Psyche & Soul 49: Midlife V - DE-ILLUSIONING

 Psyche & Soul 49

Midlife – V

DE-ILLUSIONING 

JOSE PARAPPULLY SDB, PhD

Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-49-Psyche--Soul--105-e124ghn

  

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.

 

In this weekend’s edition I shall focus on an important midlife dynamic, namely, De-Illusioning.

It is quite likely that assessment of life, particularly of our dreams, can lead to de-illusioning – a shattering of our unrealistic and idealistic notion of life, our illusions. As we come to midlife we recognise that long held assumptions about self, others and the world are not really true. We recognise that many things that were taught to us as truth were actually lies.

At midlife we recognize that life does not move the way we would want it to, that there are things over which we do not have control, that people are not who we thought they would be, that we ourselves are not who we had thought we are.

We realise that we are not able to do what we want to, change what we would like to change. We recognise our limitations.

 As psychologist C. S. Pearson observes, “We are called to give up the illusion that we can force life to fit our scripts, that we can shape other people to match our expectations, or that we can make ourselves fit our own image of who we want to be” (The Hero Within, p. 118).

In the first half of life we are driven to pursue idealised dreams, the impossibly high goals and standards we set for ourselves, often as compensation for the powerlessness we experienced in childhood. We are lured by an immature mind to believe in fantasies of limitlessness, that we can achieve anything if only we try hard enough. This is a lie that is told to us often, and by many people around us. By midlife we may have tried very hard indeed, and we only experienced failure, may be again and again.

We realize that there is ugliness in the world. Our misconceptions about goodness of creation and goodness of people lead to rude shocks. We realize that evil can triumph over goodness no matter whatever our belief in a benign God and God’s control over everything.

As Annie Dillard, famous for her account of the lessons life had taught her when she spent time in seclusion in a wood by the side of a stream, wrote: “That something is everywhere and always amiss is part of the very stuff of creation.” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 184). Creation is indeed beautiful. However there are many ugly things in it we wish weren’t there. Unpleasant and tragic things happen. Often we can only be mute spectators - unable to do anything to make a difference. The relentless march of the coronavirus throwing our lives and our plans haywire is a telling example of this.

The keen observation of the lifelong explorer of the mythical landscape, Joseph Campbell, that we can spend decades climbing the ladder, only to realise later that the ladder was placed on the wrong wall expresses another aspect of de-illusioning. That is, we can with passion and doggedness pursue a goal which we eventually realize is unreachable or not worth pursuing. The wrong wall can be the dreams of our parents, and uncritically accepted social expectations, or a personal ambition or dream which at one time appeared glorious but now appears meaningless not worth pursuing.

The inevitable disappointments, failures and betrayals of hope, and shattered dreams eventually chip away the larger-than-life self-image built on the ambitions of youth and fantasies of unlimited success. By midlife we are forced to come down to earth from the clouds, adopt a more realistic view of self with all its fragility and limitations, and of the world with its brokenness and ugliness. We are forced to modify beliefs in the inherent goodness of humanity through a recognition and acceptance of the fact that goodness is often accompanied and even overcome by hate and destructive forces. Our trusted self-definitions, and long held assumptions about life collapse in the face of harsh realities of life. We are forced by our experience to de-illusion.

As psychologist James Hollis observes, “…the person in the second half of life is obliged to come to a more sober wisdom based on a humble sense of personal limitations and the inscrutability of the world” (Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, p. 85)

 An Example

An instructive example of de-illusioning is found in the Oscar award winning song “I dreamed a dream” from the musical Les Miserables. In the story there is a young woman, Fantine, who dreamed of a glorious life together with the young man with whom she had fallen in love. But things turned out very differently, as she laments at her death bed, “I dreamed a dream in days gone by, when hopes were high and life worth living. I dreamed that love would never die…. He slept one summer by my side, he filled my days with endless wonder. … But when autumn came he was gone.” The fruit of that summer of love and togetherness was a baby girl, Corsette, whom she had now to bring up as a single-mother.

Fantine takes up a job in a garment factory to earn her living. However, the foreman there was more interested in her body than in her work. When Fantine refused to oblige his lascivious desires, she was thrown out. She was literally on the street, working as a prostitute to feed herself and her little girl. Her miserable life ultimately took her young life. She fell sick. On her death bed she sang, “There are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms we cannot weather…I dreamed that my life would be so different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seems. … Now life has killed the dream… I dreamed.” Life can turn out very different from what we thought it would be. Recognition and acknowledgment of this reality is de-illusioning.

 Disillusioning can come in many guises. Each of us can recall our own version.

 Consequences

 The consequence of de-illusioning, on one hand, can be very negative. It can lead to resentment, anger bitterness and a loss of passion and enthusiasm. However it can be also very liberating. We can be liberated from the tyranny of lofty ambitions and unrealistic expectations. Recognition that we do not control the world, that frailty and flaws are part of the human condition, can make us more accepting and tolerant of these in ourselves and others, and become less self-righteous and more compassionate and forgiving toward self and others. This is one of the more positive growth experiences of midlife.

Reflection Exercise

·         Has de-illusioning been part of your midlife experience? If yes, in what way?

·         What are some of your illusions that have been shattered? How did they shatter?

·         What has been the consequence for you of such shattering? — Disappointment or liberation?

·         Are there still illusions you are holding on to? Which? What do you need to do about these? 

Prayer

A telling example of de-illusioning is found in Sacred Scripture. One of the saddest phrases in all of scripture for me is found in the story of the disillusioned disciples on the road to Emmaus. “We had hoped…” the two men tell the stranger who had joined their conversation (Luke, 24, 21). They had hoped that the Galilean would be the one to set Israel free from the tyranny of Rome. But their hopes were shattered on that depressing Friday afternoon when they saw him die on the cross. The story had ended. Their hope shattered. “We had hoped…. But….!”

We could read and stay with this passage for a while, and talk to Jesus who accompanies us on our own lonely journeys and listens to and talks to us as he did with the disillusioned disciples. We might gain some surprising insights when we do this.

 

May your weekend be happy and safe. Be blessed.

Thank you for listening/reading.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com 

 

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