The text provides a psychosynthetic program for the summer, emphasizing the importance of rest, relaxation exercises, and communion with nature.
By Roberto Assagioli. Unfinished, Unrevised Notes (Doc. #23141 – Assagioli Archives – Florence)[i] Original Title: Programma Psicosintetico per l’Estate. Translated and Edited with Notes by Jan Kuniholm[ii]
Abstract: The text provides a psychosynthetic program for the summer, emphasizing the importance of rest, relaxation exercises, and communion with nature. It suggests practicing self-suggestion, engaging in internal work, and conducting an internal inventory to assess personal growth. The text also highlights the significance of choosing reading materials wisely and adopting the right kind of lifestyle during vacations. It encourages individuals to use their vacations to exert a positive influence on others, particularly through discussions on health, education, and personal growth.
We have entered summer and quite a few are preparing to leave and thinking about their vacations. How best to use the summer period for ourselves and others, and how best to take advantage of the special opportunities it offers? Such possibilities are manifold, and if used well can bring us valuable benefits. It is an interesting and useful chapter in the art of life. Life is interwoven (or should be!) with rhythms or cycles of activity and rest. They vary in amplitude: the diurnal, the weekly and finally the annual, which is the most complete and longest.
- REST. Learning how to rest. This is not a state of pure inertia. Rest is an art. Paradoxically, the more tired one is, the more difficult it is to rest. This is explained by the neuropsychic tension produced by fatigue.
Relaxation exercises:
(a) physical
(b) mental
Rhythmic breathing, comfortable posture, suitable autosuggestions.
At first, when tension and excitement decrease, fatigue surfaces and we feel worse. It is a necessary stage: endure it with confidence in the subsequent benefit. After a while a change of environment and habits enlivens, refreshes and brings out latent energies.
- PRACTICE OF SELF-SUGGESTION, for special purposes and development of faculties. Elimination of physical and mental disorders (see Coué and Baudoin). [iii] This can help enhance effects of physical cures.
Communion with nature. As well as physical contact with nature, opening to its beneficial psychic influence; sense of breadth, vastness, beauty, calm, solemn and soothing rhythm. To fit into the cosmic order, to step out of the small personality. As well as absorbing healing and restorative forces from the earth, water, sun and air, tune into the calm and serene rhythm of natural phenomena, open up to the psychological influence of these natural elements: each has its own quality, its own virtue to instill in us, its own special gift to bestow on us.
Earth: Rest, support, sense of security, reliance as on maternal arms. (Depths of the Earth Mother symbol. Myths of Antaeus [iv]).
Rock: Strength, concentration, firmness, moral tone, austerity, dignity, virility, recollection, introversion, elevation, sublimity.
Water – Sea: Primal life, coming out of self, forgetting habitual cares, flexibility, relaxation, letting oneself be rocked by the rhythm of the waves, fluidity, elimination of hardness and rigidity, sense of expansion, sense of infinity, the equal in the different.
Water: Lakes, streams, springs: freshness, gladness, purity.
Air: Breath of life, vivification, lightness, fluidity, agility.
Sun: Warmth, invigorating vitality, soul warmth, love, fervor, radiance. Vivification and enlargement of the heart. Inner light and fire.
Cultivation of calmness, serenity, peace; cultivation of gladness. Solitude and contact with nature help a lot.
Favorable influence of change of environment, extroversion [i.e., focus on what is external], new impressions that refresh, give beneficial stimulation and stimulate parts of us that are latent and repressed during ordinary life. In order for this to happen in the best way, it is necessary to leave behind the usual worries and turn of ideas with a resolute and decisive inner act.
Renew oneself. This, for an initial period — longer or shorter, depending on the need and duration of the vacations.
Second period. More active internal work.
- Gathering: Introversion [focus on what is internal]. Taking care of one’s soul.
Internally: Contact and reconciliation with the unconscious. Making acquaintance and friendship with it, giving it rightful fulfillments. It has been oppressed and repressed during the externally occupied life aimed at practical activity. This too gives useful lessons, training and tempering. But then the other sides of our being need to be cultivated and allowed to surface — feeling, imaginative activity and contemplation. At first there may be chaos, exuberance and disharmony, then little by little rearrangement and clarification occurs. Then disciplined inner work can proceed.
Inventory and internal budgeting, their necessity. Merchants also take their own inventories. Don’t be outdone . . .
Internal inventory: consciously examining and processing the experiences made during the year, considering them synthetically and objectively, discerning the lessons of wisdom and life they have given us and assimilating them, learning them vitally, recognizing mistakes with serenity and drawing rules from them and warnings not to repeat them. Recognize also the progress made, the developments and inner maturation that have taken place, and rejoice in them. Make this assessment in writing: writing facilitates emergence, and serves to fix and sort the data that are gathered, which can serve us as useful year-to-year comparisons (milestones on the way up . . .), and can also be useful for others . . .
Opportunities for higher inner work: meditation, contemplation, exploration of the superconscious, revelation of the true Self, the Spiritual Center, Enlightenment.
“Feeding” the Soul. Readings — importance of choosing them well, doing it carefully.
- Readings for digression and relief.
- Formative readings.
To do all this requires choosing the location well, and adopting the right kind of life. Many people spend their vacations in the wrong way, which ends up being more harmful than helpful. In reaction to stress, to the unpleasant and burdensome duties of office and school, they go to the opposite extreme. That is, into unbridled, unlimited amusements, outings, dances, etc. So the result is excitement, dispersion, absence of rhythm, and exteriority: and thus no rest, but exhaustion. Instead, seek quiet places, protect oneself, isolate oneself from heterogeneous elements, possibly join with like-minded people who share ideas, tendencies and ideals for mutual help, for sympathetic and pleasant fellowship.
I would add, for the comfort and encouragement of those who for various reasons cannot leave, or have to do so for a short period of time — that one can perform much of this program even while staying in town. Here again what matters most is the internal attitude. In a sense, vacations are a state of mind: even those who remain in the city can try to change life habits, interests and occupations, at least for a few hours a day. Early in the morning one can have contact with nature, solitude, relaxation and recollection, far better than those who drive around the country and go to crowded and fashionable vacation spots. In addition, there is an opportunity to become cool and collected, going to libraries, to read, take notes, write . . .
Another opportunity is provided by vacations: to exert beneficial influence on others. There are three easy ways to introduce psychological methods and spiritual principles, to attract and interest those people who ignore them.
The first is through health. Everyone is interested in their health, and many people complain about some ailment. Indeed, talking about one’s physical ailments is one of the all too frequent and prolonged topics of conversation, especially in the idleness of summer sojourns. Entering into the topic therefore comes naturally. The first thing to call attention to is the action of mental activities on the physical. And here it is easy to find consensus. Everyone or almost everyone admits that their sorrows and worries have a share in producing their physical ailments. It is then a matter of making them see that if one’s morale can cause harm, it can also do good; if sorrow depresses, joy arouses; if worries wear us out, serenity restores; if agitations and tensions fatigue us, relaxation and calmness produce rest . . . Here, too, consensus is easy, but the objection is ready: “It is very true that morale . . . but how does one change one’s state of mind, how does one master one’s thoughts?” There are those who say, “you can’t;” and there are those who say, “I have tried and failed”. . . Here it is necessary to decisively intervene and affirm:
- That there are methods by which this can be done.
- That these methods are now successfully used by thousands of people, and therefore these are not isolated cases, but sure facts, and their applications are in general use. Healing of nervous, as well as physical, gastric, intestinal, cardiac, etc. symptoms. Mention the development of psychotherapy, the unconscious, methods of suggestion and autosuggestion (eliminating avoidance and current misconceptions about them), and other more complex methods of psychotherapy such as psychoanalysis[v] and psychosynthesis. It is not necessary to have much expertise on the subject and to give comprehensive explanations; it is enough to [help them to] realize that the methods are there, to stimulate interest, and to arouse hope in the help these can give.
The second way to arouse interest is through educational applications. [Discuss] educational problems, difficult, disobedient and nervous children. Explain their causes: harmful suggestions from the environment, psychological errors, methods of beneficial influence and addressing the unconscious. [Mention] new educational methods based on expression of latent faculties, the self-education of the child; spiritualistic conception — [a child is not born] tabula rasa, [and is] not a collection of hereditary influences, but an immortal soul struggling to fashion an instrument of expression; respect, reverence and love for this soul; the Montessori method: its great educational and spiritual value; other active methods.
The third method is for those who have personal problems, psychological difficulties, inner conflicts and crises of spiritual growth, who are troubled yet have aspirations and a desire to improve themselves, and do not know how to do so — even people whom would least expect, who appear worldly, frivolous, skeptical and rebellious. Speak to these people of our wonderful latent energies, the means of arousing them, of gaining power and freeing oneself from weaknesses, of ways of composing, harmonizing and transforming conflicting energies, the search for one’s true being, the development of the will . . . Approach these people with sympathy and love — not preaching a doctrine, but helping each one to see clearly into himself, to find his way, his truth.
Making this known is also a good and beneficial work for those who do it. Indeed, speaking to others, convincing others, fuels one’s own confidence and enthusiasm. Let each of us, therefore, faithfully and fervently do our part, neglecting no opportunity, and vividly feeling the joy of enlightening, encouraging, and sometimes saving some unsuspecting and sorrowful being.
[i] Earlier versions of these notes are found in Archive Doc.#23139 and 23140. #23140 carried dates of June 1929, 1931, and 1932. The document used here, #23141, incorporates hand-written notes from the earlier versions but is not dated. —Ed.
[ii] Interpolations by Editor are shown in [brackets]. Elisions . . . are as found in the original typed MS. —Ed.
[iii] Charles Baudouin (1893-1963) was a French psychoanalyst and therapist. He promoted psychoanalysis through his books and conferences and did pioneering work in several fields including art, education, suggestion and hypnosis. Many of his works have been translated into English, including Suggestion and Autosuggestion (1920). Èmile Couè (1857-1926) was a French psychologist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based upon suggestion and autosuggestion. He published his book Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion in 1922. —Ed.
[iv] In Greek mythology, Antaeus was a giant, son of the sea god Poseidon and the Earth goddess Gaia. He compelled all strangers who were passing through the country, in what is now Libya, to wrestle with him. Whenever he touched the Earth (his mother) his strength was renewed. —Ed.
[v] Note that Assagioli uses “psychoanalysis” in its generic sense of an approach and therapy for psychological investigation and cure, specifically excluding the doctrines of Freud and other “schools” of psychoanalysis. —Ed.
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