The Illuminated Life® Workshop: Home > Workshop Sampler > Life Question 2

At the age of 77, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote that her children and friends were urging her to slow down. "But how can I," she asked, "when the world is so challenging in its problems and so terribly interesting?" This remarkable woman had an outstanding career as a diplomat, political figure, writer, humanitarian, and first lady, but no one might have guessed any of this from her childhood and early adulthood.

"My mother was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen." That was the sentence with which Roosevelt began her autobiography, while she remembered herself as a homely, shy, anxious little girl who sensed her mother's disappointment in her. As a young wife, she was completely dependent upon her strong-minded mother-in-law and husband. But then, changing circumstances and a rising courage conspired to help change her conception of herself and, as her career attests, she underwent a truly remarkable transformation.

In this transformation, Roosevelt came to value herself and to realize that it was most important to befriend and support oneself. She wrote -- and I think that this is the best psychological advice ever given -- "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."¹ Re-read that advice and think about it. Here's a simple test to measure how well you are taking that advice: one of these days as you look in the mirror, you may think to yourself that you are looking old. Then what further thought will you think to yourself? Is that further thought designed to help you feel good about yourself?

The four sections and the exploration that follow can assist you to consider and answer this second life question: "What is my relationship to myself?"

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