Your Becoming Self
The Existential Search:
Unconditional Positive Regard, Compassion, Forgiveness, and Acceptance
Meaning, Being, and the Transformative
Table of Contents
Please Note
Each of the entries is relatively short, 500-750 words or so. You can read them in order or jump to a specific entry that strikes you as interesting or intriguing. You may find, however, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That whole emerges because as you read, we become co-authors.
If you have any questions, suggestions, and gentle constructive comments, please feel free to write: info@yourbecomingself.com
Laurence Robert Cohen
Introductory: There's Nothing Wrong With Us
Interlude with a pronoun—July 19, 2011
How we perceive our now and the perception of form—July 20, 2011
Meaning perspectives defined and formed—July 21, 2011
On what we be or what we choose to be—July 22, 2011
Meaning perspectives and their influence—July 23, 2011
Essential smart over essential dumb—July 24, 2001
Discovering smart—July 25, 2011
The cultural and educational meaning perspective of smart and dumb—July 26, 2011
We are the story we tell ourselves—July 27, 2011
We are the story we tell ourselves continued—July 28, 2011
Retelling our story in new terms—July 29, 2011
Self-awareness as process—July 30, 2011
Interview class and the self—July 31, 2011
The importance and avoidance of self-awareness—August 1, 2011
The genesis of self—August 2, 2011
Where the self begins and a meditation—August 4, 2011
Early forces and the becoming self—August 5, 2011
Smart Love and the development of the becoming self—August 6, 2011
Middle school and inner happiness or not—August 7, 2011
Interactions with the world, caregivers and the becoming self—August 9, 2011
Parents and/or caregivers and what we learn from them—August 10, 2011
Distorted consequence as meaning perspectives—August 11, 2011
The nature and mechanism of teaching and learning meaning perspectives—August 12, 2011
What makes for punishment—August 13, 2011
Punishment as a means to a higher purpose—August 14, 2011
The dominator model and discipline—August 15, 2011
The myth of the Fall and Eve as hero—August 16, 2011
The Garden myth and its renewal in us all—August 17, 2011
When "No" becomes an affirmation of self—August 18, 2011
Punishment and teaching right from wrong—August 20, 2011
On the nature of behaving—August 21, 2011
Responses to fear and rejection—August 22, 2011
Self-blame and doubt as a response to fear and rejection—August 24, 2011
The meaning perspective influence of internalized fear—August 25, 2011
Lying as a response to fear and rejection—August 27, 2011
Blaming others as a response to fear and rejection—August 28, 2011
More unwanted consequences of punishment and fear—August 29, 2011
The arbitrary nature of adult response and the confusion it brings—August 31, 2011
On the nature of rebellion—September 3, 2011
Variations on rebellion as a response to fear and rejection—September 4, 2011
Variations on rebellion as a response to fear and rejection—Getting caught—September 5, 2011
Variations on rebellion as a response to fear and rejection—Classrooms and testing—September 6, 2011
Rebellion as a loss of freedom—September 7, 2011
What an interview looks like and feels like—September 9, 2011
Discipline and the idea of a lost child—September 10, 2011
The question of our locus of control—September 11, 2011
Reflecting on awareness and the instrumental—September 12, 2011
Fear of the self and the truth about fear—September 13, 2011
The higher purpose as meaning perspective and judgment—September 15, 2011
The dissonance of the higher purpose and our love and care—September 16, 2011
The nature and quality of blame—September 17, 2011
Beyond blame and living out weaknesses—September 18, 2011
Transformative learning and our search—September 19, 2011
The unconditional in its many forms—September 20, 2011
The problem of the "shoulds''—September 21, 2011
Alienation, identity, and ego—September 23, 2011
Openness, the unconditional, and the search—September 24, 2011
Friendship, conditional regard, and conformity—September 26, 2011
Friendship, conditional regard, and conformity—September 27, 2011
School and the demeaning power of negative regard—September 28, 2011
Condemned to being slow and the denied self—September 29, 2011
Dominator form of education and what it teaches—September 30, 2011
What extrinsic learning costs—October 1, 2011
Competition, cheating, and their human costs—October 2, 2011
How our identity and ego work in our whole being—October 3, 2011
How our identity and ego work in our whole being—October 4, 2011
On the difference between a life of control or one of balance—October 5, 2011
On how meaning perspectives form and can limit our lives—October 6, 2011
The unity of our whole being—October 7, 2011
Continued discussion of control and balance—October 8, 2011
The metacognitive and fear of the unknown—October 9, 2011
The "Yes" in spite of diagnoses—October 10, 2011
Issues and identity in recovery—October 11, 2011
We are the story we tell ourselves—October 12, 2011
Liberation and the meaning perspective—October 13, 2011
Clarifying our whole being, facets of that whole being, and unity—October 14, 2011
Our whole being as unified and individuating which the dominator resists—October 15, 2011
On Eden, love, and the ends principle—October 16, 2011
On the usual and prevailing perception of human nature—October 17, 2011
On our perception of human nature and our expectations of the human--October 18, 2011
How identity and ego work in regard to expectations—October 19, 2011
On choosing the unconditional and high expectations--October 20, 2011
The quest of aspiration--October 21, 2011
On the realization of the becoming self—October 22, 2011
On higher purpose meaning perspectives—October 24, 2011
Competition and the dominator model—October 25, 2011
On competition, hierarchy, and the nature of power—October 26, 2011
Competition, scarcity, fear, and conformity—October 27, 2011
On having and being and lexical gaps—October 28, 2011
The language of having—October 29, 2011
I/Thou, I/IT, the Other and having—October 30, 2011
The endless need for and useless feeding of having—October 31, 2011
On the love of living beings and the love of dead things—November 1, 2011
On the interaction of giving—November 2, 2011
Suffering, the defiant human spirit, and tragic optimism—November 3, 2011
On the natural impulse toward unconditional positive regard—November 4, 2011
In the hall of meaning and Liberation—why not?—November 5, 2011
On escaping from old forms, the limits of meaning perspectives—November 6, 2011
The tension between our perceptions and others' meaning perspectives—November 7, 2011
Villains and meaning perspectives—November 8, 2011
Rediscovering the definition of self—November 9, 2011
On how meaning perspectives can do us harm—November 10, 2011
On the defiant human spirit and the power of choice—November 11, 2011
Critical moments and transformations that result—November 12, 2011
Liberation from the unfair, unfounded, and untrue comes hard—November 13, 2011
Transformation and liberation as a recognition of and return to the natural—November 14, 2011
On why not the transformative—November 15, 2011
Another inner dualism—November 16, 2011
Inner dialogues that harm—November 17, 2011
Why we can choose and not need to change—November 18, 2011
Saying "Yes" to life in spite of everything—November19, 2011
When we choose "No"—November 20, 2011
Using choice to retell our story—November 21, 2011
On how anger works—and doesn't—November 22, 2011
Anger and critical reflection—November 23, 2011
On choosing our mood wardrobe—November 24, 2011
Powerless, anger, and choosing the transfixitive—November 25, 2011
On compassion, forgiveness, and choosing freedom—November 26, 2011
On wishing good—November 27, 2011
To see others in the I/Thou—November 28, 2011
On Compassionate Communication—November 29, 2011
Customer service and fulfilling essential human needs—December 1, 2011
The joy of saying "Yes" to life—December 2, 2011
Individuation, community, and the becoming self—December 3, 2011
Non-Violent or Compassionate Communication in handout—December 4, 2011
Inner and outer manifestations of Compassionate Communication—December 5, 2011
On inspiring compassion—December 6, 2011
Struggling with the interferences with the compassionate—December 7, 2011
On avoiding inherent demands—December 8, 2011
On escaping the "have tos"—December 9, 2011
On family myths as diagnosis and interpretation—December 10, 2011
On interpretations and diagnoses—December 11, 2011
The burden and harm of labels—December 12, 2011
Fear and the Compassionate Communication—December 13, 2011
What we observe and what we perceive—December 14, 2011
Full expression in action clarifies what we conceive—December 15, 2011
On knowing the thoughts of others—December 16, 2011
Heuristics that help and meaning perspectives that harm—December 17, 2011
The violence and dominator nature of gossip—December 18, 2011
Feelings and observations—December 19, 2011
On seeing, feeling, and responding—December 20, 2011
On knowing why we feel what we feel—December 21, 2011
Our right to express our needs—December 22, 2011
On what the "No" perspective means to action—December 23, 2011
On expressing unspoken needs through manipulation—December 24, 2011
The right to say "No" and the power to say "Yes"—December 25, 2011
Making choices into a do, not a don't—December 27, 2011
My example of a choice into an action—December 28, 2011
When we do the math, we find can gain but not lose—December 29, 2011
On choosing to live—regretfully—December 30, 2011
The nature of time, resolutions, and the story we tell ourselves—December 31, 2011
On the hero's journey as our story—January 2, 2012
On a long day's journey—into life—January 3, 2012
On the dimensionality of knowing and searching—January 4, 2012
The nature and question of identity—January 5, 2012
The exploitation of needs and vulnerability—January 6, 2012
Identity and dependency—January 7, 2012
The media and the becoming self—January 8, 2012
Saving ourselves from rejection—at a cost—January 9, 2012
On the commodification of ourselves—January 11, 2012
On making our human needs into consumerist material needs—January 12, 2012
On how media makes us feel worse and better about ourselves—conditionally—January 13, 2012
When the identity becomes the only life we can live —January 14, 2012
Death is dead—January 15, 2012
The life in transformation and transcendence—January 16, 2012