Mid-life Soul

...it is a time to incorporate the opposite polarity, whatever that might be. ~Carl Jung

The word 'crisis' is derived from the Greek word krino and means "to decide".

In Jungian terms, this urge to break from old routines is really an outward expression of the "separation from the youthful persona". This is the shift from a persona-orientation to a Self-orientation, and according to Stein, is "critical for the individuation process as a whole, because it is the change by which a person sheds layers of familial and cultural influence and attains to some degree of uniqueness in his [her] appropriation of internal and external facts and influences". This can only be done if one is prepared to let go of one's youthful identity.

Those are good chaos words... So I'm taking a walk today, and realize I've unleashed myself from everything except my children who I hold somewhat at bay so as not to taint their tender minds. I have left my marriage of 18 years, my faith of more thatn 20 years, and many good friends in this change. Having cast off all of those defining anchors I am left to drink, unceremoniously of course, and I walk in this avid loss. So I walk and decide to just listen to the sounds around me which are crickets and frogs and various other bugs which brings rest momentarily to my thought riddled mind. I wonder about how long this transitoriness will go on? But then I stop thinking and just breathe for a moment.