There are many
paths up the mountain, and there are many guides for each path; and they all
speak different languages. All the
paths inevitably lead to the same place; each guide has his/her own
prescription for a safe journey; and, although their languages differ, their
messages remain the same.
My guide may be an
intellectual guide: Freud for example.
He will lead me up my particular mountain using my concept of myself as
his yardstick. When I am walking along
my intellectual path, my preoccupation is with goals and structure. I can spend my time analysing my life, and
can thus avoid living it, feeling it. I
am obsessed by “shoulds” and “oughts”; and society approves of me because I am
displaying a state which society regards as desirable and “normal”. [Society is, of course, an
abstract concept, a nominalization – and in this context refers to friends,
family, colleagues and those people with whom I enjoy “normal” intercourse of
every kind.]
Alternatively I might have a
behavioural guide, a Skinner, leading me up the path of rewards and
punishments. My worth is equated with
my behaviour. If I behave badly,
or am judged badly, I will be punished, I will suffer loss, perhaps
losing status, perhaps being victimized.
Any gains I enjoy I will attribute to “correct” behaviour.
Another guide might be a
Carl Rogers, directing my footsteps along the path of feeling. If I feel happy, I am happy. Where the path ultimately leads is less
relevant than the experience of taking it.
By focusing on feeling, I can cure the whole me, not merely the
complaint. Feeling is the essence of
life.
And there are many other
guides, and many disciples of those guides, all with their labels and
descriptions for what, at the end of the day, will be the same mountain
peak. The humanistic, holistic
psychologists who urge me to find my authentic self. Eric Berne and his adherents, whose concern is for my
OK-ness. The No-Erroneous-Zone target
of Dr Wayne Dyer. Ken Keyes, who will
direct me off the path of addiction onto the patch of self-actualization. Jerry Jampolski, who will take me along the
path of love and forgiveness. And so
on, and so on.
But whichever of these
guides I take, there are aspects of myself I need to discover and to recognise
before I can access the authenticity that all these gurus recommend.
I will never access my
authentic self until I am able to resolve the conflict between Id and Superego
in favour of Id; before I discard my Critical Parent and free up my
Adapted Child; before I recognise that it’s not what I should do that is
relevant to this journey, but what I want to do.
I will want to stop playing
games; I will want to nurture my true self, rather than the image of myself
which I present to others. I will want
to be honest with myself without suffering the anguish of hurt and sadness that
comes from admitting bad feelings about myself. I will want to divest myself of my anxieties, my addictions to
ingrained behaviour patterns, the ways in which I immobilize myself. I will wish to turn my feelings outwards and
not direct my energy inwards. I will
want to explode into life – not merely in Perls’s four ways of joy, grief,
orgasm and anger, but in countless other ways.
Mostly I will want to learn how to give love and trust.
Giving love is like bathing
in a pool: I cannot give love unless I step into the pool and then I am
immediately bathed in the universal love which is the water of the pool. Receiving love does not diminish the water
in the pool; it merely leaves space for the love which is continuously being
proffered. I do not have to feel
discomfort at accepting gifts, and particularly the gift of love, since my
acceptance leaves room for others to donate and receive.
In the past I tended to
collapse into my emotions. I suffered
intolerably. Or – with the benefit of
new-found wisdom – I caused myself unnecessary suffering which I ascribed to
others whose intent was merely to deal with their own needs.
If I trust myself and my
emotions, if I allow my feelings to well from a lack of deviousness and device,
if I can give and accept love, then I can give myself without fear that I may
suffer from the problems, needs, desires and wishes of others. If I am aware of my tendency to introject,
and recognise that I am doing neither myself nor others a favour when I indulge
this behaviour, then I can offer myself freely, without experiencing the pain
and suffering of others as my pain and suffering. My trust and my love will thus validate their authenticity. My acceptance of their authenticity will
inevitably validate my own.