Midlife: Crisis or Opportunity Kathleen Brehony, Ph.D.
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Transcript of 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.
10,000 Americans turn 50 every day (one every 10 seconds)
How we get off track…
We are born whole but quickly become shaped by family, religion, culture, gender role, etc. etc. etc.
Major Illusion: Things Don’t Change
Most of us grow when life pushes us to do soYou know what I’m going
to do this weekend, honey? I’m going to grow. What the
hell is he talking
about??!!
Knowing an Underlying Secret
1. Select a number between 1 and 10.
2. Multiply your number by 9.
3. If you now have a two-digit number, add them together.
4. Think of your number and subtract 5 from it.
5. Imagine that your number can be translated into a letter of the alphabet, where 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, 4=D, and so on.
6. Think of the name of a country that begins with your letter.
7. Take the last letter of your country’s name and think of the name of an animal that begins with that letter.
8. You should now have the name of both a country and an animal.
There are no Kangaroos or Koalas in Denmark!
Nor are there Cobras or Cats in the Dominican Republic.
There are no Kangaroos or Koalas in Denmark!
Nor are there Cobras or Cats in the Dominican Republic.
The Answer
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.
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.
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
In our culture we tend to discount the inner life but
that doesn’t make it any less real.
Unconscious versus Conscious Midlife Passages
“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
Poised for the Hero’s Journey
The Call
The Separation
The Adventure
The Return (Hero is ALWAYS changed)
Stages of the Hero’s Journey
The Alchemical Metaphor
“We are born to be awake, not to be
asleep!”
-- Paracelsus, 16th Century Swiss Alchemist
Nigredo: “The Blackening”
Albedo: “The Whitening”
Rubedo: “The Reddening”
Stages in Alchemical Transformation
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
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?