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Women and Midlife – Times of Crisis and Uncertainty as Opportunities for Transformation

By: Deborah Lukovich

Have you had your mid-life crisis yet?

Have you fallen out of love with the man you pledged your life to? Do you hate being a lawyer but wonder how you would pay the bills doing something you’re passionate about? Do you feel lost now that your kids have left for college and don’t need you in the same way? These feel like real crises because something is dying – a way of relating and of being in the world. But the good news is that these times of crisis offer an opportunity to allow something new and empowering to emerge.

At the time you wonder “Why me? Why now?” but these crises don’t come out of nowhere. The more intense the feelings, the more likely something has been brewing for some time and now you are being forced to deal with the long-standing beliefs you’ve had about yourself, life, and your place in the world. Depth psychology offers a framework and tools for this process of reflecting about this dying and the rebirth that can come next – the rebirth of a new and wiser version of yourself that the world needs.

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Dreams, for example, offer clues about what is missing in our lives. Dreams about teeth crumbling or falling out may be a sign you need to dismantle your persona, the inauthentic face you’re putting out to the world. Dreams about houses may be a sign that there are new parts of your personality wanting to be expressed. And if water is a recurrent theme in your dreams, there may be useful things deep in your unconscious that want to come up and help. Next time you have a dream, write it down and then list the images along with your emotional response. Write down all the things the images make you think about and ask yourself, “Where is this happening in my life?” You might find some new meaning.

Without a framework for gaining insight into your unconscious, you may become overwhelmed or do what I did, which was to ignore the signs and double down on what I was doing. This is what led to an eventual crisis.

Depth psychology offers tools that can help you through this transformation from your caterpillar self to your butterfly self. In my workshops, we discuss concepts such as complexes, projections, synchronicity, and psychological type. These insights help you to better understand where feelings linked to anxiety and depression come from. To prioritize wisdom ultimately offers the ability to love yourself through the most difficult times in your life.

Deborah Lukovich is an expert in Depth Psychology. Learn more about how to empower yourself during your evolution at her workshop on Wednesday, August 8th from 6:30-8pm at Elle Studio + Wellness.