Living Your Unlived Life
The esteemed Jungian psychologist counsels how to cope with feelings of failure or regret in the latter half of life and how to open to a more meaningful existence, even if outer circumstances cannot be changed.We all carry a vast inventory of abandoned, unrealized, or underdeveloped talents. These do not just "go away" through underuse or by tossing them off. Instead they go underground and become troublesome-sometimes tormenting-as we grow older.In Living Your Unlived Life, using warmth, humor, and elegant simplicity, the renowned therapist Robert A. Johnson, writing with longtime collaborator and fellow Jungian psychologist Jerry M. Ruhl, helps us understand our own heritage of unlived life-and how it must be examined and transformed if we are to make peace with ourselves and others in middle age and beyond.The authors provide intelligent ways to explore paths not taken, without causing damage to ourselves and to others. They show how to:- identify those unfulfilled hopes, yearnings, or needs that have gone "underground"; discover how we unconsciously burden others-- friends, spouses, coworkers-with our unlived hopes; create new life options and unlock hidden talents;- transform fruitless fantasies or "silly" dreams into tools for inner growth;- start truly living in the present moment; and- revitalize a connection with God and spirit and attain peace in purpose in our mature years.