"The first step toward reality taken by a patient is his identification with his body. Through the therapy he comes to see himself in terms of his body, not in terms of an ego image that conflicts with his body. He becomes aware of his muscular tensions and senses their effect on his attitudes and behavior. And he learns how to reduce these tensions through appropriate physical movements. This identification with the body is also the first step toward self-realization.

The second step toward reality is recognition of the pleasure principle as the basis of one's conscious activities. The motivation for all our actions is the striving for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. We may follow different paths as we pursue this aim, but we are driven by one desire. The individual who does not recognize that his actions are motivated by the desire for pleasure or who is inhibited by the fear of pleasure (guilt) is out of touch with the reality of his animal nature.

The third step is an acceptance of one's feelings. Feelings are the spontaneous responses of an organism to its environment. One cannot alter one's feelings; they are not subject to the will or the mind. An individual can express a feeling or withhold its expression, depending on the situation. If he turns against his feelings, he turns against himself. If a person rejects his feelings, he rejects himself.

The fourth step is an understanding of the interdependence of all personality functions. The person who is grounded in reality has a subjective attitude. He knows that his thinking is related to his feelings and determined by his bodily responses. He can be objective because he is aware of his subjectivity. Even at its most abstract, his thinking is not dissociated from its connection with the human condition. He does not say "I am because I think." If he were to say anything, it would be "Because I am, I think."

The fifth step is humility. Humility is the realization of one's relative helplessness in the universe. It is the opposite of ego conceit. We are helpless in all the important matters of life. We cannot buy true love with all the money in the world. We cannot produce pleasure with all the power of our advanced technology. Human life flows unbidden from the belly of a woman and ends inexorably in the bowels of the earth. We do not make it, and we cannot preserve it eternally. Our conscious concern should be to live it fully.

Humility is the mark of a person who accepts himself. Such a person is neither humble nor arrogant. He is not an egotist, nor is he self-effacing. Though he recognizes that he is a unique individual, he is also aware that he is part of a larger order. And while he realizes that his existence and function are subject to forces that are outside his own personality, he senses that these forces, natural and social, are also within himself and are part of his being. He is therefore both subject and object, actor and "acted upon," in the workshop of life."
—Lowen, Pleasure, 1970.