Category: Josh Feingold Blog

One day a few weeks ago, I was very happy.  Just excited and infatuated with life and myself.

Suddenly, I realized, “I’m in love with myself.”

So I wondered, is this good or bad?  Usually we look at people who are in love with themselves as self-centered, so is it a good thing for me to be in love with me?

Having thought about it, I realized that there are two types of love with self, one real and the other not.  Narcissistic love, which is the love of self that we frown upon, comes from a place of not knowing the greatness of oneself, so from a place of fear, blowing one self up to hide that fear.  This is bad love.

However, when a person gets to know themselves, and senses their true internal self and worth, it is impossible not to fall in love with themselves!  And that is love that comes from a place of goodness.  In fact, it is this love, that enables us to love others, since if we don’t see and therefore love ourselves, how can we ever truly see and therefore love anyone else?

Interestingly, this is exactly the Story of Narcissus and Echo.  Narcissus’s mother asked, if her child would grow old or die young, and was told “If e’er he knows himself he surely dies.”

I skimmed the story, and one could say that the story of Narcissus is the story of one who goes from a false love of self, awakens by looking in the mirror and learns who they are, and comes to love themselves.   With that in mind, it is obvious that Narcissus as he was known, would die once he knew himself, since he would then be in love with the true self.  Pretty cool, eh?

Martyrdom is a common thread in our modern society.

As men, we are told to sacrifice ourselves for our family as a warrior, and women are told that kindness and selflessness is required in raising her family.

However, both sexes to some extent are taught to be martyrs – albeit from subtle messages in society.

The problem with martyrdom is that in the way most of us experience it, it is a weakness and not a strength.  I’ll explain.

There is two types of giving (which is what the martyr does), from fear, and from choice.  Any giving that is done from fear, is actually demonstrating a weakness in the individual.  They actually, are not making a choice to martyr themselves, rather, they are too weak to stand up and face the alternative, so they give in by giving.  This is the typical martyr that we see in relationships, and society.  If it’s you, stop.

Now, that is certainly not to say that giving is weak.  When it is done from a sense of who we are, and that by giving we strengthen the sense of who we are and what we want to be, and it is done with no fear of the consequences, that is martyrdom that is done with great strength, and should be appreciated.

The main way, I have found to figure out if a giving action was done from weakness or strength, was to see my thoughts towards action and the person I gave to afterwards.  If I feel regretful or unappreciated, then it was done from a place of weakness.  If I feel proud of my actions, then I know it was done from a place of strength.

So, what kind of martyr are you?

As those of you who have been following my blog know, I have slowly been working on different aspects of myself these past few months.

As I was getting to the final few items (we’ll see if this prediction holds any truth, won’t we), I got stuck.

I had identified and internalized most of those “things” that I had previously externalized, projected, or required from others and the outside world, but the one thing I couldn’t internalize was the need to be appreciated by others.

When I shared this with my therapist, she helped me realize that needing someone to acknowledge my existence was NEED I MADE UP.  Somewhere along the way, I told myself, “I need people to appreciate me,” probably due to my own lower self esteem.

However, I grew in my self-esteem, and kept this old internal need, without even realizing that I had made it up myself!  The neat thing was that once I realized it was a need I made up, the entire need went away, and I was able to be at peace with myself without anyone appreciating me.  (Of course, it is nice when they do, but I certainly don’t need it!)

So ask yourself what you “need” in life, then ask yourself, is it a real need, or something you made up.  The less “needs” we have the happier we will be, so by relaxing old needs, we can improve our own internal happiness.

I have been involved in a few volunteer organizations and it has always struck me as interesting that the main thing that seems to hold people back from taking a leadership role, is their belief that it isn’t their place to take action.

So what ends up happening is that everyone sits around, waiting for someone else to take action.  Whatever takes the action becomes the leader.

What is interesting, is that the only real difference between a leader and a follower is the decision to act without asking others if they should act or not.  It’s really that simple.

The upshot is that being a leader is really just the decision to take a risk and take action without waiting for someone to ask you or approve of your actions.

It’s too bad that more people don’t realize that everyone else is just waiting for them to step up to the plate.  Think of all that would happen in this world if everyone became aware of this core truth, that people simply underestimate their personal power to impact the world.

My mother always told me “Josh you can do anything you want to do.” and this is probably one of the most positive impacting self thoughts that I have carried into my adulthood.

Keep in mind that her message is not that I won’t fail, rather if I keep on trying, I can accomplish anything.  Interestingly, I have found that to be true.  The only things that I can’t do, are those things that I haven’t tried to do.

I have noticed that many people short change themselves.  Either they tell themselves that they can’t do anything that they want to do, or they give up and quit too early saying it’s impossible.

If they could only see that in fact, they could do it, perhaps they would try again and again until they got it.  This isn’t to say that they will accomplish it today or tomorrow, but given enough time, hard work, and the desire to succeed, most anything truly is possible.

So think about those things in your life, that you aren’t making happen, and ask yourself why they aren’t.  Chances are that you are fearful of failure, and not even trying.  Change the internal message, and you’ll find that truly, you can do anything you want to do.