Carol S. Pearson > Quotes

“we first develop the Ego, then encounter the Soul, and finally give birth to a unique sense of Self.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“No matter how much people want to feel loved, appreciated, and a part of things, they will be lonely until they make a commitment to themselves, a commitment that is so total that they will give up community and love, if necessary, to be fully who they are.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“The way to free ourselves of shadow possession is to awaken our heroic potential.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“Each journey is unique, and each seeker charts a new path. But it is infinitely easier to do so having at least some knowledge about the experiences of those who have gone before. When we learn about the many different heroic paths available to us, we understand that there is room for all of us to be heroic in our own unique ways.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“The Ego is the “container” for our life. The Ego creates a boundary between us and everything else and mediates our relationship with the world.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“The natural way to activate inner potential is to shine the light of consciousness upon it.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“Some women tend naturally to be Warriors and Seekers, and some men to be Caregivers and Lovers in spite of their cultural conditioning. The point is for both to take their journeys in such a way as to find their own way to be male or female, and eventually to achieve a positive kind of androgyny, which is not at all about unisex, neutered behavior, but is about gaining the gifts both gender energies and experiences have to offer us.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“The hero’s journey requires us to find our uniqueness. We simply cannot do that without enough solitude to find out who we are. Most of us need some time alone every day just to stay clear.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“We find a model for learning how to live in stories about heroism. The heroic quest is about saying yes to yourself and, in so doing, becoming more fully alive and more effective in the world. For the hero's journey is first about taking a journey to find the treasure of your true self, and then about returning home to give your gift to help transform the kingdom- and, in the process, your own life. The quest itself is replete with dangers and pitfalls, but if offers great rewards: the capacity to be successful in the world, knowledge of the mysteries of the human soul, the opportunity to find and express your unique gifts in the world, and to live in loving community with other people.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“No life, no matter how successful and exciting it might be, will make you happy if it is not really your life. And no life will make you miserable if it is genuinely your own.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“The hero's achievement, in short, is to affirm life.”
― Carol S. Pearson

“The language of the Soul is right-brain, metaphorical, narrative, and paradoxical, very unlike the left-brain, logical, discursive, dualistic language of the Ego.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“Healing can begin in any of the four centers of power and energy—body, heart, mind, and spirit—but in the modern world most healers work in only one area. However, our affect on the world is most magical when all four are in alignment.10 The great American Indian shaman Sun Bear emphasizes the need to strengthen our bodies by good nutrition and exercise; our emotions by being open and honoring our feelings; our minds by being tough-minded and rigorous in our thinking; and our spirits by connecting with our spiritual source. We can only connect with that spiritual source by finding the spiritual path that is our own.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“Until we are willing to give ourselves over to life, we always will be possessed by death.”
― Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“Our capacity to give away speaks to the universe of our willingness to receive.”
― Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“If you are not aware of the story pattern you are living, the story plays you.”
― Carol S. Pearson, What Stories Are You Living?

“Abandonment actually is quite facilitative at this stage. When Wanderers do not let another in, whether it is parent, lover, therapist, analyst, or teacher, it is important for that helper to pull away so that Wanderers can experience fully the aloneness they have created for their own growth. Otherwise, they will be diverted from recognizing their loneliness by fighting off the assaults of others against their walls.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“Men and women complement each other’s strengths well. However, when a male perspective dominates female ones, the world ends up living narratives that may be successful in some situations but simply cannot get us the results we want in others. For example, if we want peace, why do we keep telling war stories? Why don’t we turn to the half of the human race that has fostered other means of resolving conflict? Force can stop violent behaviors temporarily, but authentic sharing through story, which often has been nurtured by women, can move antagonists toward understanding one another and building the trust that leads to lasting peace. Similarly, in our politics, warlike competition prevails when candidates run for office, but to govern successfully, they need to utilize more feminine modes, reaching across the aisle to solve problems together. All of the major religions in the world instruct us to love one another as a road to a better collective and personal quality of life. Jesus repeated this decree over and over, in slightly different words: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34, NIV). “If you love me, feed my sheep” (adapted from John 21:17). And quoting the Torah, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:39, ASV). It was his major message. Rabbi Sefer Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidic Judaism, spoke to the deep roots of love in the Hebrew faith: “‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Why? Because every human being has a root in the Unity, and to reject the minutest particle of the Unity is to reject it all.”1 The sayings of Muhammad, selected and translated by the Sufi Kabir Helminski, include the very strong statement, “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another.”2 Rumi, the thirteenth-century Sufi mystic and poet, proclaimed, “It is Love that holds everything together.”3 The Buddha enjoined us to “radiate boundless love towards the entire world—above, below, and across—unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.”4 Loving-kindness remains a cardinal practice of modern Buddhism. In the Hindu tradition, love also is the religion’s central tenet. Swami Sivananda sums this up in these words: “Your duty is to treat everybody with love as a manifestation of the Lord.”5”
― Carol S. Pearson, Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within

“Of course, life does not always follow our scripts. We get feedback from what really happens; this sharpens our reality principle so that we can think things through more intelligently the next time. The point is, we live out some options and we imagine our way through others. In either case, we learn what we want, what we believe in, what our values are. We will never know who we are and what we want if we just stay in our old ruts. This is why we must wander a bit to grow.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“Evidenced in a capacity for denial so that you do not let yourself know what is really going on. You may be hurting yourself and others, but you will not acknowledge it. You may also be hurt, but you will repress that knowledge as well. Or, you believe what others say even when their perspective is directly counter to your own inner knowing.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“Paradoxically, it is in resolving what sometimes seems an intolerable opposition between parental or professional responsibilities and personal exploration that people often find out more fully who they are. They come to know themselves moment by moment by the decisions they make, trying to reconcile their care for others with their responsibility to themselves. Maturity comes with that curious mixture of taking responsibility for our prior choices while being as imaginative as possible in finding ways to continue our journeys.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“Идеята за доказване на героизма е свързана със схващането, че той е дефицитна стока и че съществува човешка йерархия. Когато разберем, че истинската задача не е да напрягаме сили, за да докажем способностите си, а да си позволим да бъдем такива, каквито сме, нещата изглеждат съвсем различно.”
― Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By

“Much of the appeal of dogma in religion is that it gives its followers rules to follow that rescue them from having to find out who they are and what they really think.”
― Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“Those who are hiding out in cowardice want company!”
― Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“Измисляме приказки за света и до голяма степен изживяваме техните сюжети. Какъв е животът ни, много зависи от сценария, който възприемаме съзнателно, или по-вероятно несъзнателно.”
― Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By

“Virtue often is used to camouflage cowardice.”
― Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By

“We need to ponder such events, ask to have their meaning revealed to us, and allow ourselves to recognize that we have been touched by the transpersonal world.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“The hero’s journey requires us to find our uniqueness. We simply cannot do that without enough solitude to find out who we are.”
― Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live By