Crenshaw's Books & Decks

At mid-life we come face to face with our failures and losses. As we age, each of us is confronted by limitations, threats to our capacity to control outcomes, and deflations of our presumptions of omnipotence. (p. 49). "we are called upon to examine the 'truths' by which we live and even to acknowledge that their opposite also contains truth." (p. 15) "The reluctance to face our own shit is very strong." (p. 217-218).

Living Your Unlived Life is a short Jungian book that synthesises and develops many of Johnson's previous books on shadow work, dreamwork and active imagination, and mixes them with some reflections on archetypes, complexes, and Depth Psychology from Rhul. The narrators use the first person, so one cannot distinguish what comes from whom. However, the book feels whole and coherent. Johnson's impromptu is clear, especially if you have read others of his works. Like in most of Johnson's books, a Greek myth is used as conductor of the study, in this case the story of Castor and Pollux. You might ask why myths are still relevant for our Western Culture, and the answer is: 

"Mythic stories tell us holistic, timeless truths, as they are a special kind of literature, not written or created by a single individual but produced by the imagination and experience of an entire culture. (...) Mythic stories, therefore, portray a collective image— they tell us about things that are true for all people." (p. 8).

THE NUGGETS

The second part of life or middle age is a period of time when we seek authenticity, to be true to who we are and to express ourselves in ways that connect us with our inner truth. This is also a period of upheaval and reflection when, more than ever, we start seeking for meaning to get a sense of inner fulfilment. The main quest in the second part of life is the seek for wholeness, which means to be "hale, healthy and holy" and to honour our higher self, this understood as "the propensity of psyche to dynamically seek greater levels of integration, organisation, relationship, and creative expression" (note 2).

Johnson & Ruhl's advice to achieve wholeness and authenticity is not based on fluff, it is based on serious inner work:
1/ We have to 'be' more and 'do' less, or just to alternate 'being' and 'doing' more frequently.A Zen approach to life, basically.
2/ We need to make the unconscious conscious.
3/  We have to apply meta-consciousness to our thinking and behaviour so we aren't acting on autopilot and repeating behaviour patterns that are not good for us and are even harmful. The requires that we pause and reflect instead of doing what we usually do, i.e. leave our unconscious to run its hidden agenda. To disarm a complex you must learn to move your ego into a position of witness  (...) the goal is not to eliminate patterned thoughts and behaviour but rather to loosen them up sufficiently(p. 62).
4/ We need to learn to separate which parts of us are not really us but a by-product of our culture, country of birth, gender and social class or just a projection of our families.
5/ We must live our unlived lives (those parts of our character and psyche that we consciously or unconsciously repress, which are both luminous and dark) by doing shadow work, dream work and through active imagination We also need to start asking ourselves the right questions: instead of What should I do to get rid of this wrong thing in me?” we should ask “Why is the right thing in the wrong place?” (p. 103) instead of asking "What’s in it for me?” we should ask “What is needed at this moment for greater wholeness, integration, and creative expression? What serves the greater good?” (p. 179).
6/ We need to learn to look at the world with less polarity, with less duality, with less judgement, more through a coloured lens and less through a black and white one. There is no list of virtues that cannot be contradicted; this is a truth that can be liberating and frightening at the same time. We need to synthesise the opposites tempering one with the other and accept that both are valuable and necessary to live a balanced life.  

7/ We need to keep a balance between the archetype of the Eternal Youth and the archetype of the Wise Elder, by using an attitude of tinkering, discovery and play. Without the Eternal Youth we become morally rigid, dogmatic, judgemental, and authoritarian, but if we are too attached to the Eternal Youth we may exhibit immaturity, narcissism and an inability to grow and achieve psychological maturity.
8/ Let's  get a  new mindset, as the old solutions to our problems won't work and our automatic habits will work against us the older we become.  

9/ Let's have strong ethics and walk the talk. People who behave ethically are those who make an honest effort to conform their behaviour to their values. When your conduct is at odds with your essential character, it reflects a fragmentation of the personality. Shirking of ethical responsibility deprives us of wholeness. (p. 125). Amen!
10/ We need to do some work to improve our capacity of response to the challenges we face, so we do so with more flexibility, passionately and in a powerful way.

This book is full of wisdom, with some philosophical and spiritual reflections that are wonderful to ponder on,  no matter the stage you are in life. I actually think that this sort of book should be read by people older than 25 so that  they can start doing  something with their lives to have less neurosis and more fulfilling lives when they are, say, in their mid 30s.

My favourite chapter is number 10, Returning Home and Knowing It for the First Time. This chapter is very thought provoking, very touching and lyrically spiritual, and also very confronting in a way. This won't be an easy read if you are a hardcore Christian or very attached to any established creed; however, the chapter will be like a fragrant breeze for those of us who are more spiritual than religious. In a way, this chapter is a call to arms, to  the true spirit that lives in all of us, to break free from the chains that constrict and restrict our soul even if those are part of a set of religious beliefs and structures. Besides, this is the only chapter where old age and death are considered. The chapter is a call to the return to the divine, to walk into oneness, and to reclaim our personal paradise, as heaven lives within us:

"Paradise exists, but as a level of consciousness, and it is available to you when you are ready to receive it. (...) The very idea that the material world is separate from some other “higher” existence is itself an error of duality. Reality is not dual, though our current level of awareness perceives it that way. (pp. 225-227).

If you have never read a book by Johnson, this might intrigue you enough to read more detailed approaches to shadow work, dreamwork and active imagination. If you are into Jungian and Depth Psychology, you will find wonderful applications of Jung's teachings to the challenges that your psyche  and life face, no matter your age.

THE SHORTCOMINGS

~~ Although the book has great wisdom and is well written, it might  disappoint the general public, who will come to this book because "the second part of life" in its title. They might expect precise concise answers on how to solve or face mid-age issues, but they won't find but challenging inner work.  

~~ The structure of the book  makes the message confusing or not clear enough. To me, they should have started explaining what an unlived life is, specifically, and how it affects our life. "To live our unlived lives" is repeated ad nauseam, but "unlived life" is never clearly defined. I would have explained how to access that unlived lives (shadow work, dreamwork, active imagination, archetypes in this precise order) and how to deal with our oldest years if we get there alive.  I think in this way the whole book would have conveyed the same message in a more clear way. Just my opinion, of course.

~~ Except for some parts, this book is not specific for people in the second part of life. The bits about old age are truly so, but most of the book focuses on doing things that are beneficial for people of all ages and are interested in inner work. 

~~ I have a problem with vague talking, in this case with the expression "the second part of life". What is that supposed to mean? My grandmother died old and wretched in her 40s, so her second part of life was in her 20s. Depending on the country or area of the world we live in, we have a longer or shorter life expectancy and we marry and settle sooner or later. So I would like to know, exactly, how do we know we are in that second part of life as we don't know how long we are going to live. Is it an age? I is a state of mind? Is it having a job and a routine life? Is a state of the soul?  Is being settled in life? What exactly?  

MIND

>>  Although the language is accessible, the book reads better if you already have an understanding of basic Jungian concepts, like ego, shadow, projection and archetypes.  The authors have a specific reader as a target, so if you aren't one of those, you  might get lost without the help of a teacher or mentor.

>> Although Jungian Psychology is very much Christian and spiritual, there is a good deal of elements that could conflict with orthodox Christian beliefs because, beyond the concept of psychological soul, the book is infused in Zen, Eastern philosophies and Antiquity Greek religion. Therefore, the book might not be for readers who have a set of values deeply ingrained in established churches and religions, and believe in the value and importance of right and wrong, good and bad, light and dark. 

EXERCISES IN THE BOOK

 > Unlived lived inventory (adapted from the Roland Evans' model, quite interesting and surprising.)
> What are you stuck at? (good)
> The Doing/ Being Shuffle (good)
> Who am I? (good, needs of partner or conductor).
> The living symbol (not practical, need of partner or conductor who knows what s/he is doing.)
> Talking it over with yourself  (interesting but it would be great if an expert did it with you the first time so  we learn.)
> Dream tending (excellent.)
> Follow what you love (OK.)
> Dissolving the split perspective  (truly interesting and fun!)

 Some of the exercises are great if you happen to have a guide, a psychoanalyst or mentor who has a mastery on those,;otherwise, they might  lead you nowhere. Also, some of the exercises were somewhat odd, like asking yourself about the unlived lives of your parents. Some things came to mind for my parents about things they said they wanted to do and couldn't because of poverty or their specific circumstances. Yet, I am not my parents' psychoanalyst, so there must be many things inside them that they are never expressed, of which they don't want or can't talk about, or simply don't know they exist.

RENDERING FOR KINDLE

I find upsetting paying for a short digital book to find that the notes are not linked to the text they relate, that the index is not linked either, and that some of the links do not work either. It doesn't cost much fixing that in the e-book, so I always wonder why editors don't give a damn.

WHAT?!

As a tool to remember and note down your dreams, the authors recommend a "voice-activated tape recorder also can be handy (p. 142)." Time to wake-up, most people would have a smart-phone with a voice recording app included, tape recorders died, like a few decades ago, no? Tape recorders are an obsolete technology, no longer in use, unless you happen to have one of those. In year 2016 you can still find voice recorders, digital, but they are expensive, and one needs more a mobile than a VR, so using an app, free or paid, or just the VR feature that comes included in some smartphones is the easiest cheapest way to do that in year 2016.