Unlearning

"We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening become a lie.”  ~Carl Jung

Families and couples are divided in their experience of the shifts that are taking place in the world and in our collective unconscious. Until four years ago, I was a part of a marriage where this was the observation made regularly of me and ultimately resulted in me ending it. “You’ve changed”, was my partner’s complaint.  The very growth that had come from the years of wisdom I had acquired through the illness and death of my parents, the healing from hundreds of hours in a therapist’s chair, and the pains and glory from the challenges of raising children was the thing that he feared about me.  And perhaps rightly so, for the more I shifted and changed my mind about previously held ideas, the more the distance grew from the person I used to be. And consequently from the person I had promised to love for the rest of life when I was twenty two years old.

My couples ask, “Can we grow and change while staying together as families, couples, and communities?”  Absolutely, yes, and it is challenging and requires a curiosity and an openness that terrifies many who want to hold onto the way it has always been.  Change is the only constant and those who seem to fare better through it are the ones who see life like a quilt that is never completed;  the old cloth and material will always be there alongside the new that is constantly being introduced. We cannot cling to the old way with clenched fists.  It can be honored and woven into the tapestry while accepting the new threads and colors.  

The art of our lives is constantly shifting and evolving, transcending what it was previously while including each part.  We allow growth within ourselves when we do not banish our inner children and younger selves with their worn out and dated ideas, but allow those parts to be lovingly included even as we evolve. It’s more expansive, less contracted. When we generously allow our partners to shift, it creates a safety that can strengthen the bond between us.

In my therapy room I work with clients who are doing this “second half of life work” to “unlearn” many of the things that served us well as we built our ego structures, careers and families.  These things served as life preservers for us, and our very survival depended on them.  However, as we mature, we become aware that the very things that might have saved our lives when we were younger are now the things that are squeezing the life out and suffocating us. And thus the great unlearning and unbecoming begins.  Through this, may we abide with one another and allow each person to hold themselves exactly where they are. What we hold true today may be quite different tomorrow.