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Midlife: Crisis or Opportunity

Midlife: Crisis or Opportunity. Kathleen Brehony, Ph.D. 1. What is Midlife? 2. Why Midlife can be dangerous and difficult? 3. How to use Midlife for Self-Growth . There are lots of us in Midlife…. 81 Million Americans between the ages of 35-55.

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Midlife: Crisis or Opportunity

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  1. Midlife: Crisis or Opportunity Kathleen Brehony, Ph.D.

  2. 1. What is Midlife? 2. Why Midlife can be dangerous and difficult? 3. How to use Midlife for Self-Growth.

  3. There are lots of us in Midlife… 81 Million Americans between the ages of 35-55. 10,000 Americans turn 50 every day (one every 10 seconds)

  4. Midlife is a specific developmental period of life.

  5. Life as a Teleological Process

  6. How we get off track… We are born whole but quickly become shaped by family, religion, culture, gender role, etc. etc. etc.

  7. Midlife Gives Us Wake-Up Calls • Physical • Psychological • Emotional • Relational • Professional • Spiritual

  8. Sometimes Midlife is a Crisis… “Danger” and “Opportunity”

  9. Sometimes you just hear Peggy Lee singing… Is that all there is, my friend? Is that all there is?

  10. Midlife Demands: A Change in Consciousness Consciousness is Awareness and Self-knowledge

  11. Major Illusion: Things Don’t Change Most of us grow when life pushes us to do so You know what I’m going to do this weekend, honey? I’m going to grow. What the hell is he talking about??!!

  12. Knowing an Underlying Secret

  13. The Answer

  14. An Underlying Secret of Mathematics “The Rules of 9” Rule #1: When any number is multiplied by nine, if the individual digits in the resulting product are added together, they will ALWAYS total nine as long as you keep summing the digits produced at each step until you get a one-digit number. That Number will ALWAYS be 9.

  15. The Underlying Secrets of Midlife • Realization: Life is half-over • We recognize our mortality in a new way. • Life as we have known it is now over. • A major change in consciousness. • Losses and change initiate a path to a new sense of meaning and greater passion.

  16. The ego has believed that everything revolves around it. Wrong! Ego The Self

  17. At Midlife, the Self is asking – “When will you get around to me?”

  18. In the first half of life, we devote our psychological resources to developing the persona.

  19. The Shadow Knows…

  20. How to know your Shadow… Make a list of every adjective that describes you, then write down its opposite. This is what is demanding to be acknowledged. Important hint: Find the Middle Way

  21. Repressed Shadow Material Can Explode Out Like a Dam Bursting

  22. In our culture we tend to discount the inner life but that doesn’t make it any less real. Unconscious versus Conscious Midlife Passages

  23. We don’t like to think about or talk about the losses associated with Midlife

  24. Poised for the Hero’s Journey “We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.” -- Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

  25. Stages of the Hero’s Journey The Call The Separation The Adventure The Return (Hero is ALWAYS changed)

  26. The Agony of the Chrysalis

  27. The Alchemical Metaphor “We are born to be awake, not to be asleep!” -- Paracelsus, 16th Century Swiss Alchemist

  28. Stages in Alchemical Transformation • Nigredo: “The Blackening” • Albedo: “The Whitening” • Rubedo: “The Reddening”

  29. The Vitality of Transformation • Like the Buddha WAKING UP • Realize the values of the first half of life are not sufficient for the second half • Change in philosophy and worldview • Psychological and spiritual maturity • Coming to our senses • Live differently – with greater joy, meaning, and passion

  30. Rowing & Flowing: The Sailboat Metaphor

  31. To be Conscious is to be AWAKE! I’m AWAKE!

  32. Seeing Ourselves Differently Schopenhauer - Embroidery Michelangelo – It was already inside you.

  33. What do we do with this new-found insight? Stay just as we are? Move to Tahiti as Gaugin did? Um, are you sure you don’t want to call your wife and kids?

  34. The Journey is frightening and we have a natural desire to get over it! JUST DO IT!!!!!!!

  35. Holding the Tension of the Opposites

  36. Tools for the Journey

  37. Dreamwork

  38. Containers

  39. Meditation, Prayer, Silence

  40. Creative Expression

  41. Physical Body

  42. Stay in the Present “Stay here, quivering with each moment, like a drop of mercury.” -- Rumi

  43. On Tigers and Goats

  44. Late Bloomers & Don’t Die Guessing

  45. Thank You and Godspeed on Your Journey Kelly www.fullpotentialliving.com252-473-4004 Kathleen and Co-author Dorothy

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