Heroes Not Zombies

Jung said “The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.”

Do we make ourselves, or does the world make us?

Actually, that’s one of those questions which poses a false duality. The truth is it’s a two way process, an interaction, a conversation, relationship, a dance.

I’m fascinated by the patterns we see everywhere. As I listen to someone’s story, I’m listening for patterns. What kinds of patterns?

Well, I suppose you could call them habits.

• Habits of the body
• Habits of the head
• Habits of the heart

The habits of the body are our physical actions, the ways in which we use our bodies to move and to interact with the world. Think of your eating habits, your exercise habits, your physical preferences, how you experience the world and how you engage with it.

The habits of the head are our thoughts, our beliefs and our world view. Think especially of whether or not your thinking habit focuses on the past, the present or the future? What are you sensitive to? What do you notice? How do you interpret the world? It’s especially helpful to think of how we approach the world, and Iain McGilchrist’s brilliant understanding of the clearly different ways in which the left and right hemisphere’s of the brain approach the world is really exciting.

The habits of the heart are revealed in the patterns of our emotions, our longings, and our passions. What moves you? What touches in you in your heart? In your soul?

This is the examined life – where you become aware of your inherited and acquired patterns which create the habits of your existence. And if you want life to be different, you’re going to have to create some new habits, or change some old ones.