What does it mean to be oneself? What does the awareness of being who we are really mean? We are talking about the awareness of who we are the most and who we really are. A mission, but also my mission: thinking of this, understanding, communicating and transmitting it.
One question that arises with civilization, when people went to the temple of Apollo to learn about themselves. Oedipus went there, too. Every time we ask ourselves this question, we can reach a little more awareness of ourselves. From the awareness of who we are, immediately arises a different need for us. The need to express ourselves, naturally. Expressing who we are, in the ways we know or we learn, but with the intent to communicate to others and to build bridges towards them.
Society, reality and environment often place limits to us: they can be contingent or structural limitations. However, these limits require to defend ourselves, to think problematically of our identity, to wear masks. Therefore, we become actors, who play their role on a social stage.
What I found in the students of Fourth Excellent School Year in Rondine? I found authenticity, I found desires and will.
I saw myself, at seventeen, at the Grammar School of Pescara. I saw my dreams, my hopes, my fear of anything that kept me from being fully myself and expressing myself as I would when I could not.
I invited the students to obtain awareness of themselves and I invited them to find their purpose in life: a life without the fear of being able to be who we want to be and, most of all, a life where we can communicate and express who we really are. Without the fear of society and following who we are: we are unique and non-replicable.
In front of these students, of 17-18 years, I experienced the enthusiasm of communicating to those who had within themselves, with force and energy, the joy of who we actually are. That force we all had and that, as adults, someone has not been able to keep. However, in these guys it shines. I felt I was in my place with them: together we discover us as people who believe in ourselves. This can be translated into value: for us, for the territory, for the company, and as a sign of respect and love.
The Fourth Excellent School Year in Rondine
The students I am talking about are those who are part of the Fourth Excellent School Year, in Rondine, with a project involving young people who would experience an innovative and dynamic educational offer, which exalt their self-awareness and orientation to the world through the knowledge of who is different from us, of the diversity and of cultures in general. An experience starting outside of us and ending in us, in the acquisition of who we are. The value of dialogue meets the value of transformation of conflict and gives emotional and relational education.
How was the experience of meeting them? My experience was the starting point. Therefore, explaining to ourselves who we are was equally important. There are many disciplines addressing to this issue: the issue of being. Philosophy, religion, psychoanalysis, PNL.
We faced together personal development techniques, but their deepest purpose will take them to write a project with social benefits for the community and then to realize it. At the beginning, a brief story enriched with reflections and questions who we are, our values, our beliefs and our capabilities. Therefore, thinking of a project to pursue a goal with groups of work carried out collectively became possible. In fact, reaching a well-formed goal requires internal dialogue, confidence in ourselves and self-awareness, as part of a personal strategic positioning that makes our goals realized.
Personal Improvement
When we think of what to do, where to go, how to do, we are looking for goals, exactly as these students do. Therefore, a model which can help us to understand where we are in relation to our goals and what distance is still missing to reach them, considering the model provided by the Pyramid of Dilts is valuable. Each level of this pyramid finds its base in the one below: in this way, we can see and understand how to progress and if there is a block to progress. The model focuses on the present and opens us up to the time when our projects you will be realized.
My Wish
I wish these guys were able to maintain the strength they have, the desire to change and achieve objectives, to believe in themselves and to implement their projects for the value of the territory and the community in which it resides and nourishes.
I would like to meet them again, in our lives that probably will join again in some way according to some will.
I felt authenticity, I drew fully from who I really am and I communicated the awareness of believing in ourselves, in what we do and in civilization.