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Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.

Nathaniel Branden

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Nathaniel Branden
Age: 84 †
Born: 1930
Born: April 9
Died: 2014
Died: December 3
Academic
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Refusal
Depression
Acceptance
Compassion
Relationship
Self
Adversarial

More quotes by Nathaniel Branden

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Accepting does not necessarily mean liking, enjoying, condoning. I can accept what is-and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck.
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Your choices have psychological consequences. The way you choose to deal with reality, truth, facts - your choice to honor or dishonor your own perceptions - registers in your mind, for good or for bad, and either confirms and strengthens your self-esteem or undermines and weakens it.
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If you choose not to live self-responsibly, you count on others to make up your default. No one abjures self-responsibility on a desert island.
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To attain success without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.
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Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider.
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Our motive is not to prove our self-worth, but to live up to our possibilities.
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Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
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Most of us are taught from an early age to pay far more attention to signals coming from other people than from within. We are encouraged to ignore our own needs and wants and to concentrate on living up to others expectations.
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A productive purpose to which you give yourself fully and joyfully is one of the great adventures of life. It is a uniquely human source of happiness.
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A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.
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Where we see self esteem, we see self acceptance. High self esteem individual tend to avoid falling into an adversarial relationship with themselves.
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For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic, the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality.
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Respect starts with ourselves.
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Anyone who really loves you wants you to be authentic. And anyone who doesn't want you to be authentic doesn't really love you.
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We are anxious when there is a dissonance between our knowledge and the perceivable facts. Since our knowledge is not to be doubted or questioned, it is the facts that have to be altered.
Nathaniel Branden
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If you overcome your fear to ask someone for a date, a raise, or help with a project, that is an act of self-assertiveness. You are moving out into life rather than contracting and withdrawing.
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Be careful what you say to your children. They may agree with you.
Nathaniel Branden
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No one is coming to save you.
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The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism.
Nathaniel Branden
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You have a right to your feelings. Your feelings are there to tell you something, but they are not infallible guides to behavior.
Nathaniel Branden