The Value in Being Yourself: A Path of Self-Known

By Tomás Kouro

In a culture where results, haste and mass production are valued, where is the person left?

During our growth, we absorb infinity of information and orders that are shaping our personalities, offering a panorama full of squares: from school to performance awards, the career we study and what we offer to society and those we love, but are we being really authentic?

Each daily event seems to show conditioning trends: with long hours of work and parenting that are far from ideal, the concept of «genuine and true» seems to be put aside, to make room for habits that reject everything that is born from something deeper . and, above all, sharply censors the question who am I? Thus, society, which defines the concept of «normality», deploys an arsenal of therapies that influence our self-perception with the idea that «someone else helps us understand ourselves».

Could we do that work ourselves?

This book, based entirely on an experience of personal discovery and research carried out for more than three years, addresses this question, recounting the long path of self-knowledge and the obstacles imposed by the capitalist commercial system, which subtly keeps us away. of ourselves, conveniently making us forget our pristine longings. Surprisingly, we will discover that this lack of authenticity not only makes us feel more unhappy and enslaved, but also organically sicker. We will also know tools to discover who we are, by the hand of our instinct and other alternative tactics to the conventional, but always with a constant; only you can know who you are.

This book is the first of the saga, currently in preparation, called «building happiness.»

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tomás Kouro
• Release date: May 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9780463250990

Tomás Kouro

Born in a small town in southern Chile, conditioned by having direct roots in Turkey, relationships inside and outside my family became stormy, where it became untenable to continue being myself. I started doing what everyone else was doing, including psychologically raping those who really looked like me. Without realizing it, on the way, I disconnected and forgot who I really was, and I believed the mask that he creates, just to be loved and respected. As time went by, I chose to study pharmacy, something that I thought I loved, but far from that, it gave me what I wanted the most; Being recognized and desired, no matter the way, even if it included hurting myself daily by working all day, using excess substances, and overeating. The saddest thing is that every time, I treated everyone worse, I became cruel, arrogant and disparaging towards everyone; I believed myself to be the king of the world, while I slept the deep pain that lodged in me.Validated and reinforced in this way of being, for the results that were rewarded to me by the capitalist system, I was fired again and again, since despite everything there was something that I never compromised: to profit from people's health, as I did. It was required by my profession as a Pharmaceutical Chemist. Thus, one day, the pain became unbearable and I moved away from the world, looking for myself, since I knew that life could not be only pain and darkness. Before, I was offered antidepressants, relaxants and a life of luxury to tempt me not to make this trip, and even more, I lived with the latent fact that, I knew with all certainty that my whole life until then was a lie, driven by the mask that I myself create.Even so, in the midst of it all, I listened to my soul, who reminded me of who I really was and has shown me the path that I must (and want to follow) to become who I was, and I still stay on the journey, each day closer to being myself and I do not regret everything I left behind (luxuries, superfluous friendships, people who did not love me) since, even with a cigarette and a drink under a tree I feel happier than in the palace that used to have in yesteryear.

Book preview

Table of contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Chapter I: We are conditioned

Chapter II: We live disconnected

Chapter III: The obstacles to being yourself

Chapter IV: Who am I?

Chapter V: Other means

Chapter VI: The value in being yourself

Note to the reader

For you, who is now in the darkness,

there exists more in life than pain.

You are capable.

The road not taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

Foreword

It is no mystery that there is a sustained increase in the number of visits to specialists and therapists with a need for answers: do we live that which we want? A question that we have asked ourselves on more than one occasion, without a specific place or time. Life does not elapse only from 8 am to 5 pm. Nor does it adapt to shifts or what money can prevail. We can ease this concern with the excessive purchase of goods to appease the emptiness. However, little by little, fun and services seize to be effective. An insatiable need to answer internal doubts increases as we end our working day and prepare for a new shift. When did we allow this to happen? It is probable that Modern Medicine, accompanied by complementary therapies, is an alternative to finding the solution, but is there anything else that we might need?

It is a constant battle to understand the origin of this dilemma. We embark on a parallel journey to our daily life, which takes us to a place we have left aside: our interior. How long has it been since we recognize ourselves in the mirror? The action of subconsciously observing yourself reflects events the memory has left behind to continue with the required routine, which seems to have no end. Is it genuinely healthy to set aside who you are to serve this manipulative system? Once again, if we continue to focus our efforts to look more into ourselves, we will feel a sensation as distressing as it is liberating: ourselves, imbued with unnecessary and harassing commands that gradually extinguish our true longings.

Tomás Kouro, pharmaceutical chemist, homeopath, and facilitator of psycho-homeopathic techniques, invites you to read his first book to embark on the path of authenticity and to embrace your way of being. He does not argue that the journey is long and with many exhausting sensations. However, it will enrich you with the gratifying company of fully knowing yourself and your originality, understanding that everything that governs us is no more than an architect who subjugates and reduces us to a minimal expression of ourselves. We have also discovered that a helpful guide starts from within, and as we begin to recognize ourselves, we can find that well-planned Homeopathic and Bach Flower therapies are a powerful guide.

Acknowledgments

I much appreciate my father for supporting me materially in this journey, and despite his limitations, not trying to persuade me to choose another path. To Bárbara, for encouraging, loving, and understanding me even during my darkest moments and who I have asked for help to edit this book. To Luis, who has decided to accompany me in this journey despite the pandemic’s current circumstances and our results. And to life, for giving me a second opportunity to be me again, who I abandoned due to the