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Continue reading Disillusionment as a Blessing
However before your time arrives, life’s to dos shunt aside your good intention. They’re innumerable: feed the kids; drive the kids to and from school, pre-school, after school; do laundry; clean house; go to the cleaners, bank, supermarket, gas station; see you friend for lunch; pay bills; answer emails and phone calls; not to mention your job and its overtime demands… things to do ad infinitum. And another day darkens, leaving your soul again uncared for. Continue reading The Tyranny of the To Do List
Sometimes the lives we live – or don’t live – weigh heavily upon our souls. We feel alienated, bored, discontent, anxious, or depressed. It is then that we might be tempted to turn away from such pain by losing ourselves in mind-numbing distractions such as TV, the internet, or another glass of wine. On the other hand, we might instead turn off the distractions, turn towards our symptomatic pain, and listen to its potentially life-changing message. Continue reading Whose Life are You Living?
For far too many spiritual seekers, their spiritual aspiration is like an iron maiden of virtue whose inner critic spikes ceaselessly stab our all-too-human souls. We envision becoming “spiritual” as transcending our humanity rather than becoming more fully human. Modeling their behavior according to ideas of spirituality that they have read in books, many seekers I meet are genuinely upset with their humanity. They want to be generous, not stingy; admiring, not envious; loving, not hateful; calm, not upset; joyous, not sad; accepting, not angry; holy, not human. When these seekers experience such human ‘blemishes” to their spirituality, they become fearful of their spiritual prospects. Continue reading Is spirituality a matter of becoming less or more human?
James Hillman, Jungian analyst, alludes to just such a societal disorder when he comments that one of the hardest things which he has to treat is his clients’ schedules. Hillman notes that their schedules are their defenses against change. Said another way, your personal organizer is your defense. Your to-do list is your personal tyrant. Your busyness is your soul’s captor. We haven’t the time to allow into our lives the changes that would be a salve to our souls. Continue reading Creating a Structure of Living that Supports an Inner Life
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Copyright © 2012 Michael Nagel MA - All Rights Reserved |
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Despite truthfulness being essential for an authentic life, we can deceive ourselves in innumerable ways. All to often we buffer ourselves from disappointment, unhappiness, and pain by avoiding things, not showing up in our lives, or lying to ourselves. But does putting your head in the sand really work?
So finally you have decided to make time in your life for yourself. Perhaps you want to meditate. Maybe you yearn to do some journal writing. Possibly you just want to take some time to reflect or at long last do nothing at all, and just be. Honoring your heartfelt need to care also for yourself, you schedule some time just for you.
In my work, I get to see the underbelly of our social order: the patterns of unhappiness and hardship which we suffer alone, but which are shared by others in epidemic proportions. These are the disorders of society which breed widespread personal unhappiness.
