A Life of Meaning: Relocating Your Center of Spiritual Gravity

*Live a Life of Meaning – Relocating Your Center of Spiritual Gravity* is an engaging and thoughtful book written by Jungian analyst Dr. James Hollis in both metaphor and straight-forward prose. And even with the book’s serious content, the author amuses us with his delightful wit.The subject of shadow is big is this book, reminding us all how easy it is to see that good old beam in another’s eye and miss that monumental log floating around in our own. Does that non-owning of our shadow projection hurt others? It does and it hurts us too by handing us an unconscious life. Oftentimes we can see how our shadow turns up by paying close attention to our dreams to see the who, what, when and from where they originate. Are they personal or archetypal? A wonderful consideration for this reader.Dr. Hollis also writes about the futility of waiting for someone to inform us about what our lives are all about. How it’s necessary to discover our own soul’s individual path and not another’s idea of what we should be doing. We’re invited to look down at the shoes we are walking around in and ask ourselves if these shoes are too small for our personal growth. If so, we may be walking in our ego’s idea of security, but we won’t be marching toward our own destiny.Speaking of destiny, Dr. Hollis writes, “Stand for something that matters to us.” Oh, I heard the voice of courage here – his and Winston Churchill’s. Will there be pain in the pursuit of choosing a courageous path in our journey? Of course. But the pain will be worth it. And maybe we won’t succumb to those wretched seven deadly sins he addresses through a psychological lens in this book.As we grow up (which is highly encouraged in this book) those idealistic promises we made in our youth to ourselves will, hopefully, be exchanged for pursuing our soul’s true meaning in our ‘one, beautiful, adventurous and precious life instead.’Mary Jane Hurley BrantAuthor of When Every Day Matters – Simple Abundance Press

At the age of 82, James Hollis continues to provide deeper insight into the human psyche & the need for inner growth. And as with his recent books, in A LIFE OF MEANING he opens up a little more personally than in his past, which I both appreciate & find illuminating. Yet he doesn’t do this to make the book about himself. No, it’s to show his readers that he’s still going through the process of growth & enlarging his view of life just as much as he advises us to do. He’s not already at the top of the mountain, he’s still climbing it with the rest of us. It’s simply that he’s been at it a long time & has been trained for it, so he can offer us advice & support drawn from his own trek.Please note, I only said advise—the choices we make (or don’t make) with that advice are still our own, as are our stumbling blocks & advances. He’s not telling or ordering us what to do in these pages. He’s only drawing on his own experience to remind us that we’ve all got to do the hard inner work—sometimes with professional help, sometimes on our own. That’s the only way we can find or make meaning that actually matters to & for us.Meaning—now, there’s the key word. We can see how many people are desperately searching for meaning, all too often in the wrong places & for the wrong goals. As Hollis says plainly, meaning is not the same as happiness. Yes, happiness is lovely when it comes … but it’s also fleeting. Savor it whenever you have it, but don’t set unending happiness with trouble of doubt as your goal. You won’t get it. As William Blake wrote:He who binds to himself a joyDoes the winged life destroyHe who kisses the joy as it fliesLives in eternity’s sunriseAnd where does joy come from? In meaning—in that inner sense of rightness that can’t quite be put into words, but that can be felt as something real & something true. And while it can sometimes come as a gift of grace, it’s much more common to have to do the work of opening a space for it within ourselves. That’s where the Jungian approach is so helpful, as it enables us to slowly, often painfully, enlarge our lives & our self-knowledge—to become more authentically who we are & who we can be as human beings.For those familiar with Hollis’ life-work, this comes as no revelation. It’s a simple fact he’s explored for decades … but the point of returning to it as he does in this book is because knowing the words & even recognizing their truth isn’t the same as living them. This is the work we are called to do as individual human beings. And Hollis, as always, is an excellent guide—just remember that while he can show us the trail & describe its perils, he can’t walk it for us. We’ve got to do that ourselves.Most highly recommended!