Rapport for one?
May 12, 2010 3:50 PM   Subscribe

What is self-rapport? What could it be? It's a concept that's been running through my mind this week, I have found very little on the internet relating to it as a concept, perhaps for good reason. Please 'make up' a definition of self-rapport!

So this week, for some reason this idea has been whirling though my brain. We can have rapport with other people, but what about with ourselves? If we can feel out-of sync then how can we work to feel 'in sync' with ourselves? Have you noticed people with good self-rapport or is this just plain old self-confidence, or is true self-confidence actually an end result of good self-rapport?
Feel free to ignore any of my feeble attempts at justification for my question and simply create a definition for the word 'self-rapport'.
posted by razzman to Grab Bag (6 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: "Please make up a definition" is pretty chatfiltery. -- cortex

 
Self-rapport: a burrowing herbivorous Australian marsupial about the size of a badger
posted by box at 3:52 PM on May 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


The phrase seems like something Nathaniel Branden might have mentioned in the Six Pillars of Self-Esteem book. I think he makes me definitions to suit his own purposes, but he delineates between the concepts of confidence, self-esteem and other neighbor concepts.

If I remember correctly, he chooses to define confidence as the assurance of future success that comes from past successes, though very specific to context. Such as, a guy who has had a lot of success with women in the past is likely to assume he will continue to have success with women in the future...which is a different context than success with his career or money, etc.

Branden defines self-esteem as a sense of self-worth and self-approval that comes from habitually being ethical, honest, trusthworthy, etc.

Self-rapport, to me, sounds similiart to how Branden defines self-esteem. I kind of imagine it to mean the feeling of liking oneself based on considering oneself honorable or likeable.

Or something. I dunno. :)
posted by alice_curiouse at 4:02 PM on May 12, 2010


Awesome typos.
posted by alice_curiouse at 4:03 PM on May 12, 2010


If you haven't before, you should probably read this.

"Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry — determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses.(26) If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through Church and State, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d'appui,(27) below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer,(28) but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter,(29) and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business."
posted by kaibutsu at 4:08 PM on May 12, 2010


I'll throw my two cents in here, which may or may not be of use. This strikes me as another term for self-knowledge, with some self-acceptance thrown in. After all, if having a rapport with someone else means "clicking"with them - understanding where they're coming from and accepting them for who they are, wouldn't the same thing apply to knowing and liking yourself? How about "being good company for yourself?"

I know, I know....but hey, you did say make something up! ;)
posted by deep thought sunstar at 4:13 PM on May 12, 2010


I talk to myself, and I give myself pep talks. Often not aloud, but more in my journal. I feel like me and myself are pretty good friends.

Not to sound schizo but you have to be kind to yourself. I cut myself a little slack when I've screwed something up. I put things in perspective when I feel like it's the end of the world (ie "now now don't freak out, no one really cares that you forgot their name.") Futureme.org is a cool site that lets you send yourself an email that will be delivered at the date of your choosing in the future: I use this to write myself a cheerful pep-talk on a day I know will be challenging (like the last day of a gig, or Thanksgiving, or whatever.)

I have friends who are their own worst enemies, have made a habit of really harmful and negative self-talk. Life is a lot easier when you are nice to yourself.
posted by egeanin at 4:19 PM on May 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


« Older Exercise: am I doing it wrong?   |   Cash for My Crapster Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.