Fred Leland

“Reflection is a process whereby we examine the past to learn from our actions and behaviors. It provides an opportunity to view ourselves as the subject, removed from the immediacy of the moment, and pick apart our thoughts about our previous decisions, actions, and behaviors. In an ongoing conscious transaction with the past, reflective thought involves contemplating both into the past and into the future to determine if past experiences and perceptions align with current reality and future desires.”
― Joe Byerly, My Green Notebook: "Know Thyself" Before Changing Jobs

“The false self is looking for fame, power, wealth, and prestige. The unconscious is very powerful until the divine light of the Holy Spirit penetrates to its depths and reveals its dynamics. Here is where the great teaching of the dark nights of St. John of the Cross corresponds to depth psychology, only the work of the Holy Spirit goes far deeper. Instead of trying to free us from what interferes with our ordinary human life, the Spirit calls us to transformation of our inmost being, and indeed of all our faculties, into the divine way of being and acting.”
― Thomas Keating, The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation

“How should we handle these afflictive emotions? By facing them, by feeling them. Feelings that have been repressed have to be allowed to pass through our awareness once again in order to be left behind for good. Most of the time, they don’t need psychotherapy; they just need to be evacuated. We might say that we are suffering from acute psychic indigestion, a nausea of a psychological character that is interfering with our mental health and all our relationships.”
― Thomas Keating, The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation

“Contemplative prayer is a deepening of faith that moves beyond thoughts and concepts. One just listens to God, open and receptive to the divine presence in one’s inmost being as its source. One listens not with a view to hearing something, but with a view to becoming aware of the obstacles to one’s friendship with God.”
― Thomas Keating, The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation