Calendar Note: Sage-ing International will host our discussion regarding Dr. James Hollis’ new book “Living Between Worlds” , the August selection of the online Sage-ing International Book Club.
And for music from Dan Orsborn’s new one-man group Danny & the Drive-ins to enliven your solitude, click HERE.
–Fiercely Yours, Carol Orsborn
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Behaviorists say it takes 3 months to break an old habit. Dan and I have been sheltering in place 4 months and I am coming to realize that pretty much my whole life prior to quarantine was an old habit. I’d been overworking just about every system in my life from creating and consumption to socializing, self-improvement and exercise.
But this realization is kid stuff, offsprings of what I now recognize to be the mother of all old habits—big enough to qualify as an addiction: the illusion of my control and the belief that if only I try hard enough, I will sooner or later gain mastery over anything I set my mind to. This time, four months in, feels more later than sooner, and I don’t buy the myth of my power to control any more.
I admit, I don’t like that I live in a place where the question of the day is not whether or not there’s a Covid spike—but how large the increase. I also seem to have a bad case of flatten the curve envy of those of you who live in green states. But spikes, at least as a spiritual metaphor, can serve a purpose. Given enough of them, they can pierce through even the grandest illusions.
Dr. James Hollis, in his just published and timely book “Living Between Worlds” explains that “It is necessary to pierce the veil, deconstruct the mechanics of the addictive cycle, identify the primal, unassimilated idea for which our behaviors are a failing treatment plan. Then, as free persons, adults, we find we can in fact bear the unbearable, think the unthinkable, suffer the insufferable, and be free.”
Those of us who are aging consciously will already be familiar with the painful healing process growing into full maturity Dr. Hollis prescribes and the benefits he promises. But for me, and I suspect others, the missing ingredient—the bit that kept the last shreds of veil intact so long–was that this breaking of old addictions turns out to be a last resort, after every other short-cut has come to a dead end. .
Fulfilling our potential as conscious elders—as human beings– takes confrontation of all our assumptions and coping mechanisms and it takes time, lots and lots of quiet time. “Solitude is the self-care system doing its proper job. It means we can tolerate being with ourselves.” Dr. Hollis views the very thing we entered self-isolation fearing most, being cut off from our normal internal and external support systems as “our individualized summons to step into our journeys.”
In breaking old dependencies, it also helps to be faced repeatedly with bad news—events that don’t meet our expectations. Our nerves get shot first and then we ride through waves of panic and finally we wash up on a distant shore, tongues out and panting, realizing that this heart-rending arrival, that which we had been trying to avoid all of our busy lives, is the moment for which we were born.
“It is in those difficult times that the larger journey is forged in the alchemical smithy of the soul, a place where the heat grows until the lesser molecules transform and the larger emerge.” This does not come about without sacrifice, and sometimes, we have to turn our even most cherished values upside down and our souls inside out. As Dr. Hollis puts it: “What is the cost of continuing stasis and stuckness when our being wishes to grow and develop? What betrayal of the soul transpires when we collude with our debilitating fears (and illusions)? And who, besides us, will pay those debts of unlived life—our children, our partners, our colleagues, our society? Do we not see that the best thing we can do for others is really to bring our best, most nearly authentic selves to engage them?”
By answering the questions posed to us by fate, we discover that things are not always what they seem—often not as bright and shiny as we’d hoped for but sometimes bearing the most unexpected and precious gift, more than we’d ever imagined for ourselves: recognition of the dependable heart that had been beating beneath it all from the first.
History may yet tell our stories more kindly than we may now believe we deserve. It is not that we will never again fall into old behaviors, but our love for ourselves, for other and for the world—as it is—will have at last grown large enough to embrace it all. Breaking the hubris of control and surrendering to humility, we will see things more clearly. When we take action, we will be motivated by love not the will to power over others. We will discover we can be both patient and passionate; kind and fierce. As we go, while it will sometimes feel to be nearly more than we can bear, we will continue to hope and try our best to bring more consciousness into a world that needs its wise elders now more than ever.
“Those who have gone through that transformation have been to Hell and need not fear it anymore; they know that life will bring further tests but will not allow them to settle back into the old, familiar place. From that point onward, they live with a deeper integrity and are less and less defined by the old fears or the many hysterias found all around them. The price and the often grave consequences are compensated through a more profound experience of meaning, whether or not it is ratified by one’s tribe.”
As the old dependencies fall away, what is needed now is a new habit. Hollis persuades: “Dialogue with those intimations that come to us from the soul…finding the courage to live them in the world, with all the consequences that may bring us. These are the moments of decision and commitment that are both terrifying and exhilarating. “
So here’s a salute to our old lives, that to which we constructed so assiduously and held onto so tenaciously but have served their purpose and are passing away. Goodbye and thank you.
And here’s to asking yourself a new and better question–the only one that leads to freedom and full maturity: “What wants to enter the world through you?” Then let it.
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ABOUT THE SAGE-ING BOOK CLUB
SBC is a bi-monthly series of live online book club meetings centering on selections important to those of us choosing conscious eldering sponsored by Sage-ing International and hosted by Carol Orsborn author of 30 best-selling books on spirituality and life stage development including Older, Wiser, Fiercer: The Wisdom Collection. Group size is limited to 30 by advance registration and will be held via Zoom. For more on SBC and to discuss this blog and upcoming selection, click HERE.
August Selection: Wednesday, August 19 from 4-5 p.m. eastern
Living Between Worlds, Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times by Dr. James Hollis.
This important and timely book guides us to consider just how did we get to this crossroads in history? And will we make it through―individually and as a species? Dr. Hollis points the way to grow large enough to contain what threatens to destroy us. James Hollis, Ph. D. is Executive Director of the Jung Center of Houston, TX, a practicing Jungian Analyst and author of eleven books including the classics Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up and What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life.
To Register, click HERE.
You can contact Carol Orsborn at Corsborn@aol.com.
