How I Came to Understand RC
I learned about RC as a teenager in the 1980s and adamantly refused to have anything to do with it. As a teen-aged male, I was proud not to appear like I needed to be connected to my feelings.
Just before I turned twenty-one, my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer and given two weeks to live. When I heard the news, I went into the hospital room washroom and cried for the first time in ten years. It was after that experience that I decided to give RC a try.
My mom ended up having surgery and lived for another two years. One night when she was back in hospital, I visited her, and she was in bad shape [condition]. She asked me to put a pillow over her head so she could be finished with the agony of her illness. I crawled into bed with her, and we both had big cries, after which she no longer felt suicidal and was instead appreciative of my company.
Sometimes experiences leave us unshakable in our understandings and beliefs. That night with my mom has always been for me the most important lesson about what we in RC call the “discharge” process and how it can work. I have had several such lessons throughout my years of practicing RC. Some have happened in ongoing groups of Co-Counselors, often over many years, as we’ve addressed liberation issues and uncovered and resolved emotional damage caused by the oppressions that we have been targeted with and that have caused us to target others.
I see the world as a complicated place with much upset and irrationality, the results of which are increasingly harsh. RC is key to my keeping my mind as clear as possible while staying engaged with the people and issues that are important to me.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
(Present Time 206, January 2022)