An Insight So Simple
I have used the Reality Agreement for the last five weeks in my weekly sessions with two Co-Counselors. I finally have the feeling, "Yes, this is it." It is a short-cut. It is very efficient, very pleasant, and good to work this way.
The new insights that these hours of session time gave me are:
oI feel more acceptance of myself and I am claiming my goodness in all the things I fail in.
oMy brain, body, and being are refusing to cooperate in my living a worklife that is not healthy for me. So things get messy, but rather a mess than a controlled so-called "well-functioning" order.
oI'm discharging the fear of "not functioning well." Who cares? "Functioning" in oppressive conditions has not much to do with my goodness. So things start to rebel within me. My deepest hopes and dreams push to the surface.
oMoney, economic independence, and security become a big issue. I get the thought: if I am worth this much, why should the money not come to me to support myself on a basic needs level? I'm worth doing work that suits me and is just right for me.
oI feel deeper that reality apart from patterns exists. We as Co-Counselors often make the mistake that the good and benign reality we strive for is something to be achieved by hard work. No, it is already there.
I think that people's blocks on this area to work with this viewpoint have a lot to do with "mental health" oppression. As a "mental health" leader I have hardly had the inclination and intention to direct my work and energy towards changing the "mental health" system as it exists now. The thing that motivates me to be a committed leader on "mental health" oppression is this belief that people are good, even with their patterns, their failures, their rebellion consciously or unconsciously against injustice. This is the idea I hold out to my pupils. I'm sure you understand what I mean, it has to do with the first lesson everybody gets in their first fundamentals class about the goodness of human beings. But in spite of that, everybody seems to think that direction is bad, having distress is bad, not acting absolutely rational is bad.
All this takes enormous energy away from the goodness of every human being. The whole notion of "having to work on certain things" can get in the way of accepting yourself or the person you are, with everything included.
I put it down in my own words. It is a relief. How can an insight so simple be so hard to achieve? And what if we see this Reality Agreement as a very small first step towards improving future functioning of Co-Counseling? We will achieve tools that are even far more better than this one, which look so thrilling now. Isn't that a very hopeful perspective? All the people that we teach RC this coming year will stand on our shoulders.
Janny Mieboek
Utrecht, The Netherlands