Shadows Of The Heart: A Spirituality of the Negative Emotions

by James D. Whitehead

Shadows of the Heart explores the positive potential hidden in anger, guilt, shame, and depression. The book's key our bad feelings can be good news, alerting us to endangered values, alarming us to hopes under siege, and arming us for the tough tasks of change.
Filled with lively examples, the book demonstrates how negative emotions can lead to personal growth, spiritual development, and social transformation. Family wounds, cultural temptations, and religious malpractice make it difficult for us to plumb the meaning of our passions; breaking through these obstacles is part of spirituality's healing task.
In pursuit of such a spirituality, the authors draw on rich images of the Jewish-Christian heritage complemented by nuances from Chinese religious tradition. In so doing, they speak directly to the contemporary yearning for meaning, the hunger to make sense of our personal and shared lives. The result is a book that comforts, encourages and challenges.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 1994

Reviews

[Deborah-Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dated, but love the concept and new ways to look at things.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to reread this for a class and write a paper. It gave me a whole new perspective. I liked it better on the second read. "A different spiritual tradition sees the negative emotions as ambiguous rather than destructive. Anger and fear and guilt are necessary disturbances, part of commitment's cost. These emotions are not irrational impulses, but arousals and alarms that carry clues to our best aspirations. Admittedly volatile and dangerous, our emotions remain potential partners in our search for holiness and health." (p 14)

[Brother Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read parts of this book a few years ago for a training program I was in, and when it was assigned for a class I am in now, I was pleasantly surprised. This book discusses why our culture thinks of some emotions as "bad" and gives ways of utilizing these emotions through discussion and several examples.