If you’re in search of the authentic life, it’s worth reading Bob Edelstein’s article in Psychology Today. He writes about his transformation in the early 70’s after reading Carl Rogers’ “Freedom to Learn”.
Rogers advocated for an “inner-directed way of being”– authoring your life rather than living your life by old rules and beliefs given to you by parents and teachers, partners and preachers, that may not be appropriate to your life now.
Because Rogers’ had such an impact on his life, Edelstein suggests that we ask the following very important questions:
“What is my world and what do I want it to be?”
“How do I access and trust my unique experience of being human?”
“How do I express my humanness as I engage with others in the world?”
“How do I follow Shakespeare’s advise ‘To thine own self be true’?”
I might add the questions: What do I really value? Am I living my life based on fear of disapproval and fear of what other people think or am I living my life as I choose to?
Have you answered these questions for yourself or are you living a life too full of distractions to stop and even ask? We often just skim the surface as our lives pass rapidly by. Answering these questions is a deeper task. Answering these questions takes time. But such time is well invested.
I recommend reading Edelstein’s article. I also recommend reading “ReRight Your Life Story” by Jake Eagle. But here’s the irony: A quick article, or even a well written book will only scratch the surface. To answer these deep questions requires us to make a commitment of time and energy. We can make progress answering these questions, but only when we create the space to do so. And, the space alone is not enough. We need tools, new tools that teach us how to get out of our limited ways of seeing ourselves and the world.
This is why a Live Conscious Retreat is so powerful. It provides the time, the space, the intention, the safety and the tools we need to live meaningful lives– to have the love we want and to live without fear of disapproval. As a result of this training we begin and continue to live lives of our own making. We, delightfully end up liking ourselves better and are thus able to connect with and love better – ourselves and the people we care about.
Unless we really break away from our everyday lives and our habitual ways of being, we are unlikely to ever answer these questions. We need to step into a new setting where we can honor and explore these questions from a new perspective and begin to consciously become the authors of our own lives.
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