LIVING AN EXAMINED LIFE, James Hollis, PhD.

If we are to show up, we must make choices and stop whining- Living an Examined Life, James Hollis, PhD.

Even though the world is full of people who will tell you who you are, what you are, and what you are to do or not to do, they wander amid their unaddressed confusion, fear, and need for belief in their anxious journey- Make your own choices.

The one thing parents can do is to live their lives as fullly as they can, for this will open the child’s imagination, grant permission to have their own journey and open doors of possibility for them. 

Sometimes we have to go there, the place of fear, in order to grow up, to recover our lives.

We have to risk feeling worse before feeling better.

How will you feel if conscious on your deathbed that you had not been here yourself?

There’s no going forward without the death of some kind ( Person we thought we were/ supposed to be, choosing rightly to avoid suffering).

Sometimes it takes a depression or a series of disturbing dreams to get our attention and demand a larger life.

The greatest obstacle to a satisfying life remains the risky permission to live our lives as the soul desires.

The biggest haunting of all is the specter of our unlived life, what was possible but was shunned.

Where you are stuck, your children will also be stuck or will spend some significant amount of energy to get unstuck.

When we do not show up for our summons, the psyche mourns, grieves and sours. The shadow also grows larger and makes our life more intimidating. 

We deprive the mosaic of history whatever our tiny chip brings to the puzzle when we abrogate, flee, shun or finesse our callings as souls.

Some measure of suffering is demanded wherever vocation summons a person.

Who we really are is not meant to fit in, be normal, imitate someone else’s life. 

All quotes are excerpted from James Hollis' Book Living an Examined Life.