Regaining Perspective on Old Distress Recordings
A colleague of mine introduced me to RC when I was twenty-three years old. I knew, from my first session, that this was what I had been missing my whole life—a group of people who would listen to each other through tears, fears, and laughter, about important matters of the heart.
As I discharged, my understanding of the theory and practice deepened. That we could free our minds from the “concrete” of chronic distresses so that rational thinking could break through inspired me to work hard in my sessions. Along the way, I identified with many liberation struggles, starting with that of my own white, Catholic, middle-class, heterosexual, male constituency.
I devoted several hours a week to RC—to Co-Counseling, classes, support groups, and workshops. Eventually I started to teach RC, and not long after I became an Area1 Reference Person. I truly believed that with the theory and practice, and access to the best RC resources available, I would be an unstoppable revolutionary leader by the time I reached my forties.
Now here I am, twenty years later and in my forties. So how is it going?
Well, without a doubt things have moved in positive ways in my life since I started RC. I’ve even briefly approached “revolutionary leadership.” However, I still drag around old recordings2 of isolation, timidity, confusion, and melancholy. In fact, not long ago they wore me down to where I was seriously wondering whether it was time for me to quit RC. I didn’t know what else to do.
Thank goodness for my solid Co-Counseling relationships, Present Time, RCCR,3 Joanne Bray’s4 loving commitment to Catholic men, and Tim Jackins’ talks on CD!5 Because of these, I was able to regain perspective and correctly view the recordings as just the faraway echoes of early defeats.
Contradicting the recordings works best when I take in6 that I am part of a loving, courageous Community that is steadfastly building a solid base to counter the damaging forces in our societies. With this slice of reality firmly in my mind and heart, I can go back to the early defeats with the intention of discharging them completely. This work is making a difference.
Tibor Besskó
Eugene, Oregon, USA
(temporarily in Venezuela)
1 An Area is a local RC Community.
2 Distress recordings
3 RCCR stands for Re-evaluation Counseling Community Resources, in Seattle, Washington, USA—the RC headquarters and where RC leaders can come for Intensives (twenty hours of one-way Re-evaluation Counseling, for a fee).
4 Joanne Bray is the International Liberation Reference Person for Catholics.
5 Rational Island Publishers has been producing a series of quarterly CDs, called RC Teacher Updates, of talks given by Tim Jackins at recent RC workshops. For a list of all the RC Teacher Updates to date, see pt175_105_tu.
6 “Take in” means realize, understand.