The 7th Pillar - Summoning The Hero

Unique Perspectives: The 7th Pillar - Summoning The Hero

By Kim Stevens

So, I know the book I’ve been referencing these past six weeks is called The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem but as it turns out, there’s a seventh pillar … and it’s the one that makes all the difference.

Author Nathaniel Branden writes this: “Early in this book I said the need for self-esteem is a summons to the hero within us. It means a willingness and a will to live the six practices when to do so may not be easy.”

I really, really love this. (Yes, I say that all the time but it’s SO TRUE!) This idea brings the entire concept of self-esteem full circle, zeroing in on the hero’s journey I take on my lifelong self-esteem exploration. And the choice to take this journey or to answer the call, if you will, is mine alone to make.

As Branden describes, I get to decide whether I will think or avoid thinking, expand my consciousness or contract it, move toward reality or withdraw … Everything with self-esteem is a choice and that choice is always up to me.

Now, it does take some effort to choose what’s best for me. Branden explains that this kind of self-assertiveness requires the absolute courage to live with authenticity, even when – or especially when – I don’t really know how those around me will respond. I must “risk being myself” to experience my truth.

Each of the six pillars I’ve reviewed – living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully and personal integrity – require some amount of effort or will to practice them. It’s not a passive way to live; it requires an active participation on my part to choose the direction I want to go and to focus all my efforts that way.

“Self-esteem is the best predictor of happiness that we have,” Branden writes, noting that with this powerful predictor comes the short-term requirement that we endure some level of discomfort because that is exactly what is necessary to enjoy lasting spiritual growth. Branden explains: “If one of our top priorities is to avoid discomfort, if we make this of higher value than our self-regard then under pressure we will abandon the six practices precisely when we need them the most.”

To practice these six pillars, I must first decide that I am OK with sacrificing short-term comfort for the long-term happiness that self-esteem brings. In other words, as a life coaching program I once completed might describe it: I have to be comfortable being uncomfortable, to put being uncomfortable IN my comfort zone … This is big. 

Because that’s where and when the magic happens. That’s when I start to become tougher, more resourceful, able to confront discomfort with confidence and build up my toolbox of coping mechanisms to combat these kinds of difficult situations. That’s when I’m strengthening my spiritual muscle to experience the most powerful version of myself possible or what Joseph Campbell calls the experience of being alive!

I’m also then seeing challenges (or opportunities) from a new lens, a Unique Perspective if you will, where I’ve gained a higher level of perspective on situations that used to make me crumble. There’s no value in struggle or pain, says Branden, and even though this process is difficult, I don’t need to make it harder than it needs to be. 

Where do I summon this kind of courage? Where do I get this ability to sit comfortably in my discomfort? To answer these questions, Branden delivers my favorite line of the entire book: 

“The energy for this commitment can only come from the love we have for our own life.”