👋 Welcome | [[🧭 Orientation]] | [[🌏 Atlas]] | [[🆕 Posts]] | [[❓ About]] --- Hey there! Welcome to **The Book of Being**. I'm [Roc](https://rocguiducci.com), the creator of this space. It's an honour to have you here. I'm a synthetic thinker who gets way too excited about the way seemingly disconnected ideas weave themselves together to reveal deeper truths and richer meanings than what they would if they were looked at alone. I created this site as a way to trace, develop and share these connections as they emerge to support my own journey into inner work, healing and self-realisation. My hope is that as I connect my dots, it might help connect some of yours too. #### **What is this place?** The Book of Being is an unfolding, organic and self-organising exploration into human development, healing and wholeness. The Book explores and unifies views from many different disciplines to reveal deeper truths and expand our understanding and awareness. It's a space where diverse ideas collide, and something deeper begins to emerge. **Here's what you can expect to find while exploring The Book:** - Deep explorations on topics like trauma, healing, individuation, inner work and self-realisation to guide us on the path to wholeness. - Synthesised insights from philosophy, depth psychology, psychoanalysis, modern psychotherapy and ancient wisdom to deepen our understanding of what it means to be human. - Guides, practices and exercises that help us reconnect with our body, intuition, inner wisdom and internal resources. - Wisdom-bits, insights, ideas and experiments to develop awareness so we can follow our inner compass and unfold into our deepest, truest selves. > [!tip] "Hey! Listen!" — Navi > This site isn't like traditional websites. I genuinely want people who land here to feel like they're excited to explore, so I encourage you to head over to [[🧭 Orientation]] to find out how you can get the most out of being here. > > If you'd like to know more about me, my personal story and how I got here, or more details about the platform this is built on and how it works, head over to [[❓ About]]. I also write a newsletter, [The Gift of Being You](https://letters.rocguiducci.com/), if you feel called to check that out. > > If none of that sounds exciting to you, and you're just champing at the bit to get exploring, then you can see all the latest [[🆕 Posts]] or explore by your domain of interest over at [[🌏 Atlas]]. #### **Why are we here?** You and I are currently living in very interesting times. It feels like it's simultaneously the best of times, while also being the worst of times, and it kind of feels like we're stuck in-between two worlds—a liminal space where nothing quite feels solid and stable, yet with the level of uncertainty we all face on a daily basis, we also have no way of predicting what's to come. While also beautiful, life is confusing, tumultuous and sometimes painful. [[Our current way of being is hurting us]] (and the planet). We live in a modern society that seems to be hellbent on more consumption, production and [[Achievement Society enforces control through internal self-exploitation|achievement]] than ever before, and we seem to be losing touch with the very thing that makes us human—connection, meaning and belonging. We were never given the handbook on how to be human. And because we didn't receive it, we unable to raise our children with it, or pass it on. No one gave it to us because that handbook doesn't exist. No one shows us what it means to be a happy, healthy, cohesive and whole (yet unique) individual, either. Each one of us [[You weren't born into this world, you were born out of it|born out of this living planet]] carries a unique soul with its own unfolding path. But instead of being nurtured into that path, we're shaped by systems that value conformity over authenticity. Like a tree that is strapped so it will be forced to grow straight, we're conditioned to become something we're not. The rituals and rites of passage that would once guide us through important stages in our development no longer exist and without them, we're left disoriented. We grow up physically, but not emotionally or spiritually, so we're left to find our way without any maps. We've lost touch with ourselves, our [[✦ Presence|true nature]], and with life itself. And in that disconnection, we often go looking for our wholeness in all the places it can never be found. While The Book doesn't aim to be a handbook on how to be human, and aside from being an incredibly rewarding creative outlet for me, it is a resource, companion and guiding light for anyone answering the quiet call of their soul—the path of [[✦ Individuation|individuation]]—a journey that can feel uncertain and daunting, yet delicately reveals its gifts with each step we take. One of the biggest realisations I had on my own healing journey was throughout all the seeking I was doing, I was what I was looking for this entire time. Not 'I' as in my persona, but 'I' as in the truest, most deepest expression of who I am. The capacities and resources that I thought were [[We're not broken, we're not deficient, and there's nothing missing|missing in me]], and therefore could only be found in the external world, were actually already right here inside of me. That's why we're here. If we can begin to unearth some of the deeper truths about who we are and what it really means to be human on this strange, floating rock in space, we can tap into the innate wisdom and intelligence that already lies within us. And maybe, just maybe, we'll find a way to navigate these uncertain and sometimes overwhelming times together. #### **Where are we going?** Everywhere and nowhere—all at the same time. The Book is a non-linear and dynamic process, which means it has no real plan, schematic, blueprint, structure or end-point. It is therefore a living and breathing representation of [[Parts come together to reveal new wholes beyond what they are alone|emergence]]. It's also nowhere near perfect, and it never will be. I like to think of it as if it were any other unfolding organism we might find out there in nature. When we plant an acorn, we know it's going to turn into oak tree, but what we don't know is how tall it will grow, how its branches will twist and reach, the unique patterns its bark will form, or how its roots will spread beneath the soil. I'm planting seeds as pages into the soil of this site, so in the same way, we don't know what The Book is going to become, because it's still unfolding, still emerging, still renewing itself and still coming alive each and every day. The way I work on The Book is also non-linear. I mostly follow my curiosity and write about what I feel deeply aligned and called to. Although it's exciting and tempting, I can't write about everything. That would be impossible, and I'd probably burn myself out in the process. Instead, I am prioritising writing about the things that feel like they touch upon the deeper, more meaningful truths around what it means to be a human being having a spiritual experience (as well as what it means to be a spiritual being having a human experience). Of course that's perhaps subjective, but I do my best to sit with whatever material I am ingesting by cross referencing it with my inner world and experience. That means the unfolding of The Book is going to be slow. A lot of my Parts don't like that, but in reality I don't have a particular goal, I don't have anywhere in particular to be, and I've got all the time in the world. Slow is better, anyway (allegedly). I'm super passionate about the topics I study and write about. All of this brings me an incredible amount of joy, so when I do come here to write, I do my best to just [[There's nowhere else to be but here now|be here now]]. I don't quite know how else to explain this, but it feels like I am doing something I should've been doing a very long time ago. I really hope you enjoy being in this space as much as I love having you here. I hope you enjoy exploring, I hope you get a lot out of it, and I hope it serves you in some way on your own unfoldment journey. If you ever get the urge to reach out and want to talk about the topics here in The Book, healing and what it means to be human, digital note-taking or just anything about life in general —please do so! You can [send me an email](mailto:[email protected]). I'd love to connect with you. Thank you again for being here. Keep well, Roc.