"Self Respect"

Rodney Dangerfield reflected how we all feel, from time to time, when he said, "I get no respect." Revolutionary hero John Adams eloquently said, as early as 1805, "The rewards in this life are esteem and admiration of others - the punishments are neglect and contempt." A recent Harris poll even revealed, not surprisingly, that "respect from others" is what 76% of respondents said they wanted most.

We've been searching for esteem and self respect since humans became civilized creatures. We still search for them today. Why have they proven so elusive?

We Look For Self Respect in the Wrong Place

Respect and esteem are elusive for one reason - if we glean it from others we will always be wanting it. We cannot rely upon others to provide us the respect we seek and deserve so it must, therefore, stem from another source. And you have but one consistent, reliable source of respect and esteem - yourself.

Fortunately, you have a ready reservoir of self esteem and self respect - your sense of humor. And you are also fortunate to have a veritable medicine chest full of resources that turbo-charge your sense of humor. My Fun Commandments, the cornerstones of my unique Fun Factor Prescription , allow you to simply and easily maximize the amazingly powerful natural medicine of humor that you were born with and still carry inside you.

Use My Fun Commandments to Begin Experiencing the Self Respect of "Those People"

One of my Fun Commandments, for example, is to Allow Your Mistakes. Allowing your mistakes is not only a ready-made formula for adding abundant humor and joy to your life, it is also an insanely powerful method of creating and fostering self esteem and self respect. As my patients and clients continue to discover, you should be prepared to feel up to 60% better about the person who greets you in the mirror each morning once you begin allowing your mistakes on a daily basis.

• First of all, if you allow your mistakes you will find that you're a very amusing person - worthy of self respect. You are a perfectly imperfect creation, a living breathing contradiction, full of frailties and foibles. You may soon enjoy your mistakes enough to make them on purpose - like the great Johnny Carson famously did on the Tonight Show to keep himself fresh and on his toes.
• Secondly, if you allow your mistakes you will become what we psychiatrists call a self-actualized person. The self acceptance and self respect found through believing that your mistakes are okay delivers massive amounts of self-confidence; the self-assurance of knowing that you are just like you're supposed to be is finally here! Not only will you quit worrying and second-guessing yourself, but you must learn to temper yourself lest you create jealousy in others.

Actually, in the long run, you will discover that you are perfect - perfectly imperfect - and born to make mistakes. You'll finally unlearn the greatest lie that our seriousness ever told us - that mistakes are bad - because you'll realize that mistakes are our greatest teachers! You will set free the natural medicine of humor; you'll throw off the shackles of fear and seriousness that've help you back as you realize that a person who doesn't make mistakes isn't living!

In 1871, Walt Whitman said that in America, where our form of government promotes a uniformity among the citizens, one of our unique anxieties would be a constant struggle for "individual self-respect based upon social approval." Little did Whitman know how prophetic his words were. But you are a more fortunate soul; the more you understand that respect and esteem come from yourself, the sooner you stop denying yourself the natural medicine of humor as only my Fun Commandments can deliver it to you!

You've never felt self respect like this before. I'm very excited for you because I've watched many patients do take these very steps you're about to. Welcome to your new life - please come back to my website and share your stories with me!

Important Stuff That You Ought To Know All information on this site is copyrighted by Clifford Kuhn, M.D. and Laugh Doctor Enterprises. Nothing here may be used or reprinted without permission of Dr. Kuhn or Natural-Humor-Medicine.com. Natural-Humor-Medicine.com is an organization dedicated to teaching people about the natural medicine of humor. All revenues generated by this site are reinvested in growing the reach of the organization and educating the public about this powerful medicine.