Losing Everything ...

Losing a battle or losing everything we thought we possessed will bring us moments of sadness. But when those moments pass, we will discover the hidden strength that exists in each of us, a strength that will surprise us and increase our self-respect."

- Coelho
- Manuscript Found in Accra

Book Report - As A Man Thinketh

As A Man Thinketh
- James Allen

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

... mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance..."

Thought And Character

A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts."

Effect Of Thought On Circumstances

Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state."

Effect Of  Thought On Health And The Body

At the bidding of unlawful thoughts the body sinks rapidly into disease and decay; at the command of glad and beautiful thoughts it becomes clothed with youthfulness and beauty."

Thought And Purpose

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts."

The Thought-Factor In Achievement

All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts."

Visions And Ideals

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it."

Serenity

The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him."

Book Report - The Road Less Traveled

The Road Less Traveled
- A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
BY M. Scott Peck, M.D.
- Author of The Different Drum

... I make no distinction between the mind and the spirit, and therefore no distinction between the process of achieving spiritual growth and achieving mental growth. They are one and the same."

... this process is a complex, arduous and lifelong task. Psychotherapy, if it is to provide substantial assistance to the process of mental and spiritual growth, is not a quick or simple procedure."

I: DISCIPLINE

Problems and Pain
Delaying Gratification
The Sings of the Father
Problem-Solving and Time
Responsibility
Neuroses and Character Disorders
Escape from Freedom
Dedication to Reality
Transference: The outdated Map
Openness to Challenge
Withholding Truth
Balancing
The Healthiness of Depression
Renunciation and Rebirth

II: LOVE

Love Defined
Falling in "Love"
The Myth of Romantic Love
More About Ego Boundaries
Dependency
Cathexis Without Love
"Self-Sacrifice"
Love Is Not a Feeling
The Work of Attention
The Risk of Loss
The Risk of Independence
The Risk of Commitment
The Risk of Confrontation
Love Is Disciplined
Love Is Separateness
Love and Psychotherapy
The Mystery of Love

III: GROWTH AND RELIGION

World Views and Religion
The Religion of Science
The Case of Kathy
The Case of Marcia
The Case of Theodore
The Baby and the Bath Water
Scientific Tunnel Vision

IV: GRACE

The Miracle of Health
The Miracle of the Unconscious
The Miracle of Serendipity
The Definition of Grace
The Miracle of Evolution
The Alpha and the Omega
Entropy and Original Sin
The Problem of Evil
The Evolution of Consciousness
The Nature of Power
Grace and Mental Illness: The Myth of Orestes
Resistance to Grace
The Welcoming of Grace
Afterword

"there can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; and there can be no peace (and ultimately life) without community."

Grace ... The Evolution of Consciousness

I believe that the conscious is the seat of psychopathology and that mental disorders are disorders of consciousness. It is because our conscious self resists our unconscious wisdom that we become ill. It is precisely because our consciousness is disordered that conflict occurs between it and the unconscious which seeks to heal it. In other words, mental illness occurs when the conscious will of the individual deviates substantially from the will of God, which is the individual's own unconscious will." #RLT

The Miracle of Health

There is a force, the mechanism of which we do not fully understand, that seems to operate routinely in most people to protect and encourage their physical health even under the most adverse conditions." #RLT

Beyond the Norm: A Speculative Model of Self-Realization

Once perception is disengaged from the domination of preconception and personal interest, it is free to experience the world as it is in itself and to behold its inherent magnificence... The true wonder of the world is available everywhere, in the minutest parts of our bodies, in the vast expanses of the cosmos, and in the intimate interconnectedness of these and all things..."

Scientific Tunnel Vision

It is as if for some reason they do not want to see more than immediately meets the eye, more than what they choose to focus their attention upon." #RLT

The Road Less Traveled Pg 225

.. psychotherapists of all kinds should push themselves to become not less involved but rather more sophisticated in religious matters than they frequently are."

Sha Hustle - X-Files (How We Do It) [OFFICIAL VIDEO] (FaceFilms Toronto)

Manuscript Found in Accra

And, in Paulo Coelho's hands, Manuscript Found in Accra reveals that who we are, what we fear, and what we hope for the future come from the knowledge and belief that can be found within us, and not from the adversity that surrounds us."
#paulocoelho

Kahlil Gibran

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

A Bad Image.

Adolescents frequently complain that they are disciplined not out of genuine concern but because of parental fear that they will give their parents a bad image."
#theroadlesstraveled

Monk Meekness

In the words of an anonymous fourteenth-century British monk and spiritual teacher, "Meekness in itself is nothing else than a true knowing and feeling of a man's self as he is. Any man who truly sees and feels himself as he is must surely be meek indeed."
#theroadlesstraveled

Parents Need To Learn From Children

Parents who are unwilling to risk the suffering of changing and growing and learning from their children are choosing a path of senility - whether they know it or not - and their children and the world will leave them far behind. Learning from their children is the best opportunity most people have to assure themselves of a meaningful old age. Sadly, most do not take this opportunity."
#theroadlesstraveled

Desertion Syndrom

One of the problems that people commonly have in their adult relationships if they have never received a firm commitment from their parents is the "I'll desert you before you desert me" syndrome."
#theroadlesstraveled

Commitments continued

a cessation of parental love through death, abandonment or chronic rejection, has the effect of making the child's unrequited commitment an experience of intolerable pain."
#theroadlesstraveled

The Risk of Commitment

Anyone who is truly concerned for the spiritual growth of another knows, consciously or instinctively, that he or she can significantly foster that growth only through a relationship of constancy. Children cannot grow to psychological maturity in an atmosphere of unpredictability, haunted by the specter of abandonment. Couples cannot resolve in any healthy way the universal issues of marriage - dependency and independency, dominance and submission, freedom and fidelity, for example - without the security of knowing that the act of struggling over these issues will not itself destroy the relationship."
#theroadlesstraveled

Leap

Finally, it is only when one has taken the leap into the unknown of total selfhood, psychological independence and unique individuality that one is free to proceed along still higher paths of spiritual growth and free to manifest love in its greatest dimensions.
#theroadlesstraveled

The Risk of Independence

Growing up is the act of stepping from childhood into adulthood. Actually it is more of a fearful leap than a step, and it is a leap that many people never really take in their lifetimes. Though they may outwardly appear to be adults, even successful adults, perhaps the majority of "grown-ups" remain until their death psychological children who have never truly separated themselves from their parents and the power that their parents have over them."
#theroadlesstraveled

The Risk of Loss

Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the making of action in spite of fear, the moving out against the resistance engendered by fear into the unknown and into the future."
#theroadlesstraveled