Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization

growth-wisdom is more about “What choices will lead me to greater integration and wholeness?” rather than “How can I defend myself so that I can feel safe and secure?”29

you open your sail, just like you’d drop your defenses once you felt secure enough. This is an ongoing dynamic: you can be open and spontaneous one minute but can feel threatened enough to prepare for the storm by closing yourself to the world the next minute. The more you continually open yourself to the world, however, the further your boat will

“Maslow’s Pyramid” was actually created by a management consultant in the sixties.

While security is primarily concerned with defense and protection, exploration is primarily motivated by curiosity, discovery, openness, expansion, understanding, and the creation of new opportunities for growth and development.

Being-Realm of existence (or B-realm, for short) is like replacing a clouded lens with a clear one.

There is a general consensus that optimal functioning of the whole system (whether humans, primates, or machines) requires both stability of goal pursuit in the face of distraction and disruption as well as the capacity for flexibility to adapt and explore the environment.31

The needs that comprise the boat itself are safety, connection, and self-esteem.

I have broken self-actualization—and therefore growth—into three specific needs for which there is strong contemporary scientific support: exploration, love, and purpose.

distorts reality, making demands on a person’s whole being: “Feed me! Love me! Respect me!”28 The greater the deficiency of these needs, the more we distort reality to fit our expectations and treat others in accordance with their usefulness in helping us satisfy our most deficient needs.