“Something in you says “no” when you visualize yourself as being fulfilled in all areas of living. This is due solely to your harsh, unforgiving, and unaccepting treatment of yourself because you are not reconciled with the self-centered child existing in you, which makes unfair demands that you cannot cope with because you push them out of sight.

“You need to accept fully this primitive, selfish, destructive child in order to make it grow up. The only climate in which it can do so is in the full knowledge of all its manifestations. In the manner in which you accept it, without losing a sense of proportion about its “badness,” to that degree will you be able to perceive, experience, and accept the highest faculties within yourself. You can only lose your sense of guilt about the former if and when you learn to look at the impulses coming from it and realizing that although this undesirable side exists, you need not act accordingly. At least, you do not deceive yourself about your own state of development, and you evaluate all its dictates without following them through. Then will you have a chance to win in this impossible battle. You will liberate yourself from the false conscience and therefore become capable of hearing the voice of your real conscience.” (PL #116)