Quotes by James Hollis

James Hollis

A neurosis is wherever we are allied against our true nature.

Neurosis

True Nature

Anger is generally seen as an unwelcome presence in our midst, however natural it may be. Although each person, and each society, is charged with how anger is to be appropriately channeled, the denial of anger, or its continuous repression, is a deep source of our psychopathology and will invariably seek its expression in a less healthful fashion.

Anger

Expression

Fashion

As children we listened to the sound of the sea still echoing in the shell we picked up by the shore. That ancestral roar links us to the great sea which surges within us as well.

Children

Sea

Sound

Destiny commands… and imposes a sacred obligation to show up in the face of one’s desire for a normal, casual life… there are other forces afoot of which consciousness has only the dimmest of understandings.

Desire

Destiny

Understanding

Doubt is a profound and effective spiritual motivation. Without doubt, no truism is transcended, no new knowledge found, no expansion of the imagination possible. Doubt is unsettling to the ego and those who are drawn to ideologies that promise the dispelling of doubt by preferring certainties never grow.

Imagination

Motivation

Spiritual

Fear of our own depths is the enemy.

Depth

Enemy

Fear

How many of those who are insecure seek power over others as a compensation for inadequacy and wind up bringing consequences down upon their heads and those around them? How many hide out in their lives, resist the summons to show up, or live fugitive lives, jealous, projecting onto others, and then wonder why nothing ever really feels quite right. How many proffer compliance with the other, buying peace at the price of soul, and wind up with neither?

Insecure

Jealous

Wind

In moments of spiritual crisis we naturally fall back upon what worked for us, or seemed to work, heretofore. Sometimes this shows up through the reassertion of our old values in belligerent, testy ways. Regression of any kind is just such a return to old presumptions, often after they have been shown to be insufficient for the complexity of larger questions. The virtue of the old presumptions is that they once worked, or seemed to work, and therein lies if not certainty, then nostalgia for a previous, presumptive security. In our private lives, we frequently fall back upon our old roles.

Fall

Lying

Spiritual

In the end, we are only tiny frightened animals, doing our best to survive amid other tiny frightened animals.

Animal

Ends

Tiny

In the second half of life, the questions become: ‘Who, apart from the roles you play, are you? What does the soul ask of you? Do you have the wherewithal to shift course, to deconstruct your painfully achieved identity, risking failure, marginalization and loss of collective approval?’ No small task.

Loss

Play

Soul

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Able

Ambiguity

Anger

Animal

Becoming

Being Yourself

Black And White

Book

Children

Circles

Consciousness

Creating

Daddy

Debate

Depth

Desire

Destiny

Differences

Different

Doe

Ego

Ends

Enemy

Expression

Faces

Fall

Fashion

Fear

Feds

Forever

Goal

Growth

Healing

Hero

Imagination

Individuation

Insecure

Inspirational

Intimate

Intimate Relationships

Jealous

Jobs

Journey

Knowing

Loss

Lying

Mean

Middle

Midlife

Mosaics

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by James Hollis

James Hollis

A neurosis is wherever we are allied against our true nature.

As children we listened to the sound of the sea still echoing in the shell we picked up by the shore. That ancestral roar links us to the great sea which surges within us as well.

Destiny commands… and imposes a sacred obligation to show up in the face of one’s desire for a normal, casual life… there are other forces afoot of which consciousness has only the dimmest of understandings.

Fear of our own depths is the enemy.

In the end, we are only tiny frightened animals, doing our best to survive amid other tiny frightened animals.

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Topics by James Hollis

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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