Just One Look Forum Archives
A New Beginning
I thought I should share some news. I have gone back to school to get a degree in psychology. This is a way for me to combine my work life with my work in spreading the word about the Just One Look project. Here in Scandinavia, public higher education is free and I get a kind of minimum wage to live on while going to school. I will not get rich on it but I can live on it for up to six years and, considering the conditions for more and more of us these days, it is really great just to have a basic income. And I have decided to use this really great opportunity in a good way.
On a practical level, this means that studying has become my work. And this step I have taken now is the result of a pretty long period of trying to find a way to work with and to get the knowledge of the act of inward looking out to the people in my life, here where I live and breathe. I am confident that modern technology is the most effective way of spreading the word about the Just One Look project on a larger scale. And I am also very confident that you definitely don't need a degree in psychology to do that. I suspect that it will be pretty easy actually, apart from the hard work it requires, of course, and the funds needed to spread the message. And I will more than ever be a part of our collective effort to bring this news out there in every way we find useful. So, studying psychology is just one more way for me to explore this adventure, and most of all, try the best I can to bring relief from the fear of life to people. And I have found that there are a couple of interesting reasons why psychology has become a natural choice for me. One reason is that spirituality hasn't been a significant part of my life. And the little experience I had with it didn't really give me any relief from my constant feeling of restlessness and my overall bad experience of life. A little perhaps, but nothing that lasted. So, after having looked at myself, the first thing that disappeared for me was all interest in spiritual ideas and solutions. That went pretty quickly, actually. And I saw that I had related to spiritual solutions in the same way I had related to many other solutions before. And although my interest in spiritual things left me pretty quickly, the truth is that life is a greater mystery to me now than ever before. I can understand my recovery from the fear of life from the point of view of ordinary psychology. I experienced that everything I had always wanted was in the relationship between my mind and my life, in my mind's way of dealing with and creating stimuli and responses. And I saw that the act of inward looking and the recovery process have a natural place in ordinary mental health and psychology. That led me to the second reason why I have chosen psychology as a way to share and work with the Just One Look project. I am of the opinion that introducing the act of inward looking, the fear of life and the theory behind it to the area of mental health and psychology and implementing them won't be that hard at all. And I believe this is the case because I believe in the act itself and in the knowledge and experience we already have about it. It doesn't have so much to do with my own skill in presenting this work. I think that is secondary. I mean, the act itself is so simple and effective that it speaks for itself. I think that the biggest and most important step is just do it. The intuitive pull that is present in just hearing about this act will, in time, when speaking and writing about it, no matter the context, lead to the discovery about it by others. And just imagine how this act could totally revolutionize the way we see and work with mental health. Now, research and treatment focus on finding ways and methods to cope with life. But if research were done on the act of inward looking, it would lead to the discovery of a kind of "reset button" in our minds. A discovery that it is possible to restart the mind and that the mind heals itself over time. That is really exciting. I am confident that news about the act of inward looking and the fear of life will in time spread to the field of psychology and ordinary mental health. The paper entitled The Radical Act of Inward lookingby Freedman, Goldberg and Reichmann is a very interesting contribution to that. The paper is here on the website.
So, there are many ways to spread the news about this work. And I think I have found mine. To find ways to pass this work on in the different contexts we find ourselves is a very interesting process. And the basis for our knowledge and support for this work and process is this community of which I am very proud and glad to be a part of. Thanks to everyone here for every posting, conversation, doubts, questions and any other form for activity. And also to everyone who participates in the podcasts.
Best regards to everyone,
Niklas
This is great news! Thank you, Niklas.
Yes it is! Thank you.
Great news and development! Very exciting. I wish you best of luck and good experiences with your academic path. I can imagine so many interesting approaches to this work in psychology. Science and therapeutic practices could be a road to gain some authority and consequently an access to resources, like grants for scientific studies and experiments and so on. The trouble in spreading the word on looking is that it's difficult to put it neatly in any box for the targeted audience. The field of psychology comes closest. I'm interested in art and esthetic things, and I've been thinking about inward looking versus outward looking. Putting your house in order and setting the proper context with inward looking is the foundation for looking outward at the World without distortions. So to look at the world and express what you see and think about it must be reset with the proper context of freedom from fear. To paint well you must free yourself. To do anything well you must free yourself. So looking can be introduced in any particular area of interest one can think of as a foundation of the practice.
Seppo,
Thanks for your encouraging answer! I have also been thinking a lot of how to present this work to the academic community. What box to put it in. But as I said before, I think the biggest step is just to do it. The act and the conversation about it will find its way sooner or later no matter what context. And maybe this work wont find its own box, maybe it will renew all the others. Bring new knowledge and understanding to already existing great research and effort. And you said it your self, the act unlocks our natural potential in all areas of life. It doesn't give anything really, it takes away the psychological fear so we can function as we are meant to do. And yes, there are many different ways to introduce the act of inward looking. It makes sense to introduce the act no matter what we are doing.
Best of luck to you too in your work with this process. Enjoy!
Niklas
Thanks, Niklas. Quite possibly many, many different boxes are needed to get it to people. I'm a little skeptical about one simple message for all. In my view people tend to categorize everything and dismiss stuff that doesn't fit. It's a strange message, "look at yourself". There's no box for it. It might also render it flexible enough to put it in any box whatsoever. In psychology it can be studied academically as a therapeutic intervention or with more philosophical approach as in speculating why it does what it does. The context is needed to discuss and disseminate the act. What comes to reaching many people I can imagine that if there was one celebrity endorsing and speaking about this it would help enormously. Or similar publicity stunt, like a Hollywood movie about John. (I can see Robert Duvall playing John in my mind...)