The Inner Life The Inner Life: Fill & Download for Free

I found myself in a similar predicament many years ago. I had gotten everything I wanted, was newly married, and was actually quite miserable. It was perplexing.One night I found myself uncontrollably breaking down and it felt like an alien was taking over my body. It didn't make sense, or at least, I didn't think it did.What I realized from the experience was that I was denying something very essential and profound in my life, that I was very much wanting freedom in the cleanest, most spiritual sense of the word and I was very far away from it. I was bound up and tied up in knots internally.You see, it's your relationship to life that really matters, not the stuff that goes on in it as much.Your life can look fantastic by society's standards and yet you can be suffering because you are out of alignment with something deeper, more fundamental.It's the inner life that seems to direct our sense of health and well-being, rather than all of the outside achievements and trophies. If both are aligned, you will know it- every cell in your body will be dancing for joy. At least, this is my experience.When the inner and the outer align- for Ryan Phung

Being found guilty of the slightest crime in Japan would bring years of shame and disgrace to your family. Your friends would disown you. Conformity is a very big deal in Japan.Japanese learn the value of social conformity from the time they are born. Japanese companies virtually never have layoffs because employment is for life. Kids are taught to clean up after themselves. You seldom if ever see litter or graffiti in Japan. Shop owners sweep up the sidewalk and street in front of their shops every morning because who would shop in a store that has trash in front of it?Japan’s low crime rate has nothing to do with gun ownership, or threat of severe punishment. They just do a better job of teaching their kids social values than we do.

Narcissist often suffer from depression, what depresses them?Thanks for the A2A, Jeffrey.I would say it is the absence of an inner life. They are completely dependent upon supply in order to taste of the riches of the human soul. In the absence of supply, they experience their inner void, their soullessness, the meaninglessness of their existence.It is the inner life that imbues life with richness and makes it worthwhile. One can have limitless money to buy things, travel, and engage in exotic experiences. These things will not fill the inner human need for meaning.I recommend reading Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, for a deeper understanding of this human need. Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor.Viktor Frankl - WikipediaHis best-selling book Man's Search for Meaning (published under a different title in 1959: From Death-Camp to Existentialism, and originally published in 1946 as Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager, meaning Nevertheless, Say "Yes" to Life: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, and thus, a reason to continue living.The meaning of life is found within in the riches of the human soul--in empathy, in the ability to care deeply for others, and to care about ideals and principles, to care about that which has meaning. When I say "within," I mean within the soul, which one experiences in thought and feeling and doing. Doing can be as quiet as writing. It can even be as quiet as praying. Without this inner life, even the flashiest experiences will grow dull and fail to fulfill.Viktor Frankl writes about those inmates of Auschwitz who found meaning in their bleak existences, through rising above their suffering, and giving food and solace to their fellow inmates. Meaning can be found in the most abject of human circumstances, but it can not be found in the most glittering by narcissists sans human supply. They cannot supply their own inner life. They are disconnected from the spiritual source. They MUST have human supply from which they feed like vampires in order to avoid experiencing the great yawning emptiness within.