From Self-Doubt to Self-Love: Objectivity of Self-Presence
Knowing oneself is difficult and made more so at a psychological level by emotional wounds sustained in the course of growing up and at an intellectual level by philosophical wounds sustained in the course of one’s education.
Flight from Experience 3: Gnosticism
Gnosticism refers to a theory of human happiness and salvation that are achieved by means of the integration of conscious and unconscious drives or habits or the creation of a social order which provides a human solution to the problem of evil. In either case, human beings are themselves the sources of their own healing and happiness. However, to insist that happiness results either from the integration of unconscious drives or in the creation of social orders alone is to reject human experience in favor of some mythic version of experience.
Flight from Experience 1: Observation Biases
The orientation of contemporary psychology is primarily to experience. However, biases exist that tempt us to be poor observers of our own experience. Here good observation means heightening conscious awareness of inner experience. In part, this means managing thoughts and expectations about what I should be feeling or what other people might feel or what I am expected to feel.
Fellow-passengers to the grave: Reframing our society
“I have always thought of Christmas time as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
From ‘Work Mode’ to ‘Home Mode’: Patterns in Conscious Living 2
Striking a happy work-life balance is more that setting a schedule to preserve family time or me time. While this is important it does not go far enough. The bigger challenge is to develop the habits and skills necessary to inhabit two, or perhaps more, different worlds. Understanding each world’s distinct purpose, or what those worlds exist for, can be tremendously helpful.
From ‘Work Mode’ to ‘Home Mode’: Patterns in Conscious Living 1
A healthy work-life balance means being able to move, not simply between two different environments, but two different frames of mind and heart. Discovering the difference in ourselves between work-mode and home-mode makes that shift easier and more peaceful for everyone.