Cracking Open: A Memoir of Struggling, Passages, and Transformations (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780692440179)

An Engaging Book...Thoughtful, Searching, and Surprisingly Personal

Dr. Harris is a Jungian analyst, author, and life teacher dedicated to the passionate pursuit of self-exploration and the art of living a well-lived life. By being willing to share his own very personal journaling, he shows us the importance of reflecting about our lives in an ongoing way...and even the importance of revisiting these reflections.

Through his re-membering and storytelling, he brings to light the interface between dramatic periods of transformation in his own life and reveals how "past" history is always penetrating the present. During these reflections, it becomes clear how deeply he is wrestling like Jacob with the angel, as he attempts to grasp the creative patterns of life that are trying to be lived through him.

Dr. Harris tells about his surprise when his journaling takes on a life of its own, and shifts like scenes in a dream - a dream created by his greater Self. Like any serious quest, his story has a haunting history with terrors and resistances along the way. He recounts the shocks, surprises, and hard work necessary to pursue self-knowledge and admits how living with awareness and the search for healing and wholeness brings about suffering to his ego, his everyday self. Yet, he tenderly leads us into the spiritual depths of passion, transformation, and renewal, and shares how his devotion to this work forces his transformation and helps him to tap into the joy of creation. Dr. Harris tells about his surprise when his journaling takes on a life of its own, and shifts like scenes in a dream - a dream created by his greater Self.

Like any serious quest, his story has a haunting history with terrors and resistances along the way. He recounts the shocks, surprises, and hard work necessary to pursue self-knowledge and admits how living with awareness and the search for healing and wholeness brings about suffering to his ego, his everyday self. Yet, he tenderly leads us into the spiritual depths of passion, transformation, and renewal, and shares how his devotion to this work forces his transformation and helps him to tap into the joy of creation.

Throughout this book, Dr. Harris offers us a fresh, accessible approach to finding out how to heal and recover what has been lost of our own intrinsic selves. His thoughtful reflections show us how the path of creative transformation can also be healing, when the life-giving journey begins with self-exploration. This invaluable book has strength as well as soul, and offers a challenging and encouraging voice that needs to be heard in this time when our lives are being defined by our culture in the most shallow of terms. Through this book made up of special moments in the quest for personal meaning, Dr. Harris will inspire you to deepen your own relationship to yourself and to life itself.