yesterday and was blown away when Ken read from a paragraph in the last part of the book.
I have this beautifully written book and have slowly been reading and digesting it's contents.
But that paragraph that Ken read impacted me tremendously. This book should be a must read for any clinician. As a clinician, and someone who is and has been both at the effect of this behavior and a participant within its psychodynamics, I cannot imagine any other work that could have done it better.
Thank you both for this illuminating exchange.
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Yes, I'm looking forward to next months book club forum, especially after listening to that engaging conversation -- definitely a nice sense of clarity coming from Ken on the topic of our culture's rampant narcissism problem, specifically as it shows up (and is healed) in men. Very challenging work ( I must say, from personal experience) to get involved with -- seeing that devastating ugliness and brutality of the complex while at the same time staying with the awful feeling of being so exposed in the presence of another ... and eventually in the presence of soul itself... which is when the real active felt-healing began for me ... the ever-humbling movement, again and again, towards alignment (active-engagement) with soul.
Hi Chris...Lucky you. You've escaped life-long recurrent imprisonment within the cell of desire. Did you ever see the film with Jeremy Irons entitled Damage? I always think of it with regard to these recalcitrant complexes!
"You've escaped life-long recurrent imprisonment within the cell of desire."
Wow, Judith, that is quite a way of putting it. I'm not even sure what it means exactly ... because it sure doesn't feel like I've escaped anything. But I guess I certainly don't feel trapped anymore, living my whole life completely immersed and lost in the cell of desire. This new conscious real-time relationship with soul (which I choose to move into throughout the day) has me moving in and out of the "cell of desire" more freely and intentionally , I suppose. I'm seeing that it is through alchemy and imagination -- that I pass through the porous walls of the cell with relative ease and can begin to experience pleasure from a new angle (a grace-filled and graciousness-filled angle). Maybe it's that I don't take credit much anymore for finding myself outside of the cell of desire but know it to be through an incomprehensible grace that I am able to do be outside of that cell (each time that I am). It is certainly humbling (when I do find myself outside) and it keeps me seeking to be in (and co-create) healthy soul-oriented relationships.
I haven't seen Damage but it's now on my list. Thank you!
" But I guess I certainly don't feel trapped anymore, living my whole life completely immersed and lost in the cell of desire..." That is what I mean by escaped, Chris. This whole business of relating to men with this issue has always consumed me. I'm both interested in it clinically and deeply involved in and at the effect of it personally. To some women the boy-man is terribly attractive. I'm one of those women. So perhaps a book should be written about these boy-men and the women who love them! At any rate glad you're now on the outside looking in, (most of the time)....!J.