69 Quotes by James Hollis

The thing about all complexes, splinter personalities, and fractal assignments is that they have no imagination. The can only replay the old events, scripts, and moribund outcome of their origin. But we do have an imagination, the power to image something new, or at least alternative. 117

Where am I asking others to take responsibility for my life? Let's face it - we would all love to be taken care of. We all are recovering children who project the dynamics of intrapsychic parent onto an institution, an ideology ...Growing up is ever more difficult because it requires letting go of old expectations of rescue and redemption. We are it; this is it; this is as good as it gets, and we better deal with it.

Where do you refuse to grow up, wait for certainty of wisdom before choosing, hope for solutions to emerge fully formed, expect rescue, or wait for a guru to make sense of it all for you?

When one has let go of that great hidden agenda that drives humanity and its varied histories, then one can begin to encounter the immensity of one's own soul. If we are courageous enough to say, "Not this person, nor any other, can ultimately give me what I want; only I can," then we are free to celebrate a relationship for what it can give.

Fear of our own depths is the enemy.

Physical death is only one form of dying. There are other forms of dying:We die whenever fear governs our choices.We die when we sacrifice growth for security.We die whenever we choose a convenient certainty over an inconvenient mystery.

If we realize that the assumptions by which the person has lived his or her life are collapsing, that the assembled strategies of the provisional personality are decompensating, that a world-view is falling apart, than the thrashing about is understandable. In fact, one might even conclude that there is no such thing as a crazy act if one understands the emotional context. Emotions are not chosen they choose us and have a logic of their own.

When men feel the wound that cannot heal, they either bury themselves in woman's arms and ask her for healing, which she cannot provide, or they hide themselves in macho pride and enforced loneliness.

Men today cannot claim their identity via culture because they are obliged to find other uninitiated males as their models or succumb to the empty values of a materialistic society. Again, before healing may begin, men must acknowledge the reality of what lies within. Among those confusing emotions is a deep grief for the loss of the personal father as companion, model and support, and a deep hunger for the fathers as a source of wisdom, solace and inspiration.