Mr. A
Member
My review of Nathaniel Branden’s The Art of Living Consciously
The Art of Living Consciously: The Power of Awareness to Transform Everyday Life: Nathaniel Branden: 9780684838496: Amazon.com: Books
The author, Nathaniel Branden, is the well known and well respected pioneer of the self-esteem movement and leading expert on self-esteem. He has written many books on it’s subject, some of which I have read.
This one deals with living consciously - what it means to do so, why we need to, and what level of conscious awareness do we need to bring to that which we are doing.
“When we begin to reflect on what it means to live consciously, we may find ourselves thinking in terms of paying attention to our environment, seeking to understand that world around us, looking for evidence that tells us if we are right or mistaken in our assumptions, searching out information that bears on out goals, learning more about our work, and other matters pertaining to the world external to self. That is all correct, but it is only half the story. The other half of living consciously has to do with self-awareness -- with a concern to understand the inner world of needs, motives, thoughts, mental states, emotions, and bodily feelings.”
So, living consciously involves inner and outer awareness, as in introspection and extrospection. The function of our consciousness is to perceive, we can use it to look outwardly or inwardly. By using the faculty of reason, our means to knowledge, we are able to integrate the messages coming from our inner world (like understanding our emotions and their causation) and that of what we observe in the outer world.
Branden takes us through that which leads us to a conscious life, that respects reason and the facts of reality, in regards to both inner and outer conscious awareness. Practicing mindfulness (mentally proactive, as opposed to mental passivity) as it leads to more effectiveness, in being present in what we are doing while we are doing it, and to what appropriate level of conscious awareness do we need to bring to that which we are doing, the responsibilities associated with it, monitoring our actions and activities relative to our goals, values, purposes. Bringing awareness to our pursuits, examining our inner world…
Living consciously is at the very foundation on which Branden’s Six-Pillars of Self-Esteem rests, and simply are not possible without their foundation. The pillars of self-esteem being self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, purposefulness, integrity. He describes each on briefly in this work, but has a book that is devoted to them titled The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. In this book, he also goes into the relationship between consciousness (living consciously, levels of awareness) and that of self-esteem. And the relationship of using reason, logic, integrating the facts of reality to living consciously and what happens to consciousness as a result of choosing, say, faith over reason, evading/ignoring/denying facts of reality (both inner and outer world), what selflessness does, religious beliefs can do to the art of living consciously.
Branden also presents his sentence stems, Sentence - Completion Program, a technique he uses in his practice as a psychologist which he describes as ‘a powerful tool for raising self-understanding, self-esteem, and personal and professional effectiveness“. For example, he gives a sentence stem to client (or the readers of this book) and asks us to complete it:
If I take full responsibility for my choices and actions -
If I bring a high level of awareness to my work life -
If I look at how I spend my time -
When I reflect on what I have noticed today -
If I am fully present to whoever is talking to me -
If I bring a higher level of purpose to my daily activities -
If I want to convert my dreams into realities, I need to -
That gives you just some examples he provided (numerous others are in the book as well as the program itself). The idea is to answer questions like those and others, rapidly daily for a week, then new ones, and so forth. It’s meant to get you thinking, raising conscious awareness about what you do, things in your life, etc. This is a way of living consciously, with the introspecting, extrospecting it requires, and such stems can bring things to conscious awareness, to the surface to think about, evaluate, etc.
I’m very interested in the self-esteem movement and Cognitive approach to psychotherapy, so I’ll be reviewing more of Branden’s works as I read them (or reread ones I have).
Anyone interested in anything self-esteem - Nathaniel Branden is undeniably the go to source. A wealth of information on it lies within his work.