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Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Fritz Perls

Mr. Frederick 'Fritz' Perls. This book Gestalt Therapy Verbatim showed some Hardcore Gestalt Sessions. The way Fritz does his Skill Frustration is really amazing. For him, the only way to grow up is through frustration. But take note of the word Skillful. Just like a toothpaste, what comes out of you when you're squeezed is who you are. When one is inflicted with frustration, he is pushed the edge in where he thought is hell. Push to the place where he thought he can't survive. And he is forced to use his capabilities and unexplored –unused potentials. To be who he really is.

The impasse –is a place where most of the people go round and round their self-created labyrinth wall and find themselves stuck. People want to go pass the impasse without even passing though it. Such irony exists. They rather manipulate the enviroment –the world around them rather than suffering the pains of going through the impasse and growing up.

Playing stupid games such as blaming games etc. just to look like a helpless victim instead of being a person who's responsible for his life. As you can always hear from the ocean of people “I don't wanna grow up” or “It hurts so much to grow up”. Sounds familiar right? Of course, I also said that many times before. We all go through that stage. Most of us just want have themselves stranded in that stage. They want to stay. Afraid to let go of the sameness. Afraid to face the future. Most people try to fill the void and end with the feeling of emptiness.

Just for the record, a human being is the only creature in the world that interferes with his own growth. First, let us define growth: It's the transcendence from environmental-support to self-support. We people better understand right now that when we were born, we are already doomed enough to stand on our own two feet. But what we don't know is that, how beautiful it is to stand on our own. The pride of standing on your own two feet. A major problem in this world is that people are so afraid to responsible for their own lives. They blame the government, their friends, their neighbours, their enemies, their parents –the world and God for what's happening to their lives instead of owning the responsibility for their sunken ship. And this blaming never ends.

In the impasse, the awareness of how you're stuck is therapeutic –it will the the cure to your neuroses... You delve in to that's making you feel stuck. You go through thick layers of the morass of your neurosis. Quoting from Fritz Perls: Awareness per se –by and itself is curative. It's only in genuine awareness that we learn to grow and be responsible. Once this awareness surfaces. The awakening happens. The Satori … The moment he realizes that everything was just a nightmare he created and a mere fantasy –a set catastrophic expectations that causes tremendous anxiety(In Gestalt Therapy, Anxiety, it is defined as the gap between the now and the then). The void he thought to be empty and dark starts to become a fertile void. Now, a desert starts to bloom. Then it starts to become a way of life. Contact. Awareness. Responsibility. Growth. Living the most of our potentials. Living as a whole and not as a fragmented person. But question is … Are you willing to do what it takes?

If you were a bird, the moment you let go of your nest, would be the moment that the world becomes your home.

I do counseling and psychotherapy which have that much of Perlsian-Orientation. The amazing power of Skillful Frustration separates this kind of therapy from other quacks. Just kidding. Probably, I'm not. This just not a therapy .. This is a way of life. I'm greatly inspired by the Philosophy of Gestalt Therapy.

This reminds me of a quote from my favorite anime character. "Embrace Nothing. If you meed Buddha on the road, kill him. If you meet the Father on the road, kill him. Only live life as it is, not bounded by anything. Never be a captive to anyone. Just live yourself the way you are." Since I was in High School, that was the code that I live by.

To be a real person in this deceptive world filled with introjections is not easy. To cut all of the ropes keeping you from being a person, you first have to die –not literally. But still, are you gonna be willing to die?

 

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"Some people are made to find ways in unfolding the personhood in others and hopefully help them grow even to the extent that they themselves forget their own quests in life. These are the few people who always try their in making others realize how wonderful it is to own a life."

Because of this, I am who I am right now. I learned. I owe this to them. I'll be forever in debt.

They are know as the as the 'Facilitators' Circle.And this is what they do:

Help Human Beings turn into Real People.

I believe in a God but not in Master plan. Whatever happens in our lives is a reaction of what We do and Not do everyday. 

It's called the Law of Karma and it affects us all.  -01c18

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

I had a hard time finishing Haunted. But it's just the way I like it. Some stories were a waste of time. Some were just too excellent. Guts, Exodus, Box-shit, and that scene or whatever it was, when Comrade Snarky said, "I fainted....and you ate my ass?
You fed me my own ass?"

As a whole, the book has a disoriented flow. If we talk about music, it'll be like a beautiful sound of discordance. But hey, this book, in its truest nature, causes both psychological and physiological disorientation. So fucking gory and gross. That part in which Cassandra was rotting in the forest. #@!#@!#@!#@!

Some stories and scenes just stand alone. Live all by itself.

The way this book was written was really eccentric. You can get lost easily if you're not used to the way Chucky writes. This book requires a high dose of patience –if you don't have it, then don't read it. It's not reader-friendly. At some parts of the book, you'll tell yourself, "Why the fuck am I still reading this?" or "This is a waste of fucking time." ... I told myself that.

It even attracted a mosquito like a magnet ...

Writers' Retreat. Away from the world of three months to create their own masterpieces –disasterpieces. Really fucked-up characters. Really disgusting. The idea was really an innovation. As usual, the sick and twisted mind of the author didn't fail to make me applause with one hand. In the first place, I didn't know I can do it.

This is the new taste of horror. Humor and Horror inside a bottle of beer. Intoxicating. Horrifying. Funny.

The world is meant for suffering. If you understand that, you might chase suffering –and suffering might run away from you. You might even need to feel you're suffering to feel you're alive.

"Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That’s the earth. Why it goes around. We’re the rocks. And what happens to us—the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse—why, that’s just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright."

On their attempt to metamorphose their sufferings into something they can sell, they craft it into stories. They distort it. Make it worse. Make it better. Make it unreal.The story behind the story. The truth behind the truth. The reality behind the reality. Perhaps, that is what's happening in this world. The world being turned into fiction. Isn't that scary?

And the mosquito died. Shit-colored blood spilled on the page.

The narrative style of Chuck in Haunted is really incomparable. And this book of his, hits a lot of things. Obviously, you might know what those things are.

The book is haunted by a soul. I scared my little sister with this.

The cover of the book = five stars.

*Clapping with one hand*

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

I got really bored in the later part of this book. But nonetheless this book still managed to touch me deeply. A dying man realizing the value of living and the value of him still living after he dies. The power of hitting three birds with one stone. His wits has been energized by his cancer. Inspiring him to make The Last Lecture. He knows he's not gonna be around for his kids when they grow up. That's one of the reasons why he wrote this book. He wants his kids to have an idea of what kind of person their father was.

The Last Lecture can make you fly.

The knowledge of knowing how life he still have paradoxically made him live more. For example: If you are asked if you only have less than 24 hours to live, what will you do? The thought of death makes us live in the here and now and later –makes us pretty much aware of our lives. You can get your strength from that thought of death. If life were a sentence, it would have been very deeply wrong if it has no period in the end. Death gives meaning to our existence. One is already dying the moment one is born. Meaning, the moment you were born, then you're already old enough to die.

We can die anytime –can be because of an unlucky accident, disease, getting murdered, or suicide. We just don't know it as of this very moment. We live and we live. That's the only thing imminent. We don't have forever to live –we don't have time to waste. We die because we are alive. But that not the case that matters. We are living because we are gonna die someday.

Seize the Day. Carpe Diem. Live the moment for these moments are never ever coming back. Time flies with out wings.

How you live your life starting today is what matters most. What's your own "The Last Lecture"?

Do you have to live twice?

One lifetime is enough ... if you just live it. Be right or wrong.

If You Could See What I Hear by Tom Sullivan and Derek Gill

Being blind doesn't mean one cannot run.

If You Could See What I Hear is about a person who's born without sight, but is gifted with a special vision. A vision ─a perspective in life that's more superior than a normal person with sight has. 

Though deprived of sight ─was it deprived or was it stolen? It no longer matters. He's born with an I.Q of a genius, born with talents, and unreasonable guts ─imagine a blind person doing something like a skydiving session. Wrestling with other human beings with sight and beating them ─does that exceed the word exceptional? Not to mention, he's a singer, a musician ─he composes musical pieces and plays any musical instrument. He's also a Psych Major. That makes it so very interesting. He even became a wrestling coach. And if this sounds crazy enough, he even does counseling. He does so many things that you might surely forget that he's blind. He's got the brains and the guts that compensates for his lost of sight. He went through a lot of things more than a normal person does.

What's making this person special anyway? What does he have other than a brains of a genius and the guts of an warrior? 

If You Could See What I Hear

For me, the way he sees life without having the sense of sight is something that's truly unbelievable. Sightless, he is. But he found his true love. Found the meaning of his life and found his life itself. I will even say yes if you'll ask me that he sees more in life than I do.  If only I could see what I hear. We, people with sight, tend to judge immediately. Not like blind people wherein they first feel, hear ─sense and know the person more. Just like in life. They delve deeper into the experience. They'll know life more. 

Scarred

He met many significant people which played a crucial role in his life. And he's lucky enough to have really really cool parents.

There were times ─lots of it when he cursed himself for being blind ─cursed the WORLD ─cursed GOD. But in the end, he still managed to find the brighter side of it.

Thanks to him. I realized so many things. It's scary to think about what I could have missed if I didn't read this book. The power of faith. The power of having gone through suffering. The power of learning the hard way. 

If You Could See What I Hear

I wrote a quote. It goes like this.

"It's only when one is stripped off of something he thought he can't live without that he will realize and discover the greatest of his potentials."

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

This is the third book I've read from Mitch Albom. Tuesdays with Morrie, as expected, it simply touched me through its pages. Though I already watched the film before I've read the book, as usual, the book is better.

Wounded

Morrie Schwartz, his Philosophy in life, the greatest of his wisdom was etched on this book. I just noticed this, once one is near death, his wisdom grows. We are nearing death each day.

Life, death, silence, and more. His way of thinking –inspired by death was so lively. If I were given a chance to spend a tuesday with Morrie, I might have mistaken him for being Aristotle 

But what inspired me most in this book was the power of connections. Just like what Morrie and Mitch had. Especially Morrie's connection to the world. Without that, this book, Tuesdays with Morrie, wouldn't exist.

The dialogue of the wave and the ocean really hit me big time.

Everything is connected to one another. The problem is, we ourselves disrupt the connection –we refused to get connected. But why?

Connection and Disconnection. Both are natural processes. Ironic as it may sound, they are not opposites. They are co-existing. You can't be disconnected if you were not connected. And you wouldn't know that you're connected unless you experience disconnection.

In life, you'll meet people. Some will offer flowers. Some will throw stones. Some will not even bother to fucking care. It's normal to meet these kind of people around. But what makes life better than normal? Is it success? Possessions? I guess not.

What's extraordinary is when you meet someone or a few people who'll inspire you, change you, touch your life, to love you more than you love yourself.

What makes life special is the connection to the people, to nature, and to the world. And most of all, our connection to our own selves.

And as well as getting disconnected in the end –that's life.

World of Sex by Henry Miller

World of Sex, as you can see in the title, it seems to be so taboo-ish that you will not seem to wonder if it had been banned and will come to the point that no one will have the courage to publish it. Luckily, there were people who got the balls. Thanks to them, I was given this wonderful chance to read it.

Ohh ... Christine Reyes

Long ago when I was a still a participant in our organization, there was this Fat and Scary Alumni Facilitator who gave us a lecture about Psychoanalysis. He asked, “Why are there Human Beings? One of my co-participants immediately answered, “We evolved from apes.” Then another one answered, “It was written in the bible that God created us.” To my surprise, there was someone who answered, “It was because of malakas and maganda.” He meant that the first humans came from a split  bamboo tree –The Anak sa Liking Kawayan Theory. After hearing their answers, I said woooh, just inside my head. Throughout hearing their answers, the Fat and Scary Alumni Facilitator was laughing sarcastically. “You know what guys,” He responded. “You're wrong.” He said, “I wasn't asking where we came from. I was asking you why are we here.” We were all silent trying to get his point. Then he stopped talking for a brief moment and asked, “You wanna know why guys?” Obviously. He smiled then –it was pretty obvious that he was preparing for a big laugh. He said, “It's because of SEX! He said with a funny voice of conviction. "We have a lot of people here in this world because a lot of people FUCK. That's why we are still here Human Beings." Huge laughs blew the roof away out of the room. Not to mention we are having the session in a Holy place. It was a Religious Renewal Center. Imagine us having this kind of talk here.

Psychoanalysis is the school of thought in Psychology that primarily deals with the Unconscious –the unconscious drive which are pleasure-oriented and sexual in nature.

World of Sex –Spot the humor

Because of my Freudian background. I had a fun and easy time understanding this book, World of Sex. We people have this repressed energy in us. Energy is life. Doesn't matter whether it's positive or negative. And a suppressed or repressed energy can mean less life –lesser being. The book says the same thing. The only difference is, it also talks about love. Love and Sex. Two of the most interesting matters here in this world. It will usually take a huge amount of time ─life to understand this. Sex can strengthen love, but love is just not all about sex (But for some, it is though). It can even destroy love. Sex does more than the procreational process. It also gives off hot pleasure that can make you go crazy about it if you're using only your dick when you are doing some fucking. But when you fuck with your heart, body, and soul and being, if that happens, you'll discover the deeper meaning of sex.

I'll make sure the girl I love won't feel fucked –but loved. I learned that valuable lesson from one of my favorite books, A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.

Sex is a gift in which everyone have to receive. Not really. Birth is. Sex does not only give birth to babies –it also gives AIDS. What I am trying to say is –not figuratively, is Birth. Our ability to give birth to moments, friendships, dreams, life, inspiration, and more. Perhaps, sex was nothing but a symbolism that we misunderstood.

We have our desires. To destroy or to procreate or to whatever. One can't be free from desires –it takes desire in the first place to do so. A desire suppressed or repressed can mean a lot of trouble. You can delve inside you desires and understand it. You can control these desires –be a master of it. Not the other way around.

And as the cliché says “It always starts with a choice.”