Whether we are speaking of a flower or an oak tree, of an earthworm or a beautiful bird, of an ape or a person, we will do well, I believe, to recognize that life is an active process, not a passive one. Whether the stimulus arises from within or without, whether the environment is favorable or unfavorable, the behaviors of an organism can be counted on to be in the direction of maintaining, enhancing, and reproducing itself. This is the very nature of the process we call life. This tendency is operative at all times. Indeed, only the presence or absence of this total directional process enables us to tell whether a given organism is alive or dead. Towards the end of Carl Rogers' life, when this book was written, he began to move away from one-on-one psychotherapy and focus more on the community and society at large. There was less a focus on the individual isolated from others, but rather incorporating the individual into a larger whole. This isn't a surprising evolution of Rogers' person-centred humanistic style of interpersonal relationships and shows his desire to affect real change on a global level by the end of his life. The first noticeable quality of his writing is the clarity of it. The wordings are precise, the logic coherent, and even the slightest confusion over what he meant is almost not possible. The clarity is so noticeable that it naturally reminds me of other psychology books I’ve read and how I can not say the same about them. It’s almost as if Rogers knew where ambiguity may take roots and nipped them in the bud before they had a chance. He writes like who he is, a humanistic scientist. To the point and flow of the logical mind. However, when Rogers talks about “self-actualization” he is referring to the actualisation of the self-concept and as I have outlined above, this could be a whole host of things – a murderer, a depressed person, a successful CEO, and self-actualisation would be the enhancement of these characteristics. This would mean become a better murdered, possibly a more depressed person or even a more powerful CEO. The sprouts were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would never become plants, never mature, never fulfill their real potential. But under the most adverse circumstances, they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish Carl Rogers – A Way of Being (1980) p.118

BEING Synonyms: 256 Similar and Opposite Words | Merriam BEING Synonyms: 256 Similar and Opposite Words | Merriam

A distillation of the wisdom Rubin has accrued over decades of bringing records to fruition…[To]creatives in need of a spur – or anyone in proximity to a client, or loved one, approaching a deadline – The Creative Act has just the right level of confident loftiness to provide succour and useful ways of recontextualising problems.” — The GuardianIf you enjoyed these books, your will like The Creative Act: A Way of Being and the other way round: Rogers was always an optimistic person. He believed that the individual was good at its core, that one always strove for growth and actualisation of their own self; and I love this about his humanistic approach. This book asks the question: are we capable of bringing a more feeling-centred, authentic, open and real self into our interpersonal relations with others? Are schools, corporations, and governments able to allow more congruence in the way they function? Are we about to witness an era where our false masks are peeled off, ever so slightly? Are we going to allow communities to flourish and slowly edge away from the over-individualised nature of our modern societies—which, as we know, has made loneliness and isolation common modern afflictions that have revealed a mental health crisis that was previous suppressed and hidden?

Way of being - BibGuru Guides Citation: Way of being - BibGuru Guides

What he observed here was that the potatoes would try their very best to grow, as best they could, towards the light. Even though this meant that the sprouts were weak and pale, the potatoes still did whatever they could to grow and enhance, and this is exactly what he is referring to when he speaks of the Actualising Tendency. A gorgeous, delicious and wildly practical interrogation of the creative process. A master of his craft, Rubin supplies rich insights, sound advice, helpful suggestions and supreme comfort to anyone living to create, or endeavoring to live creatively.” —JJ Abrams I believe that the nature of human consciousness is such that it involves a natural tendency towards a multitude of emotions, including those such as love and empathy, as well as emotions such as anger and fear. Commenting on “man’s drives”, Jung refers to “expressions of psychic energy” and views them as “various manifestations of energetic processes and thus as forces analogous to heat, light etc.” (Jung, 1960, pp.234-235, Jung, 1928). While Jung was specifically commenting on the unconscious, I believe the phenomenon is more universally true of human nature. urn:isbn:0547524447 Scandate 20100825044357 Scanner scribe4.sfdowntown.archive.org Scanningcenter sfdowntown Worldcat (source edition) This is the first book by Rogers that I've read. I found it inspiring in it's humanistic philosophy and light on details. Rogers writes a lot about the efficacy of encounter groups without detailing what actually happens in them. He includes excerpts from interviews and letters about the transformative experience of being seen by the therapist without describing how to recreate that environment. He speculates about the feelings of large groups of people and how they can spontaneously organize without including what they accomplish through that organization. It just feels like there is not much of an emphasis on the reproducible, falsifiable thinking and evidence that I look for in psychology reading. It does feel like Carl Rogers thinks expressing feelings is valuable. I'm just not convinced that simple expression is enough to confront the material problems that often intersect with the mental anguish we face.

As we can see from the image above, when Maslow uses the term “self-actualization” he is talking about a moral, creative, spontaneous, accepting individual (what we might associate more closely with Rogers definition of the Fully Functioning Person. This is to say, that of course, the actualising tendency can be impacted and thwarted by the conditions around us, but it cannot ultimately be destroyed. This means that Rogers believes the Actualising Tendency was ALWAYS present and in action as long we are alive.

A way of being : Rogers, Carl R. (Carl Ransom), 1902-1987

necessary to allow a deep acceptance of ourselves. I refer to self-forgiveness in a similar sense to the Buddhist idea of maitrī (sanskrit), commonly translated as loving-kindness or unconditional love, but with a specific focus on the self here. Principle (iv): Cultivating awareness is the gateway to self-acceptance This means that we are always trying to grow and develop to the best of our ability, in whatever circumstances that we find ourselves in, taking into account, our self-concept (much more of this below). Potentially damaged but ever-present You’ll probably read this extraordinary book four times. The first time, you’ll gobble it up. The second time, you’ll savour it. The third time, you’ll take notes in the margins. But the fourth time, the fourth time it will be part of you as you create the work you were ready to ship.” —Seth Godin The Actualising Tendency was central to Rogers person-centred theory and as a result, his work with clients. He believed that the Actualising Tendency was a fundamental part of every single client that he saw and also the main reason why the person-centred approach is non-directive.McGilchrist traces the rise of the left hemisphere to the “hubristic movement which came to be know as the Enlightenment”, which saw the right hemisphere’s wisdom being devalued as “irrational and therefore wrong” (McGilchrist, 2009, p.329). Today, we observe the dominance of linear, reductionist, rational thinking in all walks of life, where this has perpetuated a culture that constantly seeks to be in control. Both our obsession with control and the illusion of it is clearly evident in society’s approach to accidents, illness and death. “The left hemisphere sees itself as the passive victim of whatever it is not conscious of having willed” (McGilchrist, 2009, p.432). Death therefore represents the ultimate challenge to our sense of control and is viewed as something to be feared and delayed, rather than accepted as a natural cadence in the ebb and flow of life. Your Way of Being contains your perceptions and attitudes, which are deep-seated and out of awareness, the drivers of your behaviour and communication. They are learned through the history of life experiences. It’s your response to how the world appears to you and how you access a deeper awareness of it. It shapes your worldview through the language you use, the emotions and moods you express, the body states you adopt and the relationships you experience as a result.

A Way of Being Quotes by Carl R. Rogers - Goodreads

I'm also torn, as I'm the kind of person who finds gongs between chapters aggravating (I listened to the audio book). Still, Rubin's book achieves what it aims at: Readers get a sense of the great producer's thinking and work habits. Not all of his ideas are groundbreakingly new, but that doesn't mean they're wrong (the structure is slightly meandering and partly repetitive though). Enough philosophy for now... The book ends with a view toward the future: "The World of Tomorrow and the Person of Tomorrow," as the chapter is called. Rogers calls the Persons of Tomorrow those who are open, willing to learn and change, accepting of others, risk-takers, questioners of the status quo and traditional authority, those who make decisions based on their own thought-through convictions and experience and not the authority of persons or books outside of them, individuals who want to be themselves and to help others be who they are too. It's a beautiful picture, and I have unknowingly been moving in these sorts of directions in my own ways over the past couple of years or so.What you do and how you do it influences the choices you make and the way you interpret the resulting impact on you and the world. A Life Leader is looking to make sense of the meaning behind the words, the driver behind behaviours that get results that matter to you. Getting at the drivers of meaningful engagement. There are also multiple chapters on Rogers’ encounter groups. Which is good if you want to read about things like how the workshop staff prepared by ‘letting themselves be’, or how they discussed sexual behaviour before a workshop which then had “an almost telepathic knowledge’ of this. Or you can hear endlessly about how Rogers thinks encounter groups are the key to solving everything from the Israel-Palestine conflict to global hunger. It really feels to me like the rare book that’s evergreen…It’s a book I wish I would have had on my shelf when I was 25. It’s a book I would give to people who are 25. Maybe it will be the ultimate graduation gift.” —Steve Levitt, People I (Mostly) Admire To be a person...this would be painful, costly, sometimes even terrifying. But it would be very precious: to be oneself is worth a high price." It’s sensible to raise an eyebrow when Rubin, that most commercial of producers, claims to disregard commerce in the service of art. But his words can be seductive. I’m now off to replace my own scarcity mindset with one of abundance. I will strive to make the ecstatic my compass, and see how that goes.