Being: Within - Between - Among - Beyond

By David E. Golden

For over thirty years, we have worked on communication and behavior with children and adults in diverse settings and cultures. Our work led us to understand that when we see our sameness as human beings as more fundamental than our diversity, we can make relationships of equal value a reality. Then, diversity adds richness to our lives, rather than conflict. Our deepest longing transcends our wish to be loved and valued by others. It includes our loving and valuing ourselves and our loving and valuing others. Many others have stated this from the knowledge of their hearts. Relationships of equal value involve honoring ourselves, others, and our issues, how we are within ourselves, how we are between ourselves and others, how we are in a group, between or among groups or nations, and how we can open a door to go beyond anything we have experienced. If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when? (Hillel the Elder, likely 30 BCE to 10 CE)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641383073

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Being

Within - Between - Among - Beyond

co author

Copyright © 2018 co author

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64138-306-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64138-307-3 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

We dedicate this book to our world family,

who like us seek to understand being human,

and connect to their deepest Self,

to bring love, peace and joy to all.

We also want to appreciate our immediate family,

who gave us loving support as we were working on the book;

Jeffrey Golden, Leila Golden May, Xin Li Golden,

Jeremy May, Jacob Golden, Adam May,

Austin May, and Joshua Golden.

Finally, we want to express our appreciation to

Virginia Satir and Portia Nelson for their teachings.

Both women understood and

never lost faith in our humanness.

You can purchase and download a recording of the Guided Imageries and purchase a Personal Journal for this book at www.sayitstraight.org.

Introduction

The goal of this book is to help us move from relationships of submission and dominance to relationships of equal value, not necessarily equal function.

For over thirty years, we have worked on communication and behavior with children and adults in diverse settings and cultures. Our work led us to understand that when we see our sameness as human beings as more fundamental than our diversity, we can make relationships of equal value a reality. Then, diversity adds richness to our lives rather than conflict. Our deepest longing transcends our wish to be loved and valued by others. It includes our loving and valuing ourselves and our loving and valuing others. Many others have stated this from the knowledge of their hearts.

St. Francis of Assisi, who witnessed the atrocities of the Crusades, invited us to understand that all of us are capable of committing any act when he asked,

Can true humility and compassion exist in our words and eyes

unless we know we too are capable of any act?

(Love Poems From God. 2002, Translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

When Gandhi, who witnessed the atrocities committed by people of different religions, was asked if he was a Hindu, he answered,

Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.

We believe that both St. Francis and Gandhi are inviting us to see our sameness as human beings, more fundamental than our diversity and go beyond relationships of submission and dominance to relationships of equal value. Relationships of equal value involve honoring ourselves, others, and our issues; how we are within ourselves; how we are between ourselves and others; how we are in a group, between or among groups or nations; and how we can open a door to go beyond anything we have experienced.

If I am not for myself, who will be?

If I am only for myself, what am I?

If not now, when?

(Hillel the elder, 110 BCE to 10 CE)

The idea that we humans relate to other humans, that we are relational beings, is certainly very old and continues into the present. Here are some examples:

We are relational beings.

(Genesis 2:6 [E], thought to have been written about 3400 BC)

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe,

deserve your love and affection

(Gautama Buddha, 600 BC)

To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

(Mother Teresa, 1910–1997)

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization . . .

(Martin Luther King Jr., 1957)

All you need is love.

(The Beatles, 1967)

None of us can live without love.

(Pope Francis, 2017)

The difficulty with coming to love and value ourselves and others stems from our very nature of being human. We were all born little, and someone else knew better. When being taught, even under the best conditions, the situation can turn into shame, blame, even physical punishment. This universal human condition can lead to relationships of submission and dominance that does not end with childhood. It can go on to relationships such as student-teacher, worker-boss, patient-doctor, inferior-superior in any hierarchy, not only between two people, but also among groups and nations. It transcends culture, gender, and age.

Relationships of submission and dominance lead us to disempowering ways of being in the world. We create or accept rules that we believe are the only ways to survive. Some examples of such rules that you may recognize are as follows:

"I must never put my needs first."

I must always win or I must never lose.

I must always appear to go along, but I will make you pay for it.

I must always stick to the facts. Feelings only get in the way.

I must never take anything seriously.

As damaging as the above rules can be, they all have within them the seeds to become empowering communication-behavior. For instance, the rule, "I must never put my needs first," already contains the seed of being able to compromise and negotiate. The rule, "I must always win" or I must never lose, already contains the seed of leadership and good sportsmanship. The rule, "I must always appear to go along, but I’ll make you pay for it," already contains the seed of standing up for myself. The rule, I must always stick to the facts. Feelings only get in the way, already contains the seed to stay focused in a difficult situation. The rule, "I must never take anything seriously," already contains the seed to lighten up a difficult situation, to have a sense of humor. These seeds are our hidden treasures that become our strengths when we honor the three components of an interaction: myself, you, and the issue at hand.

I YOU

IT

We use the circle of being on the left containing I, YOU, IT, to embody the relationship with our own self, between our self and someone else, between groups, and even among nations. When I count myself and my needs (I), and I count you and your needs (YOU), and I count the issue or issues we are dealing with (IT), I am honoring all the ingredients of the interaction, and I am saying it straight. When both you and I honor all the ingredients of our interaction, we are both saying it straight.

In general, when two people count themselves and their needs, and count each other’s needs, and both count the issue or issues they are dealing with, then all three components of the circle of being are present. Both are saying it straight. Both can agree, both can compromise, both can agree to disagree and work together toward a common solution. In this way, relationships of submission and dominance can be transformed to relationships of equal value, be it between two people, among groups, or among nations.

Being within involves honoring myself, being aware of my breathing, my body sensations, my thoughts, my feelings, my communication-behavior, my relationships.

Being between involves honoring myself, honoring you, and honoring the issues we are dealing with. The awareness of how we are within and between is very important in our interactions because our communication-behavior can change as a function of the communication-behavior of the other person. For example, even in close relationships, it is not unusual to have some unrealistic expectations. After all, in close relationships, we can have the illusion that there will be no conflict, only complete understanding, because love conquers all. As Portia Nelson puts it in her book, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk,

I am a hopeless romantic who does not believe

love solves everything.

Still, I weep for the loss of illusion.

The statement, Do unto others as you would have others do unto you (Matthew 7:12, NIV) does not mean, Do unto others what you judge they are doing unto you. Yet often we follow the second understanding more than the first, and our communication-behavior is the result of our negative assumptions about the intentions or communication-behavior of others.

Being among involves honoring one’s self and a group, such as family, people we work with, community, and honoring our issues. We can expand this further to relationships among groups and nations.

Being beyond recognizes that we can transcend what we know concretely today, whether it pertains to our knowledge, thoughts, feelings, communication-behavior, faith. We can discover our inner treasures, we can discover the strength in our roots, and we can discover what we want to cultivate and what we want to let go of or transform. We are capable of thinking new thoughts, deep thoughts, transcendent thoughts, thoughts that are beyond anything we have thought up to that moment. Can we go beyond ourselves as we are today? We believe everyone can. How to go beyond is learning to be real, not to be perfect. We can even welcome our imperfections as they create learning opportunities. We think that working through the exercises in this book opens the door to going beyond.

Science has contributed greatly to many aspects of our lives that depend on calculations, equations, theories, experiments, research. On the other hand, ideas, feelings, and experiences that transcend science lead some of us to be skeptical. In this light, it is fascinating to consider a statement attributed to Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists, whose research went beyond what had been accepted science.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Einstein’s statement hints at transcendence going beyond science. Many people experience or yearn to experience spirituality, faith. As our dear friend Rob Kempf, electrical engineer and MBA, said,

All I know for certain is that I am not the only person to have felt it.

Transcendence is in the same spirit of discovery that points us toward something grander in our physical world and something beyond our physical world. So whether we are innovators or scientists or yearning for spirituality, when we go beyond, we honor issues beyond our ordinary understanding as we try to make sense of, or accept, experiences that are beyond anything we have ever experienced. We innovate and discover new things or discover new things in old situations. We make new sense out of old situations.

Faith can help transform the most painful experiences into healing, as shared by Gabriele Silten, a child survivor of WWII and author of High Tower Crumbling, who was in a concentration camp. In her poetry, she went beyond the pain and expressed her profound hope.

May our nightmares turn into remembrance and our flashbacks into insights.

Being beyond comes with an invitation to discover that we are all relational beings connected with each other and the universe. As Black Elk, medicine man and holy man of Oglala Lakota (Sioux) has said,

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

Our intention for this book is to give you opportunities to learn from your own experiences and go beyond. Experiencing this book can be a journey of discovery and transformation from feeling less than, to knowing that I matter, and others matter too.

Because of the importance of sharing and feedback, we invite you to explore this book with a small group. You can be together in one place, or you can be together with visual and audio contact via the Internet, or you can imagine being with a group. The journal that accompanies this book gives you an opportunity to write your experiences as you proceed on this journey and cognitively reinforce your experiential learning. The enclosed recording takes you through the guided imageries in the chapters of this book. You also can read the guided imageries in the book.¹

We wish you a great journey, deep and fun.

May you hold hands with your courage,

if you get the urge to run.

According to Lao Tzu,

when your great love is true,

you will find your courage too!

David and Paula

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¹ We have worked with children and adults in diverse settings and cultures on the effectiveness of experiential communication-behavior training for over 30 years. To find out more, visit our website