Apocalypse: Life On The Other Side of Over

By Kevin Rhodes

Tapping insights from Jungian psychology and the author’s personal study, reflection, and experience, this book illuminates the process of “traumatic transformation” through a “personal Apocalypse,” exploring how we can re-create ourselves and rebuild our lives when health problems, financial ruin, business failure, natural disasters, and other catastrophes strike.

This book is not about Apocalypse as we usually think of it -- no “Doomsday, the Last Judgment... a Gigantic Worldwide End of the Line Event where the seas boil, the sky turns black, the Earth opens up and swallows New York, a billion galaxies collide, and lots of other great special effects happen all at once... No Armageddon, no End Times, no Rapture or Tribulation, no predictions or prophecies, no war of sticks and stones, no aliens... nothing you could sell to TV or make a movie out of, or a dystopian novel. Or a sermon.”

Instead, it’s about “our lives when death, disease, accidents, injuries, relationship breakup, financial ruin, business failure, performance failure, failure generally, public embarrassment, guilt, shame, betrayal, war, attack, flood, famine, natural disaster... make your own list and include on it whatever kind of catastrophe you can think of that happens to people but wasn’t ever supposed to happen to you... and now it has. That’s the kind of Apocalypse we’re talking about here.”

This book offers an experiential framework for extreme personal transformation, Apocalyptic style: starting with the initial catastrophe and continuing through the four phases of the Jungian Apocalyptic Archetype and a visit from the Book of Revelation’s Four Horsemen, and all the way out the other side, to a new sense of self and a new life to match.

Although backed by research and scholarly inquiry, this book is written in the author’s characteristic clear and conversational style, without stuffy language or citations to research, experts, and other people’s stories. This book is not an analysis of transformation, it’s here to walk with you through your own experience of the transformational process. Instead of theory, it offers experiential guidelines based on the predictable phases of Apocalyptic transformation, and invites you to use them to make sense of your own transformational journey.

This book caps the author’s “Inner Game of Being Human” series. It’s short (less than 50 pages of text), vibrantly written, and rich with meaning -- a compelling, engaging, and often entertaining read, a book you can return to now and again as you move through your own process of traumatic transformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin Rhodes
• Release date: May 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311422651

Kevin Rhodes

Kevin Rhodes left a successful law practice to start a creative venture, and got way more than he bargained for: it became a powerful (and often traumatic) time of personal transformation. Now, when he’s not working out, he writes, blogs, and conducts interactive workshops on the topic of personal growth and transformation.

Book preview

APOCALYPSE

Life On The Other Side Of Over

Kevin Rhodes

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 and 2017 Kevin Rhodes

First published 2016

Revised 2017

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

ALSO BY KEVIN RHODES

Life Beyond Reason: A Memoir of Mania

Not This Day! Special Features

(with co-author Gillian Rhodes)

Running For My Life: When Impossible is the Only Option

Ethos

Law, Enlightenment, and Other States of Mind

Cyborg Lawyers

Tell Me A Story: 104 Short Stories in 52 Weeks

(with co-author Gillian Rhodes)

CONTENTS

BEGINNING

Apocalypse All Over

Traumatic Transformation

Over

The Other Side

A Terrible Kind of Hope

Creating From Nothing

Archetypes

The Apocalypse Archetype

Our Guides

THE FOUR PHASES OF APOCALYPSE

The Four Phases

Revelation

Judgment

Destruction

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE

The Four Horsemen

Conquest

War

Famine

Death

THE FOURTH PHASE: NEW BEGINNING

Rebirth and New Truth

A New Heaven and a New Earth

The End of Ego

Life Beyond Our Story

Last Gifts

The End, The Beginning

Resources

About The Author

Apocalypse All Over

Somebody says apocalypse and we think Doomsday, Armageddon. the End Times, the Last Judgment… The seas boil, the sky turns black, the Earth opens up and swallows New York, a billion galaxies collide, and lots of other great special effects happen all at once. It’s the end of everything for everyone -- except the unfortunate few who manage to survive.

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the survivors’ life in his 1651 book Leviathan. He said if the human race should find itself without the organizing structures and institutions that hold civilization together, we would revert to a default state where life is solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short. Destroy the world, and all our societal support systems go with it. Without them in place, we’re catapulted into Lord of the Flies, left without bearings or context, nothing to steady the chaotic swirl of possibilities, all of them dreadful.

Today’s apocalypse books, TV shows, and films dish up all of that, and we sit back and enjoy the show. The human race is infatuated with apocalypse these days -- so much that some Jungian theorists think we might bring about our own end by activating the Apocalyptic Archetype that resides in the collective human unconsciousness. (Thanks a lot, guys!)

That’s not the kind of apocalypse this book is about. There are no predictions or prophecies, no war of sticks and stones, no aliens -- nothing you could sell to TV or make into a movie, dystopian novel, or sermon. Instead, we’re talking about personal apocalypse -- disasters that strike people like you and me in the ordinary course of human life: death, disease, accident, injuries, relationship breakup, financial ruin, business failure, public embarrassment, guilt, shame, betrayal, war, attack, flood, famine, natural disaster -- the things that happen to other people but somehow we’re exempt.

Until we’re not.

Sometimes we bring it on ourselves. We just flat out screw up. We have the best intentions but things don’t work out. Or we get sick of our lives of quiet desperation, inspired to do something big and bold and meaningful, dare to chase a dream, pursue a passion, launch a Big Idea --

Reviews for Apocalypse

[d-fbuser-557140769 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book! Very well written and very insightful. Glad I read it