INTRODUCTION

Sitting in group therapy with a confronting mixture of unsympathetic and rather challenging adults was a very painful experience for me. They didn't seem to understand me (or care to, for that matter), and the more I explored or clarified my feelings and behavior, the more I felt ripped apart, undressed, vulnerable, exposed and wrong.

After a few weeks of hearing that my judgment was distorted, my behavior adolescent and being not the victim but the causal agent of every negative happening in my life and in my relationships, exasperation, torment and desperation exploded all at once. In a rage of frustration and anger, I lashed out in verbal fury at my tormentors.

"You seem to be experts at what's wrong with me. I haven't said or done one thing right in my life according to you. You take great delight in explaining in detail the mistakes and stupidity but no one yet has been smart enough to suggest what could have been done better. If you are so smart to know where I am wrong, kindly be so generous as to tell me what I should have done. Tell me what to do and I'll
do it!"

The room became very quiet. No one seemed to respond to my tirade of pain and desperation. Finally, the therapist broke the silence with a murmur of amusement at my discomfort.

"Don't just do something, Chuck, BE someone!"

I shook my head in confusion and disgust. "They're all crazy - even you, my therapist." I didn't understand a word he said.

It was several months later before those words began to take on meaning in my life. "Being somebody" is much harder to conceptualize and bring to fruition than "doing something". That was over 20 years ago and much of my life since - as an educator, therapist, and husband, father, child and person - has been spent learning to BE or processing my BECOMING.
It is not enough for me to ACT differently or even correctly - to function in a manner equivalent to that of a healthy individual - to perform behavior in such a way as to earn the plaudits of society and the approval of my parents or church.

A sociopath can do that. A person with no social conscience can learn the rules of the social game and play them exceedingly well, by rote, by rule, by conditioning.

I don't want to ACT healthy - I want to BE healthy.
I don't want to ACT appropriately - I want to BE appropriate.
I don't want to please others by giving them what they believe in - I want them to be pleased because they believe in ME.

What I DO is NOT what I am. It is a symbol of what I am. It may be a hint of what I am or an expression of some part of what I am, but it is NOT what I am.
So then, this book will attempt to answer my own desperate cry for hope -
"Tell me what to DO and I'll DO it! Tell me how to BE and I'll BE it!" In all fairness, I'm not sure this can be done. Eric Fromm started "The Art of Loving" with the proclamation that "love could only be experienced and could never truly be defined: and then spent 200 pages trying to define it.

Such is the folly of psychotherapists (sometimes psychos for short) who have this need to make sense of life and share with others. It's easier to tell you what's wrong. Insight as to why something didn't work is a paradise of wisdom. Criticizing one's behavior because "it didn't work", which simply interpreted means "didn't bring the results it was designed to", is judgment by the wrong person, for the wrong reasons, set up by a faulty criterion.

Motive and intent are the measurements of BEING.
Who are you?
What do you feel?
What are your REAL NEEDS?
What will bring you ultimate JOY?
What is truly best for you? THIS is integrity and morality - not some discussion over the validity of war, or a new definition of pornography, or whether or not to eat red meat.

This is ultimate simplicity but most of us have a need to make it distorted and complex.

Am I a product of all of my yesterdays, a clone of my parents values and belief systems, a victim of society's inability to love?

Am I DNA and heredity, passing universal life and wisdom from generation to generation, created personality and predetermined truth, reincarnated karma striving for ultimate perfection?

Am I all the above or none of the above?

YES and NO!

A psychiatrist by the name of Robert Assagioli, who created PSYCHOSYNTHESIS, summarized it very nicely in the following:

"I have a body, but I am NOT my body. My body may find itself in different conditions of health or sickness, it may be rested or tired, but that has nothing to do with my real SELF, my real "I". I value my body as my precious instrument of experience and of action in the outer world, but it is only an instrument. I treat it well, I seek to keep it in good health, but it is not my SELF. I HAVE a body, but I AM NOT my body.

"I HAVE emotions, but I am NOT my emotions. My emotions are diversified, changing, sometimes contradictory. They may swing from love to hatred, from calm to anger, from joy to sorrow, and yet my essence - my true nature - does not change. "I" remain. Though a wave of emotion may temporarily submerge me, I know that it will pass in time, therefore, I am not this emotion. Since I can observe and understand my emotions, and then gradually learn to direct, utilize, and integrate them harmoniously, it is clear that they are not my SELF. I HAVE emotions, but I AM NOT my emotions.

"I HAVE a mind, but I am NOT my mind. My mind is a valuable tool of discovery and expression, but it is not the essence of my being. Its' contents are constantly changing as it embraces new ideas, knowledge and experience. Often it refuses to obey me. Therefore, it cannot be myself. It is an organ of knowledge of both the outer and the inner worlds, but it is not my SELF. I HAVE a mind, but I AM NOT my mind. I have desire, but I am NOT my desires. Aroused by drives - physical and emotional - and by outer influences, desires too are changeable and contradictory, with alternatives of attraction and repulsion. I HAVE desires but they are not myself.

After disidentifying myself from the contents of consciousness, such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, I RECOGNIZE AND AFFIRM THAT I AM A CENTER OF PURE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, A CENTER OF WILL. As such, I am capable of observing, directing, and using all my psychological processes and my physical body.

"Who am I then? I am the permanent factor in the ever-varying flow of my personal life. I am that which has a sense of being, of permanence, of inner balance. I am a center of identity and pure self-consciousness. I AFFIRM MY IDENTITY AS THIS CENTER.

"I recognize and affirm that as this center, I have not only self-consciousness, but also creative, dynamic power. I recognize that as this center, I can learn to observe, direct and harmonize all the psychological processes and the physical body. I will to achieve a constant awareness of this fact in the midst of my everyday life, and to use it to give increasing meaning and direction in my life. I AM A CENTER OF IDENTITY, SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND WILL."

Another method of expressing this is to see oneself as the director of a play. The play has many parts just as the body does. It has a script, sets, actors and dialogue. It is the director's responsibility to put it all together and make sense of it. You SEE the finished product, impressed by the significance of the sets, touched by the sensitivity of the dialogue, moved by the power and authority of the actors, but you never see the director behind the scenes making it all work. If it happens, you walk away with a total experience, if not, you struggle with the incomplete parts of an uneven performance.

YOU ARE THAT DIRECTOR. The essence, the core, integrity, truth, purity and character - WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

Unfortunately, you can live out your lifetime with very little recognition or experience of your inner self, bouncing off walls, carried by society's currents, functioning to expectations, all with minimal contact or knowledge of your true being. The fortunate part is that you don't need 100% constant contact with the director of your play. You can shave, shower and get to work on time without even engaging the brain, let alone the integrity.

But the more you access the self - to truth - to character - the more true you will be to your personal nature and to the world you live in, the more success, happiness and joy you will experience for yourself and others.

This book is written for those who do want to experience life differently, who are willing to go out on a limb where they've never been before, who will choose to search their inner being for inner truth - and finding this truth, will be strong enough to act on it - to discover a scary but exciting new way in which to live.

If your DOING has left you with feelings of being unfulfilled and incomplete, come along and explore the concept of BEING for a while.