About “Going Public” with RC
Tim Jackins, at a teachers’ and leaders’ workshop in Hebron, Connecticut, USA, May 2000
Someone: Can you talk about going public with RC?
Tim Jackins: I think that for most of us, the struggle is to stop being secretive. Many of us haven’t told anybody that we do Co-Counseling. (laughter) We’ve kept it a secret. “What did you do this weekend?” “I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . . “ (laughter)
We have embarrassments and fears about not conforming to this rigid, oppressive society. It’s scary to attract attention. A lot of us have lived our lives hiding. We hide every unique thought we have, and we all have lots of good, unique thoughts—very creative ones. No two of us are alike. However, most of us try to appear as though we are all marching along happily together.
It’s not true. Each of us has our own goals and aspirations and thoughts that are wonderful, and we feel like we have to hide them most of the time because this society is oppressive. We may not think of it that way—that we all hide—which tells you something about how the society operates.
A lot of us can slip into this with Co-Counseling. We still hide it from the people we know well, including our families, and I think that’s the place where most of us need to work first.
We need to get over being afraid of being different and let people know that we have this thing. If we stop and think about it, separate from our fears and embarrassments, it’s ludicrous that we hide it. We are here because we’ve found something that makes our life better—really makes it better. There are people who have been here for decades, because every year their life is better than it was the year before. They’re able to do more things, to function more widely. They think better. They have bigger goals, bigger perspectives about what they can do. Every single year they have a bigger life. There are not many places where you get access to something that lets you have that.
If this is really the way it works—and it seems to, for a large number of people—why can’t you tell your friends about it? You think they wouldn’t want that chance too? You think they don’t want a bigger life?
We’re afraid of handling people’s restimulations when we try to explain what Co-Counseling is. We believe the conditioning of society—that people would be upset, think us strange, not want to do it, and that somehow we would isolate ourselves by telling them. There’s something a little frozen in that. I think it’s accepting the conditioning that society has put on us.
(Present Time 187, April 2017)