According to Craig Nakken, author of the best-selling book The Addictive Personality, humans are an interesting mix of instinct (animal) and spirit. The instinct side looks after our needs for food, safety, and sex but if not held in check it can develop into an out of control ego, an entity primarily focused only on getting its own needs and appetites fulfilled. Alternatively, our spiritual side is the side that drives our moral compass seeks to connect with and live by positive Spiritual Principles. The natural tension between these forces demands that we struggle on a regular basis and it is this struggle and its outcome that will demand what type of person we will be and what our relationship with the Divine will look like. By the Divine, Nakken simply means our collective sense of decency and morality that lives deep inside most of us.
Nakken outlines 41 positive spiritual principles and their negative spiritual counterparts. Nakken presents his ideas of how the positive and negative principles work against each other and how we can create more fulfilling lives by harnessing and balancing the powers of both to create a new spiritual harmony. He explains that although our most basic, primitive impulses are important, in civilized societies they can isolate us from others; cultivate cynicism and bitterness; and are more indicative of fear and insecurity than they are of strong living. Nakken’s theory suggests that we can make choices to experience openness, fairness, and wisdom instead of living in judgement, unfairness, and a reluctance to learn and grow.
Through the exercises provided throughout the book, we learn to obtain a deeper level of connection in our relationships, with more integrity and ethical power. According to Nakken, this new level of consciousness is much greater than any power we think we gain from material acquisitions or careers that draw us away from our families and friends.
Hazelden Publishing – approx $14.95 – 978-1592858705
