, entitled to assert our needs and wants, achieve our values, and enjoy the fruits of our efforts.

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem page 3-4.

Self-esteem has two interrelated components. One is a sense of basic confidence on the face of life’s challenges: self-efficacy: the other is a sense of being worthy of happiness: self-respect.
I do not mean to imply that a person of high or healthy self-esteem consciously thinks in terms of these components, but rather that if we look closely at the experience of self-esteem, we inescapably find them.

Self-efficacy means confidence in the functioning of my mind, in my ability to think, understand, learn, choose, and make decisions, confidence in my ability to understand the facts of reality that fall within the sphere of my interests and needs, self-trust self-reliance.

Self-respect means assurance of my value and affirmative attitude to ward my right to live and to be happy, comfort in appropriately asserting my thoughts, wants, and needs, the feeling that joy and fulfillment are my natural birthright.

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem , page 21.

If we do not bring an appropriate level of consciousness to our activities, if we do not live mindfully, the inevitable penalty is a diminished sense of self-efficacy and self-respect. We cannot feel competent and worthy while conducting our lives in mental fog. Our mind is our basic tool of survival. Betray i and self-esteem suffers. The simplest form of this betrayal is the evasion of discomfiting facts. For example:

I know I am not giving my job my best, but I don't want to think about it.
I know there are signs our business is falling into worse and worse trouble, but what we've done worked in the past, didn't it? Anyway the whole subject is upsetting, and maybe if I sit tight the situation will resolve itself, somehow.

Through the thousands of choices we make between thinking and non thinking, being responsible toward reality or evading it, we establish a sense of the kind of person we are. Consciously, we rarely remember these choices.

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, page 68-69

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem book by Dr. Nathaniel Branden.

This is a practical book that can help anyone .This book is a call to action.As Nathaniel Branden says: This book is addressed to all men and women who whish to participate actively in the process of their evolution, as well as to psychologist, parents, teachers and those responsible for the culture of organizations, it is about what is possible.

Product Details
Paperback: 346 pages
Publisher: Bantam (May 1, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553374397
ISBN-13: 978-0553374391
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1 inches

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