Copyright by C.T.B. Harris, Ph.D.
Published by SPES, Inc.
31 College Place, Suite D203
Asheville, NC 28801
Phone & Fax: (828) 251-9719

Introduction to the
Sacred Selfishness Workbook

Notes From the Journey

Manual For the Journey of Building a
Life of Substance: Beginning the Journey

Tools and Friends for the Journey

Embracing Unknown Forces Along the Way

Important Steps on the Journey:
Self-love and Self-forgiveness

More Steps on the Journey:
Awakening and Relationships

The Journey: Choosing Life

Opening the Door to Self-love
One Day at a Time

SACRED SELFISHNESS WORKBOOK
Bud Harris, Ph.D. with Gail Rogers, M.A.

INTRODUCTION

For as long as I can remember I have been a reader. Eventually, I realized that in some form to be a reader is to be a seeker. Once I owned being a seeker as my myth, I then began the quest of finding a vocation that would support it.

Through examining the life I had been living I hoped to figure out where my deepest interests, values and enthusiasms lie. Instead, I discovered my woundedness and that seeking involves the search for healing, finding freedom from old values, and perspectives, as a necessary preamble to finding what is authentic within myself. The other surprise that I encountered was that my authentic self is something that also wants to grow, change and evolve every day.

While therapy, analysis and professional training channeled much of my growth, journaling was the foundation of my transformation. Reflections and dreams were the other voice that moved me to view my life in new ways and more completely. Active imagination later became another life-changing and life-deepening experience. Essentially, I am an action-oriented person. But the side of me that is a seeker guided me to question life and reflect upon the experiences of my activities. By midlife, I considered journaling, dreamwork and dialoguing my spiritual practices.

When I suggest these practices to people many of them look at me as if thinking, "How am I going to find the time to do all of that?" My answer is twofold. First, it doesn’t take that much time once you’ve gotten the hang of it.

I spend maybe ten to fifteen minutes a day. This workbook is designed to help you become more skilled at these practices and naturally focused on the most important features of your experiences.

Secondly, these practices actually give me more time and energy. They help me work through and untie my emotional knots without draining myself in frustrating struggles. They help me stay in touch with what is valuable to me and free a continuous flow of creativity into my life. Their results remind me that I am part of life in a greater sense, that I have my own path and that when love is freed within I find a deep well whose source is beyond my understanding.

The book Sacred Selfishness is written to guide the reader from a conventional life into "a life of substance." It is a path I learned from Jung, other theorists, writers, and from my own experience. It is a path I’m passionate about because I’ve seen it change so many lives. This workbook is designed to help do just that––change your life for the better. The people I know who have followed these practices for a few minutes a day believe in miracles, because their lives have become more than they could have imagined.

The exercises in this workbook are quietly powerful. They bring clarity, hope and a renewed relationship to ourselves and to life. They are designed to stimulate, inspire and comfort. On some days they will challenge you. On other days they may help you experience the flow of love and creativity that supports life. There also may be days when life is turbulent and these exercises become an anchor helping you hold fast against the wind.

When I began the journey that I share in the opening pages of Sacred Selfishness, I was longing to feel more centered, balanced and sure of my vocation. As these longings were filled, I found that I continued to long for something else––a complete emotional relationship to life. Gradually, a daring thought emerged in my mind. Now I longed to be on fire with the love of life.

So I am passionate about what I’ve written in Sacred Selfishness and the path of this workbook designed to accompany it. I am passionate about helping you learn what self-forgiveness and self-love really mean, about truly loving life and being able to grasp the reality that it is through growing self-knowledge that you can have an experience of the Divine working in your lives.

When flying we are told to put the oxygen mask on our own faces before trying to help others. The life-affirming work in this guide is our effort to follow these instructions on a broader level. Jung’s whole point about individuation is that the world needs people who have come alive, who embrace risk and struggle to live, whose lives are a sacred task where holiness is passion and the way to the Divine is through self-knowledge.

This workbook is filled with reflections and exercises designed to help you on this path. A life being fully lived is creative, loving and difficult. I doubt that I can convey to you the feeling of the miraculous that you can learn to experience. But, I am inviting you to join me and find out for yourself what it means to live a life of substance.

Bud Harris
Asheville, North Carolina