2463: What Can't Be Hurt by Keith Wilson on Dignity, Self-Respect and Power of Choice

[00:00:00] Now before we start, you might want to check out our other podcasts covering topics like personal development and minimalism, money, health, relationships, and more. So to optimize your life in other areas, just search for Optimal Living Daily in your podcast app. Now on to the show. This is Optimal Relationships Daily, What Cant Be Hurt by Keith Wilson of KeithWilsonCounseling.com

[00:00:26] If you're hurt by someone you love, it's important to get real about the injury and account for all of the damages inflicted. Your money the compulsive gambler spent, the trust the adulterer squandered, the confidence the abusive parent wrecked. And it's equally important to note the damages that were not done, the parts of you that are untouched by your misfortune, and qualities of yours that may even be strengthened.

[00:00:50] I hope there's a lot that's been untouched. You may, to a greater degree or another, still have your health, your family, your friends, job, savings and credit, education, home, and many other what we call external goods. Go ahead and take inventory. But now I primarily want to call your attention to a property of yours that no one can take away, one which may have been made perfect by adversity.

[00:01:20] It goes by many names, all of them vague. The ancient Greeks call it proheresis. In English, it's been translated dignity, self-respect, the unconquerable will, the unquenchable human spirit, free choice, and moral purpose. Proheresis. This is a quality possessed by everyone, and it's always within reach. It outshines all differences of circumstance, accidents of fate, and actions of others that makes them trivial.

[00:01:46] It's all you need to live a life that you can be proud of. It may have been the very thing most lacking in your loved one that led to whatever he did to you. Proheresis. Proheresis is the choice that you have in giving in or resisting external forces. If someone calls you out on something, it's up to you whether you believe it. If someone has done something irritating, it is you who decides to be irritated. If someone strikes you, they may break a bone, but they don't have to break your spirit.

[00:02:15] The idea behind the concept is that, while you have no control of what others do to you, of what fate does to you, you do have control over what you do with it. The name for that control is proheresis. Let me explain proheresis by metaphor. Two people walk into a bank. One has a great credit score, the other a bad one. They both ask for a loan. The banker may decide that she won't lend money to the one who has good credit, and she may decide to give a chance and lend money to the other with bad credit.

[00:02:44] The banker is free to choose. The name for that choice is proheresis. In the same way, regardless of whether your loved one is untrustworthy, you are free to choose whether to trust him. Another way to get at the concept of proheresis is to think of a person who has triumphed over adversity, a survivor rather than a victim. There are plenty of examples. A boy born to poverty who picked himself up by his bootstraps. A Pakistani woman, her face disfigured by acid, speaking out for the education of girls, despite the reprisal.

[00:03:14] A divorced mother, writing at her kitchen table, collecting rejection slips, creating Harry Potter. A black South African, imprisoned for decades, who gets out and leads his country into justice and reconciliation. A teenaged girl, hiding from the Nazis in her attic, who nonetheless believes in the essential goodness of all. A religious teacher dying a slow death, who enjoins God's forgiveness. A tired seamstress, who won't give up her seat on the bus. The list goes on and on.

[00:03:44] But it's not limited to extraordinary people. It includes a myriad of anonymous individuals, who represent the triumph of will over hardship. The roofer who works in the sun. The cook who works in the heat. The postal worker who delivers the mail in the wind and rain. The new dad, abandoned by his father, determined to be there for his children. The mother who gets up in the night even though she's tired. Strength made perfect in weakness.

[00:04:10] Proheresis is found more in conditions of weakness and vulnerability than in strength. You see it at physical therapy, where stroke victims learn to walk all over again. You find it in rehab, where addicts are determined to change. I witness proheresis in my office when a depressed or agoraphobic person leaves her home to attend a session. It's there when you are patient with fools, kind to strangers, and whenever you refuse to stoop to the level of someone mistreating you. Proheresis is really so common, it's ordinary.

[00:04:40] Except that it ennobles people to do extraordinary things every day. Maybe proheresis is a miraculous thing. Maybe it's the higher power the AA people speak of that empowers people to do what they couldn't do before. I could buy that. With the stipulation that, if you get it by God's grace, it's given to everyone, good and bad, all the time. Like the sunshine. And not doled out on special occasions only to the people who qualify. How to exercise proheresis

[00:05:07] You exercise proheresis by taking responsibility, not of everything, but only of the things you are responsible for, yourself and what you do. You deplete it by engaging in self-pity and feeling sorry for yourself. Taking inventory of the damage done, as we've been doing, could drain your tank of proheresis if you stopped there, if you do not acknowledge that you have something to say about how you lived your life. The good thing is, no matter how much proheresis you've let go, there's always more.

[00:05:37] You always have an opportunity to take charge. I can tell you what hasn't been taken away. The answer is your dignity, self-respect, unconquerable will, unquenchable human spirit, free choice, and moral purpose. You may have misplaced it or never knew it existed. You may have given it away. But you can always get more proheresis. You just listened to the post titled, What Can't Be Hurt?

[00:06:05] by Keith Wilson of KeithWilsonCounseling.com And another fantastic piece of work from Keith Wilson. Thank you to him for that. And I think he ended it so beautifully. Because, you know, all throughout this article, I was contemplating how mercilessly our ability to bounce back can indeed be beaten down by extraneous forces to the point that it almost doesn't feel like a choice or an option we have to summon proheresis. But like he said, you may have misplaced it or not known of its existence at all.

[00:06:35] Or it may just feel impossible at some times, while more manageable at others. But we always have a degree in it, and it can always be rebuilt. We do possess the power to rewire our brains in such a way that proheresis is more readily available. And regardless of the degree of trauma you've endured and the effect that it's had on your spirit, as it were, there are always steps you can take to find your way back, even if it is a long, seemingly unending journey.

[00:07:03] So I really hope that's motivating to those who need to hear it. I would not say it if it wasn't true. So take that with you, everyone, as we wrap up for the day. Thank you, as always, for being here and making another episode possible. Stay strong, and be sure to come on back tomorrow for more. That's where your optimal life awaits. Stay strong, and be sure to come on back tomorrow for more.