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Running head: THE NATURE OF SELF AND FEELINGS 1

The Nature of Self and Feelings.

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THE NATURE OF FEELINGS AND SELF 2

Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 3

Section 1: Nature of self ........................................................................................................................ 3

People are born free but live as prisoners ....................................................................................... 3

People are spiritual ........................................................................................................................... 5

People are vulnerable. ...................................................................................................................... 6

Section 2: The nature of feelings .......................................................................................................... 8

Feelings are flexible ........................................................................................................................... 8

Feelings have survival functions ...................................................................................................... 8

Feelings are neutral ........................................................................................................................... 9

Feelings are contagious ................................................................................................................... 10

Feelings are controllable. ................................................................................................................ 11

Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 11

References ............................................................................................................................................. 12

THE NATURE OF FEELINGS AND SELF 3

Introduction

This essay is a critical reflection of two books- Hollis’s (1993) and (2013). Although

the books cover a range of topics, this analysis will focus on what the books teach about

oneself and feelings. The first book, Hollis (1993) derives from a talk delivered at

Philadelphia in the April of 1992. Pointedly, the book is about men’s suffering and healing.

According to the author’s preface, this topic was long overdue especially because men

undergo acute miseries. Twelve years before raising the subject, the population of men to

women was 9:1. By the time the author was raising the topic, the ratio was only 4:6.

Therefore, the topic needed to start without additional excuses. On the other hand, Hollis

(2013) is about hauntings. According to the book’s preface, the main focus was not ghosts.

Nevertheless, the author notes that the discussions about haunting cannot go without the

mention of ghosts. Indeed, ghosts are inseparable from ordinary lives. For better

understanding, the essay will divide into two sections. The first section is the nature of self

and whose main aim is to discuss what the books teach about the nature of humanity. The

second section, the nature of feelings will focus on what the author explains about feelings.

Section 1: Nature of self

People are born free but live as prisoners

One of the most essential lessons from the two books is that people are born with

complete freedom but later become prisoners of “norms.” Indeed, this is why Hollis (2013)

notes that man is born free but lives with chains that invade from all directions. According to

this author, humanity is born in the wholeness of germ and health, but once life starts to

happen, the wholeness begins to reduce. By this argument, Hollis (2013) reveals that society

is designed to minimize freedom by default.

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Hollis (1993) notes that one of the techniques used to cut freedom is the unwritten

requirement of persons to toil and support a society that already has an independent existence

system. Precisely, people socialise to help the family and social structures that are capable of

separate existence. For illustration, the author used the term “Saturnine shadow” to refer to

the burden imposed on men to sustain society. At a tender age, children enjoy relaxation and

exploration of the things they choose. However, aged men are used to headaches, heaviness,

fatigue and the ennui of the brain. Therefore, there must be an intervening period that turns

people to “slaves.”

As an example, Hollis (2013) explains that his father ended his education at the eighth

grade because his father’s business collapsed in the recession of 1929. After dropping from

school, the author’s father started to toil to support close relatives. As it would later emerge,

the author’s father would spend the rest of his life sacrificing his interest for the family. As

such, he worked at a tractor assembling line to support his family. Every Friday, for fifty-four

years, the father would show up with a paycheck that would pay or almost pay all outstanding

bills. As a result of the hard work, the family never went hungry.

The fact that people are chained to support further society surfaces after the author’s

father informed him that being a man meant to work for one’s dependents. If that is so,

personal interests are second to the fulfilment of the needs of a person’s family. Indeed, this

is the reason the author wanted his tomb to have the inscription “Here lies the one who could

be counted upon (Hollis, 2013, p. 14). At some point, the author shows readiness to die for

this inscription and legacy.

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People are spiritual

Hollis (2013) reveals that apart from being the physical being, human beings are also

spiritual. Indeed, this is the reason the author starts by stating that “there is always someone

haunting someone and another someone haunting that other someone” (Hollis, 2013, p. 1).

Although those who haunt people do not leave their identity, they seem to be known. Besides,

this is the reason why the author noted that if people could materialize their psychic life, they

would sum up to streams of internal energy. Therefore, the author recommended that people

should start thinking of self as an oasis of energy that continues to flow from inside to

outside.

The best illustration of self as spirits is available in Hollis’s (2013) where a friend of

Kafka served a god in which he did not believe. The author adds that just like Kafka, the rest

of us help spectral presences, primal complexes and ghostly dominations. At this level,

Hollis’s (2013) warns that the feelings of such a worship reduce people’s freedom. For

instance, people forced to submit at a shrine of prayer minimize the scope of life that they

would be otherwise enjoying.

For being spiritual, the Hollis (1993) and Hollis (2013) believe that suffering is an

experience that comes to people as a whole. As opposed to pain arising from sensory

functions of the body alone, it also stems from the experiences of a whole person with unique

historical and emotional experiences, fears, hopes, fears and family concerns. In other words,

suffering has ramifications beyond the immediate and visible causes such as physical injuries.

For this reason, Hollis’s (2013) argues that Kafka’s pain was as a result of the untold story of

his father together with the perversity of a parent’s problem. At some point, the author

wished to liberate Kafka from the suffering. However, the liberation was impossible since

Kafka was born to a haunted house whose father was a victim of the ghosts of his past.

Therefore, Hollis’s (2013) concluded that a child’s most significant burden is the unlived life

THE NATURE OF FEELINGS AND SELF 6

of their parents. In other words, in all situations where parents are stuck, children will be

equally stuck and will spend the rest of their lives confronting the situation.

Also, the author indicates that being a spiritual being causes secondary suffering to

self. For this reason, Hollis’s (2013) argued that emotional distress arises from grief, loss and

deprivation. However, there are alternative causes most of which are invisible to the ordinary

human being. For instance, a crisis causes primary suffering such as the loss of a person’s

house. However, secondary pain such as delusion follows in pure forms. For that reason, a

person’s spiritual connection to the future becomes destroyed due to insecurity and lack of

belonging.

People are vulnerable.

The nature of self as spiritual closely relates to their nature as vulnerable.

Definitively, vulnerability implies the possibility of sustaining adverse effects from external

forces such as curses, ghosts and negative memories. Between the two books, Hollis (2013)

offers the best illustration of how vulnerable people are to their pasts. Precisely, the author

always suffered hallucinations about war. Hollis (2013, p. 15) notes that the author would not

fall asleep due to the horrors of war that would befall him if he was appointed to war. Mostly,

the author followed the images of soldiers who were at war to be killed or kill. Sometimes,

lucky soldiers would return home after undergoing dangerous torture. Due to the

vulnerability of humanity, Hollis (1993) adds that people are born free but quickly become

programmed by societies. For instance, men accept the fact that the value of their lives only

depend on the extent to which they contribute to the upkeep of their families.

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At the same time, the vulnerability of humanity is visible from the story of Stephen

where his father spent his life tortured by the strife in his family (Hollis, 1993). Equally,

Stephen was tortured by the story of his parents’ strife from childhood to adulthood. Even

after sharing the story in poems, he failed to get complete freedom from his past. Besides,

Kafka is another illustration of humanity’s vulnerability. In particular, he lived miserably

with, loathed himself, suffered psychosomatic illnesses and sabotaged relationships with

women. According to Hollis (2013), the suffering was as a result of his overbearing father

whose life was also miserable.

Also, Hollis (2013) provides another illustration of humanity’s vulnerability by

detailing how a client broke down before him. In particular, the client was struggling to break

the “yolk” of her past where people determined her destiny. However, she was unable to

break the bondage since the effect had already reached so far. Moreover, the same author

narrates the misery of another client who lamented of the image of a dying parent.

Surprisingly, this client remained affected despite being a therapist in the profession.

Another illustration of the vulnerable nature of humanity is available from the fact

that the author’s father constantly felt insufficient despite making contributions to the upkeep

of his family. For instance, he always feared that his family would go hungry despite him

being able to pay for their maintenance for fifty years. At the same time, the author’s father

feared that his children would hate him for not spending enough time with them as children.

For concluding on humanity’s vulnerability, Holiis (2013) notes that when people

reside for long enough in toxic environments, the toxicity becomes embedded to the extent of

becoming unresolvable. As such, people are only left with the choice of battling with the

flush of this toxicity from time to time.

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Section 2: The nature of feelings

Feelings are flexible

Apart from teaching the nature of self, Hollis (2013) and Hollis (1993) explain that

feelings are flexible regardless of whether the changes are voluntary or involuntary. Indeed,

the flexible nature of emotions is the reason why Hollis (1993) argues that children are born

free but are later changed by the society on which they depend for survival. Slowly, people

adapt to suit to the communities in which they live. Eventually, the “original person” is

suppressed to silence.

In an illustration, the author indicates that a child lies out in the grass looking at the

starts to wonder what comprises the universe. During this time, children have feelings of

happiness and relaxation. However, the feelings change to heaviness, fatigue and suffering by

adulthood. Another example used by Hollis (1993) to show the flexibility of emotions is

about his father who could laugh, joke or whistle. In other instances, the author’s father

whistled even when life was complicated. During such times, the purpose of whistling was to

flex the feelings by invoking happiness and relaxation. Usually, the nature of feelings as

flexible is the reason that people survived despite difficult situations. For instance, soldiers

feeling sadness during wars would invoke happiness by sending letters to families and

remembering the moral standards that come with sacrificing for one’s country.

Feelings have survival functions

The two books reviewed in this study also reveal that feelings have survival functions.

For this reason, Hollis (2013) argues that people have automatic coping devices that protect

them from external adversity regardless of how overwhelming the forces may be. For

example, people automatically deny or accept stories depending on their nature. If the story is

appealing, the audience associates with it but when it is damaging, the audience denies it

altogether. Sometimes, people seek others to be their rescuers or victims depending on the

THE NATURE OF FEELINGS AND SELF 9

need of survival at hand. Other times, people repress stories that do not excite them. When

people expose our shadows in ways that are hurtful to our egos, the immediate reactions

entail denial and dissociations. For these reasons, Hollis (2013) argued that the human psyche

is complex to the extent that it is understandable in wholeness.

Feelings are neutral

The neutral character of feelings implies that for every feeling causing negative

experiences, there arises another to counter the experience. For this reason, suffering appears

as an inevitable experience of human life as opposed to being as a result of psychopathology.

For instance, rather than depression as a disorder, it is viewable as a spiritual point where it is

necessary for specified situations.

The necessity of suffering is shown by Hollis (2013) as the starting point of

neutralizing feelings. For instance, the author narrates the case of a man who suffered in war

but returned home as a proud patriot. On the one side, he showed feelings of unhappiness due

to the suffering encountered in war while on the other, he was happy due to the emotional

satisfaction derived from fighting for one’s country. For illustrating the pain of war, the

author used terms like “tearful goodbyes, obvious anxiety, and blackout curtains.” On the

side of happiness, he explained the case of a young man who left his country at only the age

of twenty-four but returned as an aged individual whose head filled with white-grey hair.

Also, he told the story of a family which received a postcard from their son who was at war

reading that his tongue had been cut out. Regardless of whether the stories were true or not,

Hollis (2013) believed that going to war stirred happiness by allowing people to live for

purposes what were more excellent than themselves. For this reason, Hollis (2013) records

living his early life as an aspiring soldier ready to go out and fight for his country.

THE NATURE OF FEELINGS AND SELF 10

The best illustration of feelings as neutral is available in Hollis (1993). At one point,

the author tried to control feelings of desperation by observing his father who seemed to be

strong. By observing his father’s strength, the son thought that senior men were immune from

pain or he had been taught to overcome pain. As such, the author envied to have that type off

control over feelings. Indeed, the author hoped that someday, the elders would take him

“aside” and teach him how to be immune to pain. Up to this day, the author complains that he

has not learned any immunity against pain. Presently, the author knows that the elders did not

know what it meant to be a “man” and nobody had taken them aside to learn pain immunity.

Instead, they had just learned to manipulate feelings to overcome pain.

Feelings are contagious

The fact that feelings are contagious is explicit from the start to the end of this

discussion. One of the factors that enable feelings to be contagious is the transfer of beliefs

and feelings from parents to children. The best illustration of how feelings are contagious is

about how Hollis (1993) learnt to work for his family from his father who supported them for

fifty years producing a pay check at the end of every week. Even at adulthood, the author still

believed that a man is meant to suffer for his family. For this reason, he did not blame his

father for failing to spend time with the family.

Another illustration of how feelings were contagious is about how Hollis (1993) learnt

the feeling of courage from soldiers by listening to the radio and stories on how soldiers

received accolades for sacrificing own lives to safeguard the country. For instance, Hollis

(1993, P. 14) notes that big folks gathered around the table to hear wars ranging between

Europe and South Pacific. By listening to the stories of soldiers at war, everyone developed

the courage to represent the nation. For reinforcing the contagious nature of feelings, the

author notes that as a boy, he was far from the battlefield. However, fear would spread to the

furthest villages.

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Feelings are controllable.

Another characteristic of feelings revealed in the study is that people can control

emotions depending on the desired outcome. For instance, Stephen concealed the stories of

his childhood until later when he started to tell them in poems. As a child, he identified the

tension between his parents but struggled to normalize the abnormal. At the age of sixteen,

the source of tension between the parents was explained to him by his father. In the narration,

the father sent the family’s savings to save his father in law who wanted to pay for healthcare

for his mistress. Knowing that his wife would be angry about it, the author’s father lied that

he had lost the savings. For a long time, the author resolved to conceal the story until long

after the onset of his adulthood.

Conclusions

In conclusion, Hollis’s (1993) and (2013) are useful books in studying the nature of

humanity and feelings. First, these materials indicate that humanity has a great responsibility

for their own life. In other words, people are born free but later select and accept burdens that

pressure them for a lifetime. Also, people are spiritual and vulnerable. On the other hand,

feelings are flexible. The fact that feelings are flexible closely relates to the fact that people

have great responsibility over the quality of their lives. Other characteristics of emotions

raised by Hollis’s (1993) and (2013) include- (1) feelings are necessary survival tools, (2)

neutral, (3) contagious and (4) controllable.

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References

Hollis, J. (1993). Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men (Studies in

Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts; 63). New York City: Inner City Press.

Hollis, J. (2013). Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives. North Carolina:

Chiron Publications.

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