Books | CDs | Online Audio/Video
Read excerpts from my most recent books dealing with Jungian psychology and the path to leading a meaningful life.
Books
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Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life (2007) Robert A. Johnson and Jerry M. Ruhl
Living Your Unlived Life explores the essential developmental task for achieving true maturity—rectifying the loss of abandoned dreams and unrealized potentials to achieve our full potential. This new book by renowned therapist Robert A. Johnson and his long-time collaborator and fellow Jungian psychologist Jerry M. Ruhl, Ph.D., is aimed at helping people find validation and satisfaction as they age. It is a profound and important guide to the psychological tasks of our mature years when we are beckoned to grow beyond the requirements of family and society, to navigate transitions, and to secure our own relationship to wholeness.
More information on my latest book, Living Your Unlived Life
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Contentment: A Way to True Happiness
(1999) Robert A. Johnson and Jerry M. Ruhl
Most of us believe we’ll somehow achieve contentment just as soon as we get a better job, find a new partner, buy a bigger house, retire, or attain some other goal. Our society conditions us to think this way. But with this approach to life, contentment forever eludes us. We continually banish our contentment to another time, a different place, a better circumstance.
You don’t need to be a sage sitting on a mountain top to be content, but these days it does required some uncommon thinking. While the forces of modern life—rampant advertising, unabashed consumerism, the persistent push to achieve and acquire more— continually pique our desires and push us outward in our quest for contentment, this wise and beautifully written book guides us inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting happiness.
“Contentment grows out of a willingness to surrender preconceived ideas and affirm reality as it is. Honoring ‘what is’ is just the opposite of living out of a ‘just as soon as’ mentality … contentment is about the dance between what you want what reality presents. Contentment is a way of being at home with yourself and a way of affirming the reality of your life.”
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Balancing Heaven and Earth:
A Memoir of Visions, Dreams and Realizations
(1998) Robert A. Johnson and Jerry M. Ruhl
A moving and instructive memoir in the tradition of Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Balancing Heaven and Earth is filled with the wisdom of a lifetime devoted to balancing the inner and the outer, the masculine and the feminine, the eternal and the everyday.
From the text:
“The mystery is this: There is one right thing to do at every moment. We can either follow or resist. Slender threads are at work in all of our lives, guiding us and shaping who we are—call it fate, destiny, or the hand of God.”
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A Legendary Pioneer of the Psyche
Reflects on His Life Lessons and Keys to Transformation |
The Golden World:
Our Search for Meaning, Fulfillment, and Divine Beauty
6-CD set recorded earlier this year with Robert A. Johnson
available now from Sounds True
Renowned as one of the most influential Jungian authors of our generation, Robert A. Johnson follows in the tradition of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, shaping our deepest metaphors of self and psyche. On The Golden World, you are invited to join one of our wise elders for a candid and unforgettable discussion about the experiences and spiritual epiphanies that changed his life, and how those moments inform the work that has made his legacy.
The Quest for the Golden World
In January of 2007, Dr. Johnson participated in a wide-ranging discussion with long-time collaborator and Jungian psychologist Jerry M. Ruhl and Tami Simon, publisher of Sounds True.
In this intimate audio encounter Robert Johnson shares memories of the defining moments in his eighty-six years as a spiritual seeker. From a childhood near-death experience to the chance encounter that led him to first explore Jungian study, Johnson illustrates the essential concepts that have become the cornerstones of his acclaimed work. At the center of this “personal mandala” is what he calls the quest for the “golden world”—a lifelong search for a sublime state of enlightenment that resides within each of us.
As you walk with this author of classics such as He, She, and We through the journey of his life, you will discover valuable insights about the tools that allow us to explore the uncharted territory of human consciousness, including the art of interpreting the language of dreams, understanding how culture shapes your character, the process of actively engaging your inner life through imagination, the tantalizing “preview of heaven” that so sparks so many seekers, and much more.
Wisdom and Insights from an Extraordinary Life
The Golden World is an unprecedented opportunity to sit side-by-side with a living legend as he reflects upon his own quest—and provides you a personal glimpse of the cartography of the human spirit and one man’s timeless wisdom for finding new layers of life’s purpose.
Program Highlights:
- Understanding typology—learn to identify the four distinct “types” of people, both individually and culturally
- Practical applications for developing your perceived “weaknesses” into foundational strengths
- Interpreting dreams—the four crucial steps for deciphering the language of the unconscious mind
- What are your “nodal points?” Finding the crucial moments in life when your dreams reveal the most profound inner truths
- How to dialogue with the unconscious flow of ideas through the process of active imagination
- Trusting the “slender threads” of life—how to link the ego and the spiritual forces into a “harmonious tension”
- Projecting and reclaiming your potential—how to seek mentors to preserve and prevent your ego from inflating or deflating
- The Golden World as the “Holy Grail,” and your lifelong steps for finding this radiant state of enlightenment
- Stories from a true explorer of the heart, psyche, and soul—an unprecedented six-hour encounter with Robert A. Johnson
Modern Meditation (audio recording) with Jerry Ruhl, recorded at Rothko Chapel
How Media Changes Minds, Part I & II, accessible from the Houston Jung Center audio archive page
Ensoulment, a film featuring Dr. Ruhl along with Dr. James Hollis, Dr. Cynthia Eller, and others. From the theories of C.G. Jung, this film explores the feminine principle in present day Western society.