Teaching RC at Work and in Morocco and El Salvador
My life and work are going well. The relationships I’ve been cultivating with some of the people at work have gotten to where these people and I are taking action together. An example is a young adult dishwasher I work with. He was raised low-income working class by immigrant Mexican parents and has lived all his life here in Pasadena (California, USA). It turns out [it’s been revealed that] we have a lot of similar ideas about society. He wants to learn Co-Counseling. Although he is busy with work and school, we have managed to do a Skype Co-Counseling session, share RC theory by e-mail, and have conversations whenever there’s a chance to talk at work. He wants to collaborate with me in building a cooperative community, and I’m hopeful that this could include RC Community building.
My Skype fundamentals class in Morocco has met every Saturday for eleven times. There are four men in the group. Two work in renewable energy and train young people for careers in that field, one trains people in computer software, and another is an English teacher. The class was organized by someone whom I met at COP22 [the November 2016 United Nations climate conference in Morocco]. These are great guys, and they love RC. They would like to have more contact with other Co-Counselors and bring in more people. They are still trying to clarify basic RC ideas—for example, the difference between “attention out” activities that help them get through restimulation, and emotional discharge that gets rid of distresses permanently.
My visit to El Salvador went well. On Sunday I met with three men for a six-hour men’s workshop. We worked on the commitments for raised-poor, working-class, middle-class, and owning-class people. (Being from an owning-class country, I was in the demonstration on the owning-class commitment.) We talked and discharged about sexism and its history, the liberation movements in our different countries, the sex industries, early sexual memories, and my experience as a male ally at the Contemporary Women’s Issues Workshops led by Diane Balser (the RC International Liberation Reference Person for Women). On Monday these same men, three other people, and I discharged together on building RC in El Salvador, one-to-one teaching, care of the environment, and Sustaining All Life.
Also in El Salvador, my mechanic friend, Rolando, and I did fifteen minutes each way, our longest mini-session yet. He appreciates our work, sends his regards to all Co-Counselors, and says that learning about listening and discharge is working for him in his life.
South Pasadena, California, USA