Would you like to meet a stranger?
Follow yourself around for a while.

A minute, an hour, a day, a week -­
The time span doesn’t matter. 

CONFRONT YOURSELF.

Begin by observing yourself in what is usually considered the unimportant events of your daily life .. . your most trivial act, the minutia of your day …,the way you work at your desk, answer the door, to-shave-or-not-to-shave, take care of simple chores, offer a cup of coffee, light a cigarette, eat com, talk to the baby, greet your mate. It is in this minutia, in your simple ordinary acts, that you may discover yourself.

For all of us, many hours of each day pass and we never quite know just what we do and how we actually live them. In our important acts, we know. We know and give our full attention when someone or have been brave and saved someone we have from falling off a cliff. Large events explode within us and leave a sharp detailed imprint of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, our behavior, etc. i.e., the event. It is the minute by minute time of our daily life that goes unobserved, unnoticed, un-chronicled. Here we may act basely or heroically. Some of us just get older. In the trivia of our day we may act with terror, self-doubt or a sense of unworthiness, In our simplest act, we may reveal a character of suspicion and cruelty, and/ or of fear of taking responsibility, and for the most part, we are totally unaware of how we really do feel, think, and behave.

When you observe yours–If doing something or feeling something (as defined in the exercises in this program), you make your mark … you KEEP SCORE. When you keep score, you make a commitment.
When you make a commitment, YOU ACT!
And in that ACT, all of you (and more) responds and comes to your aid. Every part of you works together–body, mind, intuition, conscious, unconscious, YOU NAME IT _________________  and further, you are open to receive help, extra energy, in inspiration,  
YOU NAME IT ______________ beyond your limited conditioned daily responses, and you give FULL ATTENTION

• FULL ATTENTION to what is at hand.
• FULL ATTENTION might be but a flash behind the steering wheel to prevent disaster.
• FULL ATTENTION might be in a moment of a world falling apart.
• FULL ATTENTION might be the big-league batter behind his

It will be necessary for the person entering this game to have instantly available a marker and a scoreboard. If the game is played for the most part at home use a blackboard or a mirror. A mirror is an excellent scoreboard. For a marker, use soap, post-it notes, or lipstick. As mirrors are used frequently, the constant impact with the score, because of the visibility, makes the game more quickly effective. For the person who works or is on the move a lot, a simple blank tablet about 3 X 5 with a pencil attached to it is a fine scoreboard. Keep it in your pocket or purse. If your pad or blackboard is not available, use little bits of paper or a leaf or whatever and put them in your pocket to be added up later.

Or use a magic slate. Or if all else fails, make a noise, cough, sneeze, or hit the desk.  Just pause to let yourself know that you know.

 There will be times when you are reluctant to play WHAT’S YOUR SCORE? for there is a curious unwillingness to give up a state of discomfort. As if one had a legitimate right to be envious, greedy, feeling rejected, et al. since the feeling leaves or dissolves when you see it, without any apparent reason, it annoys an individual to think that he did not get rid of the pain himself through his own wisdom or overt effort. While you are doing these games/ exercises, try to ignore the persistent feeling that what you are doing is sheer nonsense and that relief from the painful feeling is fantasy or that the painful feeling will soon return. How often after relief from a severe headache or physical pain of any kind we spend a short period trying to re-remember it.

In WHAT’S YOUR SCORE? the exercises have no set time-period.

YOU pick your own time.

 Making the mark in the air is only half playing. It is avoidance of the commitment. In a short time, the mark in the air will be forgotten and the whole matter will be dropped. So, try to keep your scoring visible. When this happens, it ends. It is best to let it drop. Go onto something else and then return when you return. If it is done by you only a few minutes a week, it will be of value. It will be YOUR ACT!

WHAT’S YOUR SCORE, is just between YOU and YOU – perfectly private and intimate. There is no Big Brother watching you. You will not do more than you are able to handle — for any reason. First, you will put it off or simply forget the whole thing.

 But you will return.

As you come closer to yourself, you will find you are not so afraid of what you are actually doing, feeling, thinking and will become compassionate toward yourself.

One of your most difficult obstacles will be APPROVAL / DISAPPROVAL.

Approval/disapproval is authoritarianism (the Dictator) whether you yourself mete it out to yourself or whether you accept it from another and/ or use it against another in the same way and manner as you would use it against yourself.

The dictator has been built into your physical & emotional structure. The very way you walk could be or had been dictated by a parent, authority figure and maybe society itself.

Who pushes you around and keeps you programmed?

• Take your pick: as to who or what keeps you in line walking the goose step.
• Take your pick: as to what or who ties your energy up into dead ends.
• Take your pick: as to what or who keeps you from becoming the unique human being you are, connected to other unique human beings.

Is it your ancestral Ghosts?
The bully on your street?
The promise of heaven?
The fear of hell?

Remember, WHAT IS YOUR SCORE? is Just between YOU and YOU.

It is perfectly private. If you decide to play it and follow the rules, WHAT’S YOUR SCORE? allows no intrusions from the cast of characters you live with, namely:

YOURSELF                   SPOUSE              PARENT                  FELLOW WORKER

YOU NAME IT ___________________________________

In playing WHAT IS YOUR SCORE?, often built-in censures from the past representing your world (the life you live) cannot control you while you are making your mark nor can they bestow rewards, punishments upon you. For YOU KEEP YOUR OWN SCORE.

For the following games/ exercises to be effective it is necessary to accept yourself as you find yourself currently, without consciously doing anything to change. Trying to change just results in inhibiting or justifying the undesirable act/ traits. Inhibition and/ or justification does little more than distort by putting a pretty picture (the incident) on the screen and or pushing it off/the screen for the time being … You just change an attitude. The act does not dissolve and inhibited is/simply covered up by a ‘good act’ or by ‘noble thoughts’ to do better next time. But they will return.

Instead of making the endless attempt to cover up, make New Year’s resolutions or promise yourself to tread the straight and narrow path, just SEE yourself in your acts/ feelings/whatever. The very thing that trips/ grips you may lead you out of the bind if you SEE yourself in its clutch. The old saw that the “only way out of the forest is through it” was never truer than here.

So just KEEP SCORE and MAKE YOUR MARK when you Look/ see yourself in motion or are in the throes of a motion (emotion), Do not look upon yourself as: good/bad pretty/ ugly smart/ stupid fat / thin cunning / innocent cruel / kind violated / violating structured / unstructured

YOU NAME IT. ___________ 

ITS JUST YOU. ORDINARY YOU. UNIQUE YOU