1. 1. Self Love
1.1. When we meet a stranger who has things we don’t, how quickly do we feel ourselves pitiful – and how long can we remain assured by the decency of what we have and are?
1.2. When another person frustrates or humiliates us, can we let the insult go, able to perceive the senseless malice beneath the attack – or are we left brooding and devastated, implicitly identifying with the verdict of our enemies?
1.3. How much can the disapproval or neglect of public opinion be offset by the memory of the steady attention of few significant people in the past?
1.4. Can we dare to admit mistakes or does an admission of guilt or error bring us too close to our background sense of nullity?
1.5. In relationships
1.5.1. Do we have enough self-love to leave an abusive union? Or are we so down on ourselves that we carry an implicit belief that harm is all we deserve?
1.5.2. How rigidly self-righteous do we need to be?
1.5.3. In the bedroom, how clean and natural or alternatively disgusting and sinful do our desires feel? Might they be a little odd, but not for that matter bad or dark, since they emanate from within us and we are not wretches?
1.6. At Work
1.6.1. Do we have a reasonable, well grounded, sense of our worth - and so feel able to ask for (and properly expect to get) the rewards we are due?
1.6.2. Can we resist the need to please others indiscriminately?
1.6.3. Are we sufficiently aware of our genuine contribution to say, sometimes, no?
2. 2. Candour
2.1. How much can we admit to ourselves about who we are - eve if, or especially when, the matter is not especially pleasant?
2.2. How much do we need to insist on our own normality and wholehearted sanity?
2.3. Can we explore our own minds - and look into their darker and more troubled corners without flinching overly?
2.4. Can we admit to folly, envy, sadness and confusion?
2.5. Around others, how ready are we to learn?
2.5.1. Do we need always take a criticism of one part of us as an attack on everything about us?
2.5.2. How ready are we to listen when valuable lessons come in painful guises?
3. 3. Communication
3.1. Can we patiently and reasonably put our disappointments into words, that more or less enable others to see our point?
3.1.1. Or do we internalize pain, act it out symbolically or discharge it with counterproductive rage?
3.2. When other people upset us, do we feel we have the right to communicate, or must we slam doors and retreat into sulks?
3.3. When a desired response isn't forthcoming, do we ask others to guess what we've been too angrily panicked to spell out?
3.3.1. Or can we have a plausible second go and take seriously the thought that others are not merely being nasty in misunderstanding us.
3.4. Do we have the inner resources to teach, rather than insist?
4. 4. Trust
4.1. How risky is the world?
4.2. How readily might we survive a challenge in a form of a speech, a romantic rejection, about a financial trouble, about a journey to another country or a common cold?
4.3. How close are we, at any time, to catastrophe?
4.4. What material are we made of?
4.5. Would new acquaintances like or wound us?
4.6. If we are a touch assertive, will they take it or collapse?
4.7. Will unfamiliar situations end in a debacle?
4.8. Around love, how tightly do we need to cling?
4.8.1. If they're distant for a while, will they return?
4.8.2. How controlling do we need to be?
4.8.3. Can we approach an interesting looking person?
4.8.4. Or move on from an unsatisfying person?