Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path

by James Hollis

The embodiment of one’s vocation, the calling to be a person of value in the world, is arguably the chief task of the second half of life.

those who set themselves up in judgment of others are either naive, inflated or unconsciously possessed by a super-ego system.

if we truly knew the roots of each person’s experience, and if all behaviors flow “logically” from their springs, we would be able to forgive them.

I really do not have any idea what runs the universe, but I do know that compassion for others is the only thing which makes the bloody trip worth it.

The title of this chapter is the literal translation of the Greek word psychotherapy.

what psychotherapy seeks to address is the whole person, the sum of behaviors, thoughts, chemical process and more—the meaning of that person, the meaning of his or her suffering and the meaning of his or her journey.

When Jung suggested that neurosis is suffering which has not yet found its meaning, he clearly did not rule out suffering.

“Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness.”[90] Our goal is not happiness, which is evanescent and impossible to sustain; it is meaning which broadens us and carries us toward our destiny.

Taking back some control of our life, gaining a measure of autonomy in the face of the power of the environment, our fated familial and core complexes, and modestly creating a life—that is the goal of therapy.

I believe that a therapeutic relationship, periodically renewed in the course of one’s journey, is a profound opportunity for insight and growth.

Whatever is true to consciousness is compensated by its opposite in the unconscious.

Narcissism is frequently a consequence of insufficient mirroring in early life, which occasions a gaping hole in one’s sense of self.

This faith, or trust in the healing powers of the unconscious, can lead to healing through the process of self-reflection.

A proper course of therapy does not make us better adjusted; it makes us more eccentric, a unique individual who serves a larger project than that of the ego or collective norms.

Personality, or personhood as Jung might define it, is not found in adjustment to external expectations, but in serving one’s calling in the context of our environment.

We will be most nearly real when we serve our vocation. We will not be spared suffering, but we will be granted a deeply felt sense that our life is right, even when suffering isolation and rejection.

The sacrifice of collective acceptance, which individuation demands, is redeemed by our bringing a larger person back to the world, to our relationships and to our dialogue with mystery.

This is the critical question of the second half of life. What am I called to serve?

Ambition in youth is a necessary testing of one’s capacities; ambition in the older person stems from unresolved identity needs.

Growing up is ever more difficult because it requires letting go of old expectations of rescue and redemption. We are it; this is it; this is as good as it gets, and we better deal with it.

the ego’s fantasy of control and sovereignty is overthrown in favor of the lesser comfort of hope.

the incompleteness of our lives, the always unfinished journey, makes frustration and defeat inevitable.

The long view of history must be an expression of faith, tempered by realism and pragmatism rather than cynicism.

Jung observed in his autobiography that the attainment of worldly goals were meaningless unless one lived the symbolic life. Living the symbolic life means that one has a sense of participation in a divine drama, an intuited connection to the forces which move nature and stir the blood.

We may fear to know what we know, so its costliness persuades ego to seek a thousand evasions; thus we dissemble, procrastinate, project onto others.

what is wrong in my life is in me; what is repetitively wounding is in me; what is healing in my life is in me. As obvious as this may sound, in daily life such a recognition is as profound as it is difficult to achieve.

The imprinted imago of self and other which derives from earliest experience is deep-rooted and colors all subsequent relationships, especially intimate ones. Whenever we enter a new relationship, the present moment is flooded with the past.

But the urgency of the search for the magical other, the one who will take care of us, protect us, nurture us, spare us the rigors of our own journey, shows how fragile our condition really is.

In the second half of life, we are obliged to sort out the utility of relationship while simultaneously defining its limits.

The chief gift of relationship is the obligation to grow, which in turn serves the relationship by relieving it of the impossible demands of childhood.

What am I asking of the other that I ought to ask of myself?

Where do I need to grow up in order to allow the one I love to be who he or she is?

Where do I need to sustain, even suffer, ambiguity over the long haul, to allow the inherent truth of the relationship to emerge?

Laughter may provide some balance for all that grief.

all this time we thought life was tragic and awful, and so it is, but it is also comic and laughable.

We all have dwarfed energies, the acknowledgment and development of which will put immense resources at the disposal of conscious life.

when a man is in contact with his authentic vision, his anima or spiritual side is available to support the journey.

Depression is life pressed down.

Before we can begin to question our adaptation, we usually need to become miserable.

we are all and always in thrall to images, whether culturally imposed, complex-driven or consciously chosen.

The naiveté of youth must be replaced with a rich appreciation of the challenge.

The difficulties of creating a life are compounded by the power of the unconscious, early conditioning and the fragility of our consciousness and will.

It was not so much that he created his life, as that he allowed at last that life might create him, as the gods had intended.