Silvie+Maryl – Holistic Living, Plant-Based Diet, Recipes, Love & Relationship, Healthy LifestyleTips

A new friend and I had a bet going on how to pronounce famed psychologist Abraham Maslow’s surname, and this prompted me to do a little research and revisit some of this visionary’s landmark concepts. Maslow is the father of humanistic psychology (I say it’s “maslov”, that’s how my college psych teacher pronounced it – Maslow’s parents were Russian immigrants after all, and we’ve all heard what happens to ‘w’s in Russian accents; my friend says it’s “maslow” as in “low price guarantee” – he was born in Brooklyn, which makes him American and likely to have adopted that pronunciation). Unlike Freud,  who focused on studying mental illness, Maslow researched and developed theories about the healthy aspect of the mind and human potential, which of course is so very HLife of him (our focus is optimal-centered, not on a sick or barely functional concept of health), so I had to share some of his less-talked-about work with you, which I found fascinating: The humanistic concept of values.

We mostly know Maslow for his hierarchy of needs (pictured above), the various levels of needs humans have and need to fill, with the most fundamental at the bottom and the more complex and abstract at the top: physiological (basic body functions), security, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. When I first learned about him and the hierarchy of needs over a decade ago, I was told each division of the pyramid was actually not a solid line but a dotted one, because we move up and down the ladder as our needs change. In other words, we don’t reach self-actualization and the party ends there – all of these needs are concepts we need to continue to fill and refill in our lives, which is a very dynamic way to look at challenges. If we lack something, we can get it, and move up to the next level and reach those goals. If we fulfill this or that need, we may need to fulfill it again at some other point. And that’s the way it goes. Just studying each one of these concepts and where we currently fall on the ladder on a given day or a stage of our lives is worth the neuron activity.

But a concept I wasn’t familiar with was his theory on B-values, and I wanted to share these with you because I think they are important for holistically healthy living. Maslow studied famous people like Albert Einstein, who he thought continuously reached the top “self-actualization” rung of the hierarchy of needs, and he concluded these people had what he called “peak experiences” – moments of extraordinary existence in a state of understanding profound concepts, experiencing great love, a deep fascination with the world around them, a clear awareness of reality, and harmony with all that is. As he studied these peak experiences, he decided these encompassed a way of thinking that included what he called “Being-values” (or B-values). These are:

- Wholeness (a holistic perspective)
- Perfection (as an idea to strive for, not the implication that we would already be so)
- Completion (fulfillment and destiny are both included here)
- Justice (fair is much better than nice, I say)
- Aliveness (I love this one. How many people do you know who are truly alive?)
- Richness (complexity, not material possessions)
- Simplicity (honesty is included here. And does honesty not simplify things?)
- Uniqueness (do you know who you are?)
- Effortlessness (grace – enough said)
- Playfulness (I know a wonderful sociologist who argues that play is a necessary human emotion – and I agree)
- Truth (deal with reality; beauty is truth, truth beauty – Keats is a classic for a reason)
- Self-Sufficiency (before you can be interdependent, you need to be independent)

In today’s fast-paced and infinitely mobile global community, a word like “values” may make you cringe or think “ancient” or “outdated”. There is nothing outdated about mental health and the ability to experience life optimally. With this in mind, I invite you to do your own research and analysis on what each of these values means in general and what it means to you personally, as well as how they – and IF they – manifest in your life today. I think you’ll find this exercise enlightening, or, at the very least, a little self-revealing. Oh, and if you can confirm the pronunciation of this wonderful forward thinker’s last name, do let me know.