During the initial stages of my doctoral research, seeking transformation and self-renewal outcomes in the black experience, I quickly understood in the words of Alvin Toffler: “The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”. My background as the descendant of enslaved Africans (DoEA) meant that I had been socialised into a culture based on a lack of entitlement, poverty and limitation and had a host of unlearning and relearning to do. How was this cultural experience to be transformed? Human centred unconditional passionate appreciation (HCUPA) is the inductively developed life philosophy that resulted:
Human (five dimensional self)
Centred (centricity)
Unconditional (Positive Regard – Carl Rogers)
Passionate (understood as the other side of emotions)
Appreciation (universal law)
This learning and teaching philosophy continues to evolve as I continue to grow as a human being. It is the essence of how I go about my life even as I seek answers to the HCUPA Question: What does it mean for me to be a whole, fully alive, experiencing, choiceful and free human being?
The HCUPA process was instrumental in facilitating, in one way or another, the projects outlined here.