Welcome to our latest blog post as we begin a new year together! The beginning of a new year is always a great time for self-reflection, acknowledging progress made, and making future resolutions.
The pace and perception of personal and societal change is sometimes difficult to measure over the span of just one year. Real change can sometimes only be measured and understood when looking back over a much longer period.
With this in mind, let us travel back in time a bit to the 1920’s. Back then, only one-third of homes had radio, telephone, or electricity. An even smaller percentage had indoor plumbing or refrigeration. In addition, air conditioning, central heating, computers, the internet, and television either did not exist or were in the very early stages of development.
This was an era when people had to spend much more of their time working very hard just to meet the basic needs of food, shelter, and overall survival.
My grandfather once told me a story of a work-related experience he had during the 1920’s. He was offered $1 a day to clear a considerable amount of brush from some neighboring farmland. It was demanding work and there was no modern equipment such as a mulcher, brush cutter, dozer or chainsaw to help with the work.
At the time, it would have been inconceivable to my grandfather that just two generations later his own grandchildren would pay hefty gym memberships to sweat and lift heavy things!
There is a happy ending to my grandfather’s story. After several days of hard work, he awoke one morning to discover a heavy storm had come through during the night and completely washed away all the brush he had chopped and set aside to haul off!
Many of today’s modern conveniences, equipment, and technologies have eliminated much of the drudgery of years past. And with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) this trend is expected to accelerate. We must, of course, continue to master technology rather than allow it to master us. And if understood and implemented properly, the coming breakthroughs will provide us the opportunity to have far greater free time to pursue passion projects, personal callings, and other creative works.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
When I was in college, Abraham Maslow’s [1] Hierarchy of Needs was taught as a tool to understand and address human needs, motivation, and behavior in fields such as psychology, business, healthcare, advertising, and counseling.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is typically shown as a five-category pyramid consisting of the following:
Physiological needs: The most basic needs for survival such as breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, and sleep.
Safety needs: The need for health, employment, property, family and social ability.
Love and belonging: The need for friendship, family, intimacy, and sense of connection.
Esteem: The need for confidence, achievement, respect of others, and the need to be a unique individual.
Self-actualization: The highest level of the hierarchy, which includes morality, creativity, spontaneity, acceptance, experience of purpose, meaning, and inner potential.
Many of us, knowingly or unknowingly, work on each of these hierarchies concurrently; however, we typically need to fulfill the bottom most layer of needs before truly being able to work and focus on the next higher level and so on.
Self-Actualization – The Goal
Self-actualization is defined as the process of realizing one's full potential and becoming the best version of oneself. Some say self-actualization is a necessary step to shift from ego-consciousness to soul-consciousness where one can truly serve others.
In Maslow's last book, he enhanced his theory of self-actualization. Maslow suggested the highest form of self-actualization actually transcends the self. Here, we strive to be selfless and contribute to a purpose greater than ourselves while doing good for others. This version of self-actualization has been referred to as "selfless-actualization”.
Although terminology can sometimes differ, self-actualization is a fundamental outcome of the hero’s journey. Some of the characteristics found in the hero’s journey include a specific calling, a great determination to fulfill the calling, and the emergence of pure selflessness. These characteristics have been described many times in literature. Here are three inspiring examples:
In the mega best-selling book “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” [2], Jonathan observes:
“Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flights – how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.”
In the poem “Excelsior” [3] by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, our hero takes up and continues the journey with great determination no matter the cost. Here is an excerpt from the poem:
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!
"Try not the Pass!" the old man said:"
Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!
"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!
In the classic esoteric book “Brother of the Third Degree” [4], the main character Alphonso Colono encounters a number of exceedingly difficult life choices and over time learns that “forgetting self” or “selflessness” is always the highest course of action.
The Violet Flame can help you achieve Self-Actualization
The reason the violet flame is so effective in helping you achieve self-actualization is because it helps clear negative karmic conditions and brings balance and healing to every aspect of yourself – spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical.
When you give violet flame mantras, affirmations, and decrees you help accelerate your journey to self-actualization and make it easier to transcend each level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It is one of the greatest tools you can take on your adventure.
Are you ready to begin or continue your journey with the violet flame? If so, we encourage you to go to our Violet Flame Resources page to download free materials, participate in giving violet flame mantras and decrees, and discover even more about the miracle of the violet flame!
Until next time…
For love to be real it must empty us of self - Saint Mother Teresa
Credits and additional resources
[1] Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) was an American psychologist who created Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.
[2] "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach, 1970
[3] "Excelsior" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1841
[4] "Brother of the Third Degree" by Will Garver, 1894
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