Welcome to Day 28 of the July Intensity Project!
31 Days Toward Living with More Intensity & Creativity
“[T]he ability to know oneself and others is not possible without the development of the dynamism of dissatisfaction with oneself, of the feeling of inferiority in relation to oneself…” ~ Kazimierz Dabrowski, Personality-shaping Through Positive Disintegration
The more I learn about the role that intensity plays in everyday life and the theories of Dabrowski, the more I revise my idea of what 
success truly is. Often, what looks like success on the outside is far different from how we feel about ourselves or whether we are able to take joy in our accomplishments. Also, people often view their negative feelings as failures, rather than opportunities to learn and to grow.
For example, a recent New York Times profile of swimmer and seven-time Olympic medalist Amanda Beard describes how an obviously intense, emotional, gifted young woman turned to drinking, disordered eating, and self-harm in an attempt to run from her self-doubts and feelings of inferiority.
“I’d go back to this whole self-hating thing, where I had this record player repeating to me, ‘You’re stupid, you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re nobody.’ You’re in so much emotional pain, and you don’t know how to express it.” ~ Amanda Beard
Read the full article to see how she learned to move from self-hatred to self-worth: “Now,” she said, “I know that I do deserve good things.” Her husband is quoted in the article:
“I don’t even know how to explain how much she’s changed and grown in a pretty short time….It’s happened because she’s been able to let go of other people’s idea of her, let go of that persona she thinks she has to be, that person who feels like she has to be on all the time, and just be herself.”
Do you know that you deserve good things? How do feelings of self-hatred or inferiority get in the way of using your intensity in joyful ways? How can you face your negative feelings and use them to grow? What one change can you make today so as to be more yourself rather than “on all the time”?
Photo credit: Sundesigns
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Thanks for info