I’ve been reading The Middle Passage by Jungian analyst James Hollis, my mentor and program head in the Jungian Studies Program I’ve undertaken. The book is stellar and quite the eye-opener for anyone traversing that middle time of life.
Hollis writes that the middle passage presents us with the opportunity to reexamine our lives and to ask, “Who am I apart from my history and the roles I have played?” Mid-life is an occasion for redefining and reorienting the personality, a necessary rite of passage between the extended adolescence of the first adulthood and our inevitable appointment with old age and mortality.
The Middle Passage addresses issues such as:
- How did we acquire our original sense of self?
- What changes herald the Middle Passage?
- Why do so many go through so much disruption in their middle years?
- How does one revision the sense of self?
quoting james hollis
“The capacity for growth depends on one’s ability to internalize and to take personal responsibility. If we forever see our life as a problem caused by others, a problem to be ‘solved,’ then no change will occur.”
“Given the opportunity for a full life span, one passes through a series of different identities . . . Approximately every seven to ten years there is a significant physical, social and psychological change in a person. Consider who you were at 14, at 21, at 28, and at 35, for example .”
“One of the most powerful shocks of the Middle Passage is the collapse of our tacit contract with the universe–the assumption that if we act correctly, if we are of good heart and good intentions, things will work out. We assume a reciprocity with the universe. If we do our part, the universe will comply. Many ancient stories, including the Book of Job, painfully reveal the fact that there is no such contract, and everyone who goes through the Middle Passage is made aware of it.”
“The breakdown of the ego means that one is not really in control of life. Nietzsche once noted how dismayed humans are when they discover that they are not God. The fundamental result of the Middle Passage is to be humbled.”
“A sign that a person has not made the middle passage is that he or she is still caught in ego-building activities of the first adulthood. One has not yet learned that they only represent projections onto finite and fallible icons.”
“Jung felt that the best thing we could do for the world was to withdraw our shadow projections. It takes enormous courage to say that what is wrong in the world is wrong in us, what is wrong in marriage is wrong in us, and so on.”
“The only requisite to entry into the Middle Passage is to have discovered that one does not know who one is, that there are no rescuers, […] and that one’s fellow travelers will do well to survive themselves.”
“The paradox of individuation is that we best serve intimate relationship by becoming sufficiently developed in ourselves that we do not need to feed off others.”
“Risking loneliness to achieve that sense of oneness with oneself we call solitude is essential if one is to survive the Middle Passage. To move to the necessary solitude in which individuation can proceed, one must consciously ask each day, ‘In what way am I so afraid that I am avoiding myself, my own journey?’”
“The hero in each of us is required to answer the call of individuation. We must turn away from the cacophony of the outer world to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood. We may become strangers to those who thought they knew us, but at least we are no longer strangers to ourselves.”
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