Follow your Heart!

In the entirety of the universe you are unique. You were born carrying a Gift and are here to sing that song. If you chose not sing that song, it will never be heard on the face of the earth.

Each and every one of us comes to this world carrying a gift. We may not know what it is, most people do not, but that gift, that innate talent, can be found and when you do find and follow it, your life will never be the same again.

Brian O’Raleigh

Why not Check out our Website?

http/www.reasonsforbeing.com.au

Reasons for Being

Reasons for Being now offers a certified

‘ Train the Trainer ‘ program

The program is designed for Therapists, Psychologists, Counselors, Life Coaches, Social Workers, Teachers, Facilitators and others working in the field of Human Potential, Healing and growth.

The Reason Detre Process is a unique and invaluable contribution to the human potential movement; it respects the individuality of each participant, whilst encouraging awareness, sensitivity, creativity, commitment, engagement, passion, purpose and meaning in their own lives and their families. It honors and respects the unique contribution that every human has the potential to express, it connects or re-connects our clients to the essence of who they actually are and helps them unravel the mysteries of their origins, offers meaning and purpose to suffering and ultimately it introduces them to their life purpose, what the French so poetically term; ‘Raison Detre, a Reason for Being, the real meaning, purpose and direction of their lives.

The process entails a three-part training program that will ultimately lead to certification for committed practitioners and the right to work as qualified graduates of our program. Our graduates will be supported at every stage of their development with ongoing access to our company’s videos, manuals, intellectual knowledge and support. We believe this exciting new modality has the potential to develop into a world-wide movement that will help people of all ages, genders, professions and ideologies find and follow their own ‘Raison Detre’ and in doing so become a positive and practical force for good in our world.

For further information, dates, costs and venues, contact:

My wish to anyone who may read this is that you do have a peaceful, happy Christmas, and I hope the New Year will bring you a greater sense of peace, direction, hope and happiness. I also hope that in this coming year that you will discover and follow your own personal ‘Reason Detre’, the reason and meaning of your actual existence.

Next year we will have our new website operational, the address will be: Reasonsforbeing.com.au

You are welcome to join us….

"Photo by Michael Maggs, Wikimedia Commons". Thanks Michael

Recent studies carried out in several of the leading Western democracies revealed that 87% of those polled were unhappy with the work they were doing for a living.

87% ! No wonder the use of Prozac, Zoloft and all the other multi coloured magic lollies we call anti-depressants has increased by 500% over the past 10 years!

Every human life has a meaning and a purpose. Each of us needs to find our own; Reason Detre; Our own unique, Reason for Being.

How do the wild geese know when to fly to the sun, who tells them the

seasons? How do we humans know when it is time to move on? As with

the migrating geese so surely with us, there’s a voice within, if only we

would listen, that tells us with certainty; “go forth into the unknown.”

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross –

Where there is no Vision the People perish

Preventing teenage suicide is rapidly becoming a very hot topic in the news media world-wide. With teenage suicide rates in countries like Ireland, Australia, and the USA skyrocketing in the past 20 years community workers, psychologists, and health officials are at their wit’s end to explain this sudden and dramatic rise in young people killing themselves.

Why is it happening, why is teenage suicide on the rise? Why are young people killing themselves,  and what can we do about it, are the questions most asked.

Young people need to be able to see hope and positivity for their futures. If they feel that the world has become such a crazy place that there is little or no hope for a secure, stable future then of course they will become depressed, some of them chronically so.

Young people need a meaning in life, this has always been the case, but in our fast paced, materialistic, ego driven world, we have lost sight of the fact that our youth needs a vision and a purpose to guide them towards a creative and meaningful existence. ‘Where their is no vision, the people perish’ Anon.

What am I? Who am I? What is my life about? Over the past twenty years I  have told by people of all ages that they have no idea at all as to what they want to do with their lives, no idea about what type of employment would appeal to them. Now whilst this is a difficult situation to be in at any age it is particularly difficult one for young adults. A good number of teenagers leaving school or entering universities confess to being confused as to what career or vocation they wish to follow. There are well-meaning people who would advise of course, parents, teachers, counselors, etc, but sometimes their advice seems a little hollow as they are frequently working at careers they dislike or even hate. Joseph Campbell, author of ‘The Hero’s Journey’ was fond of advising young people to ‘Follow your Bliss’, meaning that one should find out what really appeals to you at a deep level and then follow that purpose, that ‘calling’ for all you’re worth.  Life is too short to be spent following the rules and ideas of others. The meaning of our life is the meaning we give to our lives. Once we commit ourselves to some worthwhile cause, something that is greater than ourselves, the world and our place in it, changes. Neurosis can be defined  as  ‘an unhealthy preoccupation with self’, if this is true then personal happiness  may well spring from self forgetting, from ‘getting off our own cases’ and making a decision to see what we can contribute to our families, our friends, our communities and ultimately to the world itself. To do this successfully one need only find, develop and use the innate gifts and talents that each human being is born with. In other words the path towards wholeness is an internal journey, you are our own destination.

Man’s search for Meaning

By Dr. Victor Frankl.

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist imprisoned in Austwich by Hitler’s Gestapo in 1942, for no other crime than his religion, was a prominent psychiatrist at the time of his arrest and had worked for many years before the war with men and women suffering severe and prolonged depressions as well as various other types of mental illnesses. As Frankl had worked with hundreds of these patients, he came to realize that none of them seemed to have any purpose or meaning to their lives, they had no goals or dreams to fulfill, and they appeared to have no idea at all where there lives were headed. These initial observations encouraged him to study the phenomenon at depth, and as his work progressed he came to understand that once an person had discovered a worthwhile cause or mission in life, their return to health was both rapid and enduring. Realizing the enormous potential of this discovery, he set about writing a book, expounding his theories in the hope that it would reach the countless millions of depressed, alienated and lonely souls, tormented by various types of mental disorders. And so, as the overcrowded train the Nazis had forced himself and hundreds of others onto, rolled into the dreaded Death Camp of Austwich, his most pressing concern was that this manuscript, which he had clutched underneath his overcoat since the time of his arrest, should not be lost or destroyed, it was the culmination of his life’s work, or so he thought that day. Over the following years Victor Frankl would suffer all the atrocities of those abominable camps with the stoicism and courage few of us could ever hope to emulate. Loosing his manuscript immediately on arrival was a devastating blow, made worse by the mindless atrocities that followed. He had his faith to cling to, but with the never-ending barbarisms carried out  by the brutalized Nazi guards, the starvation, the beatings, the gassing of innocent children, the rapes and senseless murders, faith itself must sooner or later begin to crumble. Surely in the darkness of those endless nights, Frankl’s theories must have come back to mock him, his fundamental belief that if a man could find a meaning for his life then he could endure almost any amount of suffering, must have seemed like an impossible dream at times. Yet one day Victor Frankl awoke, and with the sudden realization that his prayers for salvation were not being answered, he spontaneously changed the prayer from ‘God help me’ to ‘Lord, make me worthy of my suffering.” What a leap in consciousness! And in that transcendent moment, in the depths of that obscene Nazi Death Camp, a new vision was born and with it a new hope for mankind, the belief that once we have found the meaning and purpose of our own lives, then we have the ability to surmount almost any hardship. From that day on Viktor Frankl began caring for those of his fellow prisoners who were in acute distress, sharing his meager food rations, comforting those who had abandoned all hope, and kneeling in prayer with the dying. In doing so he rose above his own suffering and not only survived the camps but went on to rewrite and publish his best-selling book, (Man’s search for Meaning) and to found what would become known as Logotherapy, the Third Viennese School of Psychiatry. It has been suggested by others that those few camp inmates that gave away their food were the ones that survived the camps, implying that the ones who accepted did not; but Frankl himself made no mention of this. Victor Frankl lived to the age of 91, and for the rest of his life worked with men and women of all ages, helping them discover the individual meaning and purpose of their lives. To his last days he was fond of quoting the German Philosopher; Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who has found a ‘Why’ to live, can endure almost any ‘How’.

The Gift of Pablo Picasso

‘Every human life contains a potential,

If that potential is not fulfilled,

Then that life was wasted,

Carl Gustav Jung

At ‘Reasons for Being’ we believe that every human being is unique,

And we believe that every person has a Gift and a Purpose in life.

Some will excel at music, playing a guitar or perhaps a piano,

Some will be great artists, like Picasso or Matisse,

Others have the gift of inspiration, or storytelling, or poetry,

What ever your gift, once you have found it and made a decision to follow it,

That  ‘Gift’ will give  meaning, direction and energy to your life.

St. Patrick's Day in Dublin

Whilst the overall rate of suicide has declined in most Western counties during the past 20 years, the incidence of suicide, self harm and self-mutilation in the age group 15 to 24 has risen alarmingly and continues to do so. This is particularly true of teenage suicide in the Republic of Ireland, the United States of America, and Australia.This sickening phenomena is of course being studied by doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and many other professionals in the medical sphere. But whilst there is no question that these studies will in the long-term be of enormous benefit, the question remains why is this happening? What mysterious world-wide dynamic is causing this epidemic? Why are our teens, our pre-teens and our youth at large killing themselves off at such an alarming rate; and of course the question remains, how can we stop it happening?

I believe the problem has been created in a large part by the overall degradation of our collective cultures, the loss of values and traditions that once held us in place in our families and our communities, the elevation of the ‘I am’ over the ‘We are’, the worship of money and possessions over family and friends, the collapse of decency and trust in our political leaders, a world system that is now clearly destroying itself, global warming, polluted oceans, etc, etc, etc, and the loss of spiritual values. I say ‘spiritual values’ as opposed to religious beliefs. Spiritual values that go deeper and wider than learned religious beliefs.

This is the world we have created for our youth to inhabit, each of us must consider that and what to do about that.

And yet in that very despair lies both the hope and the possibility of a solution. There is a way back and many are already on that path. People world-wide are turning away from ‘What about me’ to ‘What about us? What about my friends and my  family, what about my country, what about the planet? People are looking within and asking ‘what can I do to change all this, what is my purpose’; in a sense; ‘What is my Calling?’

Our young people must have hope. They must be able to envision a long-term, positive, creative future, for themselves and their families to be. “Where there is no vision, the people perish”, an old quote no doubt, but one that must resonate with us all today.

Therein lies the hope for our collective futures, there lies the hope of the world. When young people realize that they can help change what is wrong in this world; when they realize that each and everyone one of us has a gift and a ‘calling’; that will give them a reason and a meaning for their existence. That will automatically connect them with what the French refer to as  a  ‘Raison Detre’ … a Reason for Being.

Everyone has a Gift

In the entirety of the universe you are unique. You were born carrying a Gift and are here to sing that song. If you chose not sing that song, then it will never be heard on the face of the earth.
Alphonse

Each and every one of us carries a gift. We may not know what it is, most people do not. But that gift, that innate talent, can be found, and when you do find that gift and follow it; I promise you that your life will never be the same again.