The Unclad Soul

Care of the Soul Don’t ignore or repress your complexes, instead try to befriend them By Thomas Moore 2016 March/April Issue: Spirituality & Health When it comes to dieting, my willpower buckles when I’m faced with mashed potatoes and gravy. I may have just read a book on eating only green veggies, and I’ve resolved to go the Spartan route, but I can’t pass up the basic food that I associate with my mother and grandmother and cozy dinners with beloved family members in my childhood. It probably doesn’t help that I left home at an early age for a boarding school. My diet problem is not so much that I lack the willpower but that my “Warm Irish-American Family” complex is so strong and deeply planted in me. A psychological complex is a set of emotions, memories, anxieties, desires, and habits focused around a theme—my need for family comfort, for example—that urges a person in a certain direction that may or may not fit his or her conscious and rational purposes. For ...