THE MIDLIFE CRISIS
by Carole Turner – Psychotherapist - Altea
We hear a lot said about the "midlife crisis" but what exactly is it and why does there seem to be such disruption for many in the middle years of our lives? These middle years of our lives, when our children are grown up, and we are approaching our retirement with gloom or anticipation we often ask ourselves "Who am I apart from the roles that I have played. Roles such as parent, provider, spouse, home-maker etc?" This can be a very frightening or liberating question.
This period of time is an occasion to re-define and re-orientate the personality. So often, in order to survive, we have had to put on a mask, a mask that hides our true self from the world and ourselves. Basically the task is to take off this mask, to travel this part of your life with more meaning, before the inevitable appointment with old age and mortality. Those who do not, remain prisoners of childhood, however successful they may appear in outer life. This Middle Passage of life represents a wonderful though often painful opportunity to find our true sense of self.
For many coming to live in Spain may be a stab at trying to find liberation, inner peace, meaning and to make a new start, away from hustle and bustle of work, pressure, stress and commitments. However, what often happens after the "honeymoon period" has finished is that the person re-creates the same scenario that they originally fled from only to find that their conflicts are either the same or have multiplied.
The Self, that mysterious process within each of us, which summons us to ourselves, often expresses itself through symptoms - loss of energy, depression, sudden fits of rage and over-consumption. These symptoms often keep at bay the larger questions of identity and the meaning of life. However, when the symptoms wear off one must confess to powerlessness and loss of control.
These days, more than ever, we are confronted with the dark side of human nature each time we open a newspaper or watch the news. However, most of us want to deny the dark side of ourselves, our jealousy, envy, competitiveness, criticism, judgement of others, carelessness, mental laziness, cowardice, inordinate love of money and possessions to name but a few.
All of us have blind spots – tendencies and traits that we simply refuse to admit are ours, but we are quick to see faults in others. If you feel an overwhelming rage rising in you when a friend reproaches you about a fault, you can be fairly sure that this fault is an unconscious part of you and is often called our shadow. The shadow is the dark part of our personality that contains undesirable qualities and attributes, which we refuse to “own.” Facing and owning these attributes is a difficult and sometimes painful process, for although the shadow contains positive elements of the personality, it primarily consists of our inferiority –primitive, unaccepted and awkward aspects of our nature that we have rejected.
Part of the task of the midlife passage is to really know yourself and reclaim the parts of us that in the past were unconscious. Most of us when we look into a mirror we see only the reflection of ourselves as we choose to see it rather than as others see us. However, we are often amazed that other people are so ignorant of what is obvious to us. The same is true for our behaviour. One of the most effective ways for gaining insight into our personal shadow is to receive feedback from others as to how they perceive us.
Another way to know your inner self is to examine how and with whom we judge, criticise and undermine and to consider how and why it has such an effect on us. Most of us find it easy to criticise other people’s shortcomings and this is particularly prevalent in marital, family and close friend relationships. For example, are we too intolerant of other people’s frailties and behaviour because we have not accepted these frailties within ourselves?
Owning the shadow
The aim of meeting the “shadow” is to develop an ongoing relationship with it, and to expand our sense of self and by doing so it will help lead us back to our buried potentials. By doing so we can achieve:
- more genuine self-acceptance, based on a more complete knowledge of who we are
- defuse the negative emotions that erupt unexpectedly in our daily lives
- feel more free of guilt and shame associated with the negative feelings and actions
- recognise the judgements that colour our opinions of others
- heal our relationships through more honest self-examination and direct communication
- use our creative imagination via dreams, drawing, writing and rituals to own the disowned parts of ourselves.
What is right is wrong
We tend to view our physical and emotional problems as useless. We dislike what is wrong with us, be it a minor headache or upset stomach or a severe case of cancer or depression. We see little value in our illness. However, supposedly we can find some good in our ailments. In fact, what is wrong is usually absolutely right for us in the sense of carrying meaning or serving some unseen purpose. That there is something positive in our symptoms and problems can be fundamental to our growth and learning, even at the time it is not evident.
