Assertion or Confirmation: I

Two Diagonal Sets: Approach Duality

It is evident from the TET diagram that the methods/mentalities generate two diagonal sets. These two sets handle stabilization in opposite ways as follows:

  • Bottom R — Upper L: These use self-assertion which can ensure continuity based on personal autonomy.
  • Bottom L — Upper R: These use external confirmation which can ensure positive support from a reliable source.

Both requirements are so central to a comfortable existence that most of us have a preferred mentality from each diagonal-set.

See below: Comparison of methods on the Self-Assertion diagonal.

See next Topic: Comparison of methods on the External Confirmation diagonal.
See later:  Exploration of natural pairings using each diagonal.

Self-Assertion

Self-Assertion is fundamental to the methods that lie along the diagonal that stretches from bottom right to top left.

  • Emotional existence asserts:  "I know what I feel".
    In the face of a trivial or stressful event, others often expect or even demand a certain response, typically based on convention and ignoring individuality. The emotional assertion deals with any external effort to impose or constrain, which itself may be destabilizing. Refusal to feel in ways that others expect is an expression of autonomy and distinctiveness not requiring further justification.
  • Individual existence asserts:  "I know my value!"
    Those who use this method see choices as affecting self-esteem and as an opportunity to assert an identity. Being authentic ("I know who I am") requires feeling autonomous. To avoid feeling shame or losing face, a person may well make and follow through on self-protective or self-assertive choices, even if counter-productive or liable to engender dislike or disapproval.
  • Transpersonal existence asserts:  "I know what matters!"
    This assertion effectively makes you the judge of all events and proclaims autonomy. Nothing that happens and nothing that anyone says or thinks need then affect you. However improbable to others, it is possible because what really does matter is always viewed as beyond visible causes: e.g. natural flow, inherent divinity, God's will, union with the cosmos &c.

Security

Self-Assertion is inherently liable to be asocial or even anti-social, and there is a desire for protection against others who may object. No method can provide total protection against disruption or social oppression. However, vulnerability and insecurity are the issue. The inviolability or impregnability of the self increases in moving up the diagonal which generates an increase in self-assurance.

Unexplored Alternatives:Closed It may be that integration or unity increases, that coolness increases, that aloofness or isolation increases.

  • Emotional existence provides the lowest assurance because emotions have a strong instinctive basis and can erupt without warning. Others can deliberately provoke a wide variety of emotions, both positive (like affection, sadness) and negative (like fear, envy, jealousy). If not provoked, any emotional state may be based in your realities, be defensive or be part of your attempt to manipulate others.
    1. The empathic form is more open and flexible, i.e. most vulnerable and least assured in this regard.
    2. The sensitive form provides more assurance for the sense of self. It sets up emotional expectations and defences that may be quite rigid and mostly unconscious.
  • Individual existence is significantly more assured because the self-concept is a construct which has a strong rational or cognitive basis, as well as emotive elements. It is never fully realistic, but it can be actively protected and defended. Self-assertion allows a person to resist criticism and emotional attacks. However, direct attacks on the self-image through public exposure of personal flaws and failures, as may occur with targeted humiliation or contemptuous attitudes, can be destabilizing.
  • Transpersonal existence is the most assured method because the claim to know what matters means that whatever transpires can be deemed "not to matter". The transpersonal dictum, 'this too shall pass', allows a cosmic perspective that enables troubles, invariably transient, to be borne patiently. Even if sudden and surprising misfortune or disruption does lead to destabilization, recovery tends to be rapid.

Methods on the Other Diagonal

The practice of self-assertion is a universal human requirement. However, being self-assertive does not ensure the needed stabilization in the methods on the external confirmation diagonal; and not being assertive does not weaken their effectiveness.
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Originally posted: 17-Oct-2014. Last updated: 19-Dec-2014.