The psychospiritual model of growth and "shadow work" proceeds in the following stages: Stage 1: self-awareness (shadow: self-consciousness) The student begins the psycho-spiritual process with honesty, openness, and willingness to observe without judgment the limited ego's beliefs, values, thought patterns, and behaviors. The accompanying shadow of self-awareness is self-consciousness. When a person is self-conscious, he or she reflects shame from the mirror of the environment, loses focus, becomes distracted, and struggles against the demands of the world which values high-performance and competition. Stage 2. self-responsibility (shadow: self-willfulness) Having achieved some level of awareness of the limited ego, the student begins to take responsibility for its growth and acquires a measure of self-control over acting-out behaviors or compulsions. The accompanying shadow of self-responsibility is self-willfulness. When a person is self-willful, there is not only little or no regard for the needs of others in society, but this person most often does not have a balanced and adequate self-appraisal of both the limits and potentials of their own personal power. Stage 3. self-compassion (shadow: self-indulgence) After acquiring certain self-management skills, the student learns "models of forgiveness" which are not shame-based, and learns through unconditional acceptance of self, pathways of self-healing and compassion. The accompanying shadow of self-compassion is self-indulgence. Often, self-love is mistaken for self-inflation and vanity, whereby the person under its influence, is obsessed with meeting its own unhealthy desires for immediate gratification, often at the cost of the needs of others. Stage 4. self-transcendence (shadow: self-avoidance) Now that the psychospiritual student has acquired skills of limited ego-awareness, self-responsibility, and self-compassion, he or she is now more prepared to establish the pre-conditions for authentic self-transcendence, accessing more easily the Higher Self within through the cultivation of intuition, which is the practice of balancing the mind with the heart. The accompanying shadow of self-transcendence is self-avoidance. This is one of the most wily of shadows because it is fostered by unconscious denial of what the self wishes to reject about itself, rather than accept and integrate into the broader context of its own growth and development.