Becoming real

Being-real is easy to say and challenging and lifelong to do. It means to be the unique and authentic person or "self" that I am, apart from all others. It means learning to identify, understand, appreciate, and integrate the richness of our past, good and bad, positive and negative, into our present living. It means accepting and believing that I am a loving gift in, with and for life: I am lovable, loving and loved. Being-real is I-being-I with myself and others, I-in-identity-and-intimacy. To truly be unique and authentic, our life goal, is to be free, joyful, hopeful, faithful. What a gift it is to be I. In Christian belief, I am in-the-image-of-God. Being-real, truly I, is to be as close to Perfect and Ultimate as I may be. This life journey to real appears bittersweet. From Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama to Stalin and Hitler we may see the success and failure of our quest to the real I-in-life. As a psychotherapist, I "feel" daily the anguish of each courageous, vulnerable and hopeful person that asks guidance for direction and support in being-real. No greater privilege or gift have I teceived than this for my life vication. All I have to do is be-real and use the dynamic skills and experience that I've acquired. Thank God.