The bestselling author of He and She reveals how understanding the Dionysian myth can restore balance, peace, and harmony to our world....

An exploration of the dark or hidden aspect of the persona--what it is, how it originates, how it is formed, and how it can be used to bring wholeness to the personality. Now in trade paperback....

The esteemed Jungian psychologist counsels on how to cope with feelings of failure or regret in the latter half of life and how to open to a more meaningful existence, even if outer circumstances cannot be changed.

In Living Your Unlived Life, the renowned therapist Robert A. Johnson, writing with longtime collaborator and fellow Jungian psychologist Jerry M. Ruhl, offers a simple but transformative premise: Our abandoned, unrealized, or underdeveloped talents, when they are not fully integrated into our lives, can become profoundly troublesome in midlife, leading us to depression, suddenly hating our spouses, our jobs, or even our lives. When our unlived lives are brought to consciousness, however, they can become the fuel that can propel us beyond our limitations—even if our outer circumstances cannot always be visibly altered....

The author of bestselling psychology classics He, She, and We, brings together teachings from medieval alchemy, Jungian psychology, early Christianity, and myth to explore projection, loneliness, fundamentalism, and the spiritual dimensions of psychology....

One of this century's most popular psychology scholars, Robert A.Johnson was among the first to present Carl Jung's rich but complex theories with simple elegance and grace,opening them to an entirely new and hungry audience. His masterful works--including the best selling He, She, Inner Work, and Owning Your Own Shadow-are known and loved as much for their beautiful retellings of timeless myths and folktales as for their deep wisdom and profound insight.

Balancing Heaven and Earth reveals, for the first time, Johnson's own fascinating and mystical life-from his near-death experience at the age of eleven to the lifelong soul journey that has informed his writing and taught him how to live a spiritual life in the endlessly challenging modern world. Full of compelling, humorous, and surprising stories of encounters with an assortment of "sages, saints, and sinners," it lays bare Johnson's own inner world and its dazzeling landscape of powerful dreams, mystical visions, and synchronistic events.

Beginnning with a vivid retelling of the childhood accident that claimed the lower part of his right leg, Johnson describes the life-defining moment when he was transported by a mystical vision to a realm that exists just beyond ordinary consciousness-a realm he calls the "Golden World." With this experience, described as "both my curse and my blessing," Johnson is launched on a spiritual quest that leads him in search of Eastern wisdom, to encounters with such wise men as J. Krishnamurti and D.T. Suzuki, and finally to Carl Jung, who shows him his destiny revealed in a dream. Johnson's experiences lead him to a unique understanding and acceptance of the slender connecting threads at work in all our lives, guiding us and shaping who we are-"call it fate, destiny, or the hand of God."

As much a personal guide as a memoir, Balancing Heaven and Earth teaches us to follow , as Johnson has, the subtle influences of dreams, visions, and even our deepest sufferings in order to live attuned to our spiritual selves. A pure delight for Johnson's many fans and a splendid example of his trademark blend of illustrative myth and psychological insight, this is a work of incomparable beauty and inspiration showcasing the wisdom of a lifetime....

In these chaotic times, lasting happiness can seem elusive. Acclaimed Jungian psychologist Robert A. Johnson and co-author and psychotherapist Jerry M. Ruhl offer a welcome respite from the media hype and rampant consumerism that do so little to advance happiness and so much to obscure it. Instead of relegating contentment to another time, a different place, a better circumstance (‘as soon as I finish this project/land that perfect job/find a new relationship’), the authors encourage us to successfully negotiate and embrace ‘what is’. Instructive and wise, this gentle guide contains all the tools we need – including illustrative stories, myths, and poems, along with practical exercises – to seize true contentment in the here and now....