Psyche & Soul 48: MIDLIFE. REASSESSMENT OF “DREAMS.”

 Psyche & Soul 48

 

MIDLIFE: REASSESSMENT OF “DREAMS.”

 

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com 

Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-48-Psyche--Soul--103-e11nn78

 

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand, with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

Part of the reappraisal that happens at midlife is looking closely at our “Dream.”  The dream is a vision we create for ourselves in our youth or early adulthood in regard to our future. The dream is a compelling inner picture of what we most deeply want our life to be and what we want to pursue or accomplish in life. It is something that inspires and motivates us and around which we organize our life energies.

According to Psychologist Daniel Levinson three things happen with the dream at midlife:

1.      Reappraising and modifying the idealised dream. Sometimes in our youth we create a dream that is far beyond our reach. A young man can, for example, dream, inspired by the feats of astronauts he watched on TV from his childhood days, that he is going to be an Astronaut.  After struggling to get admitted to training and training for a while, he may come to recognise he was pursuing an impossible dream, that this dream is far beyond his capabilities. He then has to assess what aspects of this dream he may be able to realize and then modify it to make it one that is more feasible.

2.      Recognising the tyranny of the dream. The question here is “Whose dream is it anyway?” It is quite possible that we are trying to live out our parents’ dream or that of some other significant person in our lives. Consciously or unconsciously we may have taken up a career or a vocation under overt or covert pressure. For example, the famous doctor wants his son to follow in his footsteps. Subtle and overt message may be communicated to his son that becoming a doctor would be the best choice for him. Even though being a doctor is not what the son is passionate about or the profession he is best suited for, he may acquiesce to please his father. Not a few priests and religious are living out the unrealized dreams of their parents through the vocation they have committed to.  If such is the case with us, then at midlife we will realize the burden of living out other people’s dreams and choose to live one of our own. We choose to follow our “soul’s” agenda, than conform to parental or other expectations. Consequently, quite a few of us may choose to break our current commitment, or abandon our career/profession and make a new one, as we attempt to pursue our own dreams.

3.      Creating a new dream. It is possible that even when the dream is our own, and a feasible one too, for a variety of reasons we may realise as we come to midlife that we have failed to realise it and there is now little chance of realising it. We must come to terms with the failure and arrive at a new set of choices around which to rebuild our life – create a new possible dream and pursue it.

Even when we have succeeded brilliantly in the pursuit of our cherished dream, at midlife we may question the meaning and value of our success. We may have a sense of contentment and the desire to live out the fruits of that success as we move to the sunset of our lives. It is also possible we may experience our success as quite meaningless at this period of our lives and choose to pursue new and more meaningful dreams.

Whether successful or not in the pursuit of our dreams, at midlife we need to sort things out, and consider the next steps on the journey.

In regard to the reappraisal of the Dream, Levinson recalled Elia Kazan’s novel The Arrangement which is about a man who at 40 begins a valiant struggle to regain his lost Dream or to kill himself, and James Baldwin’s (a famous Black American writer’s) review of that novel in his own early forties. Baldwin wrote:

Though we would like to live without regrets, and sometimes proudly insist that we have none, this is not really possible, if only because we are mortal. When more time stretches behind than stretches before one, some assessments, however reluctantly and incompletely, begin to be made. Between what one wishes to become and what one has become there is a momentous gap, which will now never be closed. And this gap seems to operate as one’s final margin, one’s last opportunity, for creation. And between the self as it is and the self as one sees it, there is also a distance, even harder to gauge. Some of us are compelled, around the middle of our lives, to make a study of this baffling geography, less in the hope of conquering these distances than in the determination that the distance shall not become any greater.  (The Seasons of a Man’s Life, 1978, p. 250)

Reflection and Prayer

 Look back over your life.

·         What were your “dreams”?  Who did you dream of becoming? And who have you become?

·         What did you dream of accomplishing? What have you accomplished?

·         Whose dream are you currently living – your own or someone else's? If someone else’s dream, what does your “soul” (your authentic self) want for you at this juncture in your life?

·         How do you feel about your dreams at this period in your life?

·         Do you need to modify your dream or create new dreams? If yes, which? In what way and why?

Having reflected on these questions, you could sit for a while in the presence of God who has your happiness very much at heart, and talk to your God about how you feel about your “dreams” at this juncture on your psychospiritual journey toward fullness of life.

What do you think might have been the adolescent dreams of Mary of Nazareth, and what happened to her dream when the unexpected happened, as we read in the story of the Annunciation? How would you have felt if you were in Mary’s situation? How do you think Mary would have felt as she reached mid-life and looked back over her life? It could be worthwhile to spend some time talking to her and listening to what she might have to say to you..

May your weekend journeying be happy and safe. Be blessed.

Thank you for listening/reading.

Pictures: Google Images

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com 

Psyche & Soul 47: MIDLIFE - TIME FOR REASSESSMENT

podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/1-2-Psyche--Soul--47-e1198r3

 

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand, with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

The emotional awareness of mortality that seeps into our consciousness at midlife has profound impact on our psyche and soul and on our way of being in the world.

First of all it leads to a changed sense of time. When we were young, time was quite elastic, infinite. We could stretch time to make place for all that we wanted to accomplish. We could dream of a hundred things to do, and we had the confidence we had enough time to accomplish all that. Not so now. Time is now experienced as finite, restricted. Focus shifts to the limited time-left-to-live, on how to live it more meaningfully.

We experience an urgency in terms of accomplishing something worthwhile. This is all the more true if we feel that our life so far has been not very meaningful or productive. As psychologist Roger Gold puts it: “Whatever we must do must be done now.” How we spend the limited time available to us becomes significant. University of Chicago psychology professor Bernice Neugarten observes: Neugarten (1968a) observes: “Both sexes, although men more than women, talked about the new difference in the way time is perceived. The awareness that time is finite is a particularly conspicuous feature of middle age.”

One consequence is the pressure to reassess life and its priorities.

 Assessment of Life and its Priorities

According to Neugarten, reassessment of self – reviewing the past and looking to the future – is the “prevailing theme” at mid-life.  Midlife forces us to look at where we are and how we came to be here. In this reassessment we take stock, noting where we are, what we have achieved, and how we feel about life in general. We look at our goals, dreams, career, values, beliefs, commitments and so on.

We ask ourselves: What have I done with my life? What has brought me to where I am? What has happened to my dreams? What do I want now? What is really important to me? How do I want to live out the rest of my life?

Developmental psychologist Daniel Levinson referred particularly to reassessment and modification that occurs in marriage during midlife. The same can be said of religious commitment as well. In their late thirties and early forties the married and the religious tend to address seriously commitment problems that they had previously ignored or only dimly acknowledged.

Both the married and those committed to religious life examine various forces that have been at work in their lives, how they have lived out their dreams and how all these have contributed to the current state of their commitment, and the level of satisfaction it provides them.

Both the married and the religious are likely to see their commitment very differently at midlife than when they first made it. They may come to the conclusion that marriage or religious life is not what they had expected it to be. Or that they may have committed themselves to marriage or religious life for all the wrong reasons. They may now conclude that there is little hope that their current commitment will bring them reward or satisfaction. They may, consequently, seek to relinquish their current commitment and bind themselves to a new one.

The reassessment of life and subsequent change of course is beautifully illustrated in the Akira Kurosawa film “Ikiru.” In the film a staid and aging bureaucrat who has been very hard on people, and who has spent his entire life looking through and stamping permission papers, and had done little to help people is diagnosed with cancer. He keeps the diagnosis a secret, but makes an evaluation of his life. He realises to his great dismay how he has wasted his life, and tries desperately to give it some significance by giving permission for a children’s park that he had held up for years and helps to construct it. He then dies with a happy song in his heart, sitting on a swing in that same park on a cold wintry night.

Reflection Exercise

Sit with the following questions and see what answers come into consciousness.

·         What have I done with my life so far?

·         What has brought me to where I am?

·         How do I really feel about the way I have lived so far?

·         What more do I want from life?

·         How do I want to live out the rest of my life?

 Prayer

There is an incident in the Gospel of John (Chapter 1, 35-38) where two disciples of John the Baptist behind Jesus as he passes by. Jesus notices someone following him looks bask, sees the two and asks them, “What do you want?”

 We could imagine Jesus asking us the same question. What answer would be give? We could imagine the response Jesus gives to our answer and then may be allow a fantasy conversation develop between him and us. … End the prayer thanking Jesus for spending time wit you and talking to you.

 

May your weekend journeying be happy and safe. Be blessed.

Thank you for listening.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com 

 

Psyche & Soul 46: MIDLIFE: EMOTIONAL AWARENESS OF MORTALITY

Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-46-Psyche--Soul--99-e10r7q4

In the last weekend’s podcast of Psyche & Soul I spoke of four kinds of journeys resulting from the quest for meaning and purpose in life. What triggers this quest for meaning and purpose that results in the journeying is what Elliott Jacques, the first to introduce the concept of midlife into psychological and social discourse, termed “emotional awareness of one’s mortality.”

What this phrase means is that we recognise, as never before, that we are going to die soon, that we have lived more years than we are going to live. When we were young, we knew we would die one day. But that did not really bother us. Why? Because death was far away on the horizon. It would be years before it would reach us. We had then what could be called an “intellectual” understanding. But when we reach the decade of the 40’s, or even in the late 30’s, we have an “emotional” awareness of our mortality. As Daniel Levinson pointed out in his study of men and women at midlife, we can feel in our bones, in our dreams, in the marrow of our being that we are going to die, that we do not have many more years to live. We have reached the top of the hill and now what is left is the way down.

 In Jacques’ words,

Death—at the conscious level—instead of being a general conception, or an event experienced in terms of the loss of someone else, becomes personal matter, one’s own death, one’s own real and actual mortality….the reality of one’s own death forces itself upon our attention and can no longer so readily be shelved. (1993, p. 214)

The awareness of the imminence of death is underscored by a realisation of losses and changes in our body, the reality of aging or dying parents or serious illness and death of friends. We experience a diminishment in our bodily and mental powers after 40. Our vision and hearing become less acute; we remember less well; we are prone to experience chronic aches and pains and may undergo serious illness and surgery. For men, decline of bodily powers is experienced dramatically in the loss of sexual potency. Women may be approaching menopause and the physical and hormonal changes leading to it can bring a profound sense of loss or ending. Though normal for the stage, these physical changes can sometimes be experienced as catastrophic.

 This emotional awareness of mortality is something that in most cases creeps upon us gradually. But sometimes it can be triggered by dramatic events. This was the experience of Fr. Douglas (name changed), a pastor at a parish in an area where violence was common. He had given himself selflessly to the people working in a parish where other priests had refused to go. He had believed that if he worked hard for the welfare of people, nothing bad would happen to him. He was mistaken. One night a group of people rushed into his room and shot at him point blank. He was badly wounded and collapsed to the floor. He was taken for dead and the assailants went away. Fr. Douglas, however, was alive and dragged himself into the bath room and hid himself for several hours dreading the assailants might come back and finish him off. When he felt safe to come out, he got in touch with his assistant and received medical attention and survived.

The incident affected Fr. Douglas profoundly. His consciousness was now filled with the intense awareness of his mortality and the fragility of life. This awareness very rapidly set in motion the other dynamics of midlife described so far and those that will be described later. 

We are today living through times where death is all around us. Many of us would have directly come face to face with the death of dear ones and friends. This would naturally intensify the emotional awareness of our own mortality and create a whole gamut of feelings.

The awareness of impending death can plunge us into an existential crisis. That crisis can lead to positive or negative outcome. The realization that we need to change can motivate us to transform ourselves in meaningful ways. But it can also discourage us. It may dawn on us that in the short time available to us before death strikes we will not be able to make our future better than the past. Thoughts such as “Can I really make my life more worthwhile in the remaining years? Am I now too old to make a fresh start?” can lead to pessimism and resignation or even self-destructive behaviour.

Such existential crisis can also result in a desperate attempt to push death back, or even to deny its inevitability. The compulsive attempts in many men and women reaching middle age to remain young, the hypochondriacal concerns over health and appearance, the emergence of sexual promiscuity in order to prove youth and potency, Elliott Jacques observes, are attempts at a race against time and which can result in impoverishment of emotional life and even character deterioration.

According to Roger Gould, another psychologist at the forefront of exploration of midlife, the “most malignant form” in which the fear of our impending death manifests is “in a sudden outburst of exaggerated symptoms: acute anxiety or self-destructive, dangerous behaviour.” Gould cited the example of a prominent writer who wrote about

a wild year in which a newfound obsession with cemeteries was paralleled by drunkenness, over-use of drugs, gambling, high speed drunken-driving and provocation of dangerous criminals. All of this began at his thirty-sixth year and has since disappeared: with a kind of frantic craziness, he was trying to overcome some existential terror. (Transformations, 1978, p. 229)

The Psalmist presents this emotional awareness of mortality in poetic and poignant words:

“O Lord, you have shown me my end,

how short is the length of my days.

Now I know how fleeting my life is.” (Ps. 39, 4)

For Introspection, Prayer and Journaling

·         Is “emotional awareness of mortality” part of your experience? If yes, how are you impacted by it?  Is the impact positive or negative? In what way?

·         Is the awareness creating any urge to bring about some changes in the way your journey on? If yes, what?

Jesus of Nazareth was often aware of his impending his death, even though he was only in his thirties, and often spoke of. We also know how that knowledge affected his life. We could follow his journey toward his death and stay open to whatever this evokes in us and talk to him about it.

Or just say in the presence of the Divinity (God/Goddess) we believe in and talk, if we feel the need, to talk to him or her about how we feel about whatever is evoked in us through the emotional awareness of our mortality.

We could also stay in the presence of the divinity we believe in with all that is evoked in us by the Covid deaths surrounding us and with which we are coming face-to-face.

We can also journal about these feelings. We can also do a drawing/painting to express our feelings. Both will provide us with insights as well as to give vent to our emotions.

May your weekend journeying be happy and safe. Be blessed.

Thank you for listening.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com 

 

Psyche & Soul 45: MIDLIFE JOURNEYING

 Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-45-Psyche--Soul--97-e10f9ip

 

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand, with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

This weekend I shall describe four kinds of journeys we undertake during the Midlife passage: Journey inward which includes a Journey into the past, and a journey outward which includes a journey into the future.

One of the most central dynamics of midlife is related to meaning and purpose. Even if our life had been very meaningful hitherto, as we approach midlife there can be an erosion in that meaningfulness causing a restlessness of soul.

A Time of Questioning

Midlife forces us to ask some radical questions about ourselves, the meaningfulness and direction of the life we lead. These questions are invitations to us to make better sense of our past and present and create new meaning and purpose for the future, so that we can live the second half of our lives more consciously, that is, the way our “soul,” meaning our deep authentic self, want us to live.

There are four kinds of questions we usually ask ourselves as midlife creeps upon us:

1. Who am I?

2. Whose am I?

3. What have I accomplished?

4. What do I feel about the way I have lived and now live?

The first question raises the issue of identity - the way I see myself; the second that of intimacy - my experience of love and close relationships; the third that of generativity - my fruitfulness in terms of contribution to society; and the last the issue of integrity – meaningfulness, contentment with my life as a whole.

                                                                        Midlife Journeying

The quest for meaning and direction, and the kind of questions we ask at midlife, lead to four kinds of midlife journeying.

Journey Inward

There is first of all a journey inward. This is a journey to be in touch with and accept ourselves in the context of the new awareness of self that midlife awakens in us.

By midlife we have experiences and insights that were not part of our lives or awareness earlier. As the poet Robert Frost wrote, “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.” For example, we begin to realise that we are not the kind of person we thought we were. We begin to experience new desires and needs that were not in our consciousness before, such as awakened or re-awakened sexuality and intimacy needs. We begin to recognize our limitations, frailties and vulnerabilities and that we have little control over many things in life. We accept and embrace ourselves with these new awareness and experiences.

Journey into the Past

This inward journey also includes a journey into the past in order to work through and reconcile with the unresolved issues—the “baggage” that we carry from earlier years. During midlife, traumas and conflicts that we had buried deep in the recesses of our psyche and soul begin to raise their heads seeking our attention. Our “Shadow” – all that we had rejected or repressed to conform to social expectations or to live up to an idealized self-image – breaks through our repression barrier and makes their presence felt. Journey into the past involves addressing these issues and working through these experiences and developing new perspectives on and attitudes toward our past.

Journeying into the past also involves paying attention to those aspects of our self that were undeveloped or underdeveloped and/or distorted by earlier choices and life situations. For example, we may have wanted to pursue an artistic or academic career, but our parents or our religious formators might have discouraged us, or certain situations prevented us from doing it. Or, we may have regrets about certain choices and decisions that affected our development and life goals negatively. Midlife invites us to revisit these issues and make peace with them.

Journey Outward

There is also a journey outward that invites us to relate to our environment differently and to be generative in new, more meaningful and satisfying ways. In the first half of life we might not have been able to follow our own dreams, for example. For a variety of reasons, we might have had to compromise on them and do what others wanted us to do. But by midlife, we may have grown tired of following other people’s dreams or directives and feel an inner urge to pursue our own, in the way we want. Rebellion against the restraints of the earlier years is quite common at this period of life. This discontent can lead some of us to make drastic changes in our lives. Many choose new careers and break commitments which might have been very meaningful earlier.

Part of this journey outward is addressing the issue of power and care differently than in the past. These issues are handled very differently by men and women in the first half of life. Men tend to focus more on gaining power and exercising authority and control. Women tend to focus on exercising care and developing and nurturing relationships. At midlife both men and women experience a shift in these orientations and priorities. This results in a desire to live our lives differently from the way we have done so far. As Psychologist Daniel Levinson observed, we "cannot go on as before, but need time to choose a new path or modify an old one."

Journey Into the future

The insights gained by the journey into the past and the new orientations and priorities resulting from the outward journey lead to  a journey into the future - planning how we want to live out the rest of our life, how we want to reorient it in terms of goals and dreams we create for ourselves at midlife. This consideration of how we want to live out the rest of our life is one of the crucial tasks of midlife.

The result of these four kinds of journeying – inward, into the past, outward, into the future - is a reworking of the narrow identity by which we had defined ourselves in the first half of life and creating a new self-identity and a new way of living and relating. These journeys bring about new priorities and new dreams, further transforming us into the kind of persons we are destined to be.

Introspection and Prayer

  Which of the four kinds of journeying mentioned have you been experiencing in recent years? How are you impacted by them?

·         Which of these journeys do you need to engage in a little more at this time in your life? Why?

Journeying is an important future of the content of Sacred Narratives. The Bible, for example, describes many famous journeys. We have the journey of Abraham from Haran to the Negeb (Genesis, 12, 1-9); journey  of the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land (Exodus 13, 17-14, 21); journey of the holy family from Bethlehem to Egypt (Mathew 2, 13-23; the journey of the disillusioned disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 42-13-35) and so on.

 You could read one of these stories (if you are not Christian, you can focus on journey stories from your own Sacred Narratives) and stay with what is evoked in you by them, and talk to God who accompanies you on your journeys about what is evoked, as well as about your own journeys, especially the journey ahead you are planning.

 May your weekend journeying be happy and safe. Be blessed.

Thank you for listening.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com 

 

 

Psyche & Soul 44: AWAKENING TO MIDLIFE

 Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-44-Psyche--Soul--95-evuotv

 

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand, with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

During the past few weekend podcasts I have been presenting on mental Health and illness. This week I begin a series of podcasts on the Midlife transition which has a profound impact on our lives. This weekend I focus on “Awakening to Midlife.”

 Midlife is a bridge between the first and second half of life. Midlife transition usually occurs roughly between 35 and 50, most commonly between the ages 40-45

 In a study by psychologist Sheila Murphy of 137 women between the ages of 30 and 60 who responded to questions on midlife transition, for example, 66 percent indicated that they were experiencing or had experienced such a transition. Sixty seven percent of these identified the 35-45 year bracket as the time of transition.

 However, as Bernice Neugarten, the University of Chicago professor who specialised in the study of older people observed, for many people chronological age is often not the marker for midlife. Rather, it is experienced more in terms of their positions in life – family, career - and the experiences they go through.

The period from the late 30’s to late 40’s is for most people the most fruitful and satisfying in terms of professional work and creativity. Midlife is a time when we are likely to feel we have reached the top of professional and personal accomplishment; accumulated prestige and expertise and feel quite good about ourselves and life in general. It is toward the end of this fruitful and personally and professionally satisfying period that the rumblings of a midlife transition makes itself felt.

A TIME OF QUESTIONING AND SELF-DOUBT

During midlife our sense of purpose and meaning which was strong earlier, slowly drains away. We wonder, “What’s happening to me? Why am I doing what I am doing? What’s my life about?” Another side of our personality suddenly asserts itself. We find ourselves doing things out of character. For example, we might have been have been a very kind and patient person. Now we get easily irritated and speak harshly. We might have enjoyed and been happy with whatever work or ministry we were doing. Now its charm and attraction disappear and we wonder, “Why do I stick on to this ‘thankless’/ ‘useless’ job?” We long for something different and more fulfilling. We feel an urge to try out new things.

Or, we may not have cared much for relationships in the past. Now we begin to search for one and wish we had a very close friend. New longings for closeness and intimacy are stirred in us. Those committed to a celibate lifestyle might begin to wonder how it would be to have a sexual experience, or to be married, be a father, mother—have a child.

Married persons may wonder if they made a mistake in marrying the person they did. They may begin to fantasise about what it would be like, if they had not married or had married someone else.

More often than not these questions do not pop into our mind suddenly. Instead these intimations of midlife unfold slowly, beginning with a vague sense of discontent and disillusion. We want more than what life is currently offering us. Our earlier interests weaken or disappear and others arise to take their place. There can be a slow withering of our earlier ambition or passion for life.

 However, the dynamics of midlife can also be ushered in suddenly and rather dramatically, especially in contexts where we experience a deep disappointment, loss or trauma. For example, an unexpected transfer, or discovery that we have cancer, or the sudden death of someone we love dearly can trigger the sudden onset of midlife transition.

A classic story of midlife discontent is that of Faust, the famous character created by the German writer Goethe. Coming to midlife, Faust finds that although he has mastered philosophy, medicine, and law thoroughly, he is fundamentally no wiser than a fool. He feels that in his pursuit of knowledge he has neglected to live life with passion, that he has wasted his youthful years. He yearns to regain his youth and passion, drink life to the full. At this juncture the devil in the disguise of a travelling salesman named Mephistopheles appears to him and promises to restore to him the passion of his youth, provided Faust sells his soul to him. Desperate, Faust agrees and makes a pact with the devil to salvage his wasted life.

For John Henry Newman, later Cardinal, and now a Blessed, midlife rumbling came at the height of his fame as an Oxford Scholar, as meaning and purpose disappeared and he floundered trying to make sense of his life and find new directions.  That experience led him to pen the words of his now famous poem, giving expression to his inner anguish as well as trust that there will be light at the end of the tunnel:

 Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom

Lead thou me on;

The night is dark, and I far from home,

Lead thou me on….

Lead Kindly Light is not just a poem, it is autobiography. In it Newman gives expression to his own anguish at the disappearance of meaning and direction in his own life, and the need for light to see clearly the new pathways he has to tread.

This experience of midlife as a profound crisis is dramatically captured in the autobiography of Buzz Aldrin, the second man, after Neil Armstrong, to walk on the moon. After achieving what he called “the most important goal of all,” Aldrin sank into depression. Going to the moon was the ultimate adventure and he had lived through its excitement. What more could he achieve now?  Nothing really.  He fell into what poets have described as “the melancholy of all things done!” His depression led to the break-up of his marriage and he got addicted to alcohol. He took anti-depressant medications, and sought help from psychotherapy. “My depression forced me, at the age of forty-one,” he wrote, “to stop and for the first time examine my life” This is what midlife does to us, whether it creeps upon us slowly or bursts upon us suddenly. It makes us stop in our tracks and examine our lives. 

Midlife is the call of the “soul” for the more of life, for finding new directions and new passion. There are a number of typical dynamics that accompany this crucial developmental passage. We shall explore these in the coming weekends.

Introspection & Prayer

What does the phrase midlife transition evoke in you? What do you understand by it?

Has any of the midlife experiences and dynamics presented in this podcast been part of your life? If yes, how did these impact you?

 

Jesus was 33 when he began his public ministry. We can say he was just entering midlife. It was a time of a transition for him, from being a simple carpenter at Nazareth to being the Messiah. What might have been his feelings and concerns during this transition? My be you could spend a few minutes sharing with him your own life transition experiences and ask him to share with you the wisdom he gained through his own experiences.

Have a pleasant week end. Be safe. Be healthy. Be blessed.

Thank you for listening/reading.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com