Posts Tagged: "Falling Upward"

Most Of Us Have To Hit Some Kind Of Bottom Before We Can Even Start The Real Spiritual Journey

From Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward

God must say after each failure of ours, “Oh, here is a great opportunity! Let’s see how we can work with this!”

After our ego-inflating successes, God surely says, “Well, nothing new or good is going to happen here!”

Failure and suffering are the great equalizers and levelers among humans. Success is just the opposite. Communities and commitment can form around suffering much more than around how wonderful or superior we are. Just compare the… Read More

Shadow Work

First, let me start with something light and funny.

I received the following e-mail from Andy Jones the other day:

“Working on some Celebrate Recovery stuff and came across these self evaluation questions…

Have you exaggerated yourself to make yourself look better?  In what areas of your past have you used false humility?

Hahahahahahahahahaha

All pastors.”

*      *      *      *

Richard Rohr, in his book Falling Upward, talks about the need to do “shadow work.” The following are quotes from chapter 11 – The Shadowlands…

Your shadow self… gradually detaches you from your not-so-bright persona (meaning “stage mask” in Greek) that you so diligently constructed in the first half of life.

Your stage mask is not bad, evil, or necessarily egocentric; it is just not “true.”

It is manufactured and sustained unconsciously by your mind; but it can and will die, as all fictions must die.

Persona and shadow are correlative terms.

Your shadow is what you refuse to see about yourself, and what you do not want others to see.

The more you have cultivated and protected a chosen persona, the more shadow… Read More