Proper self-appraisal opens the door to the healing of alienation from others and awkwardness with others.
Human self-knowledge is best accomplished by catching through Christian Science ever-increasing glimpses of the harmonious divine nature in ourselves and others. We improve our thinking and character as we learn of the real, spiritual identity of our fellowman as well as of our own perfection in God's likeness. This advancing concept shows us where we particularly need self-improvement. The true concept of being, lived hourly, draws us closer to people, no matter what their status or condition.
As one advances morally and spiritually, many hurtful delusions of the material senses are diminished or destroyed—delusions that one can be self-centered, willful, envious, or resentful of others, unhappy, or "lost" in a material world. Other undesirable traits may stem from subtle suggestions that one is hard to like, a misfit except in his own circle, and that his opportunities are limited to this circle. Such delusive limitations are prolonged by self-ignorance. They also arise from the mistaken concept that man is material rather than spiritual, or at least is partly material, as if man had to be at least partly deluded.
