The desire of dignity

Every Human desires dignity. The need to be important, belong, feel respected, useful and proud creates a natural drive in most humans to fight, advocate, protect or lie to gain or retain dignity. People often give away or have their dignity taken by people they love, work for, live or play with. Allowing people to dismiss, attack or disrespect takes the dignity of one who struggles with confidence. Living below one's potential, disrespecting one's body or constantly being out of emotional control gives dignity away.

The fight to gain or retain dignity can often become an internal struggle for personal insight. One strong in her beliefs and comfortable with her position in life might not disagree and fight when another attempts to take her dignity. When told she is unsuccessful, makes poor choices or told to follow a different life-path than she has selected, a confident woman might simply thank the person for their point of view and continue along the path chosen. The naysayer's opinion will not emotionally affect one with a strong sense of dignity.

A person ambiguous in his internal understanding might constantly struggle with external advice and fight the advice or accept it as his own. One might work hard to regain dignity while another might give up and accept his perceived destiny.

People lose the sense of dignity when they feel helpless. A historic psychological experiment by Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania discovered when one loses his or her sense of avoiding pain, he or she will give up avoidance and accept the pain - a behavior they deemed as learned helplessness. In his experiment, Seligman and his team put a dog in a wire cage with an electrified floor. At first, the dog is indiscriminately shocked and predictably jumps with each shock pulse to his paws. During the experiment, the duration of each shock is lengthened with the dog continuing to jump more rapidly and aggressively. Eventually, the shock is administered continually and the dog, knowing he cannot avoid the shock, lies down and accepts the pain.

People follow the same path as the dog in the experiment. Many feel life is pre-scripted, accept the role given them and feel helpless to change fearing defeat. I propose that healthy people do not accept a life without dignity. Psychologically healthy individuals feel important, proud, happy with their position in life and respected - dignified.

When might one lose dignity and how might one regain dignity?

• Women stay in abusive relationships often because of learned helplessness. "I can't afford to leave, what about the kids, I don't deserve a better life or I deserve to get hit," are real fears abused women feel, forcing them to stay in abusive relationships. Feeling helpless creates a loss of dignity which can only be regained once one finds the freedom and strength to leave. The fear of leaving an abusive relationship is real. For information and freedom from abuse please call the North Idaho Violence Prevention Center at (208) 664-9303.

• People stay in poverty because they see no way out. Poverty is the leading cause of long-term, generational learned helplessness. If we follow the logic of the Seligman experiment above, we must assume that people who lose their dignity will just lie down and accept their fate as the dog that accepts the electrical shocks. This is not quite true. Another psychological experiment by Albert Bandura suggests that when people see success, they learn to emulate success and when people see failure they accept it. Changing what one sees changes one's feelings of opportunity. Other research strongly suggests that children who have one positive adult relationship will emulate that relationship and seek to follow the model of the positive adult. When one envisions a positive future, they often can embrace opportunity and gain a positive self-regard gaining dignity.

• Children lose dignity when parents degrade them. A mom yells at her child then degrades the child by asking, "Are you stupid?" The child struggles to understand how one who loves and nurtures can be so hurtful? This incongruent behavior makes the child feel unloved, confused and disrespected - they lost their dignity. To regain assumed respect and false dignity, the child yells back and screams, "I hate you." The fight is on! The parent feels the need to win the fight and yells louder, degrades more and banishes the child to her bedroom. The child and parent feel remorse for their behavior but relive the dance daily, not knowing or understanding the reason for their dysfunction - they've both lost their dignity and stole the dignity from their sparring partner.

To regain dignity and civility, the parent must realize their role in the child's behavior. Parents who discipline by correcting and not yelling often find better results than parents who discipline through anger. A child often responds positively to discipline when the child knows her expectations, what will happen when she lives up to the expectation and what will happen when she falls short of the expectation. The child retains her dignity, owns her responsibility and does not feel the need to gain respect through battle. The parent gains dignity and is respected by the child, even when the parent needs to discipline the child.

• Dieting can be undignified. When one chooses to diet, one is declaring, "I'm out of control, I don't like the way my body looks and, by eating too much and moving too little, I made me this way." In hope of regaining dignity, the dieter announces to all who will listen, "I'm on a diet now," once more admitting failure but saying, "I know I'm fat but look at me now, I'm going to fix it," and then often fail again, regaining the loss of dignity. To regain dignity, one must look inside her soul to determine the reason she eats, what she wishes to do to regain physical health and make a plan to achieve that goal. Dignity takes work. To view options for building a healthy body and mind, visit www.dietingwithdignity.com.

To live a life with dignity, one should have a predictable life roadmap, feel satisfied in the life-road chosen and be malleable enough to adapt to future and present bumps in the road. Lastly, to retain dignity is to know and love oneself intimately. Truly understanding and appreciating who one is, without pretense, eliminates the discomfort of others who try to mold one into whom they believe one should be. The beauty of living a dignified life is that you get to create the mold.

Bill Rutherford is a psychotherapist, public speaker, elementary school counselor, adjunct college psychology instructor and executive chef, and owner of Rutherford Education Group. Please email him at bprutherford@hotmail.com or visit www.dietingwithdignity.com.