“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” C. G. Jung
The greatest medium for creativity is the artful unfolding of your life.
The quest for wholeness, Jung said, requires us to engage our full range of capacities—thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. This process of self-expansion and discovery usually gets jumpstarted after midlife. In fact, Late Blooming is a result of accessing new personality functions and learning to see the world through different eyes.
If you know the Myers-Briggs test, you'll be familiar with your own typology--your preferred way of perceiving and processing reality. For others, here's a general recap of the four main functions:
Thinking allows us to evaluate situations based on what we know (facts) and feeling on what we value (emotional context). Sensation helps us to perceive the world around us. Intuition helps us to imagine how things will turn out.
We begin life with a predilection for one or two of these psychological orientations. And over time, they become the underpinnings of our work and our relationships. But after midlife, we begin to get a sense that something's missing. We grow tired of depending on our primary function--it no longer provides the same zip or sense of exhilaration. And we experience a general restlessness, a feeling that, "There must be more..."
The problem is that we have essentially been living from only half of the personality. When we begin to access the rest, we get a kind of turbo charge. As the neglected function breaks through, we suddenly see the world in cinemascope.
This is the realm of second chances, of mega-do-overs, of personal reinvention and rebirth. In Jung's view, it's also part of some grand evolutionary process that's leading us toward higher forms of creativity and collaboration.
A thinker can conjure up an abstract field and determine how much it's worth.
An intuitive sees the probability of a good yield but leaves the field as soon as he knows the seeds are ripening.
The sensation type is not satisfied until the seed is in the barn.
The feeling type is concerned with giving everyone a fair share and making sure the harvest is appreciated.
Each function has its own gifts and limitations But when we begin to use all four of these capacities in concert, we are experience an "aha!" or visionary moment where we grasp the whole. Of course there will be variations on the theme, depending on what we each bring to the creative process.
This new, expanded consciousness often leads to more meaningful work, deeper relationships and new ways of giving back--a rejuvenation just at the point in where life seemed to be getting narrower and less interesting.
Instead, you get ultimate payoff: the privilege of being fully and completely who you are.
How do you begin your own experiment?
Take some time this week to consider your default settings---do you rely more heavily on thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition, to make sense of your surroundings? Whatever your habitual mode, begin to invite the opposite. Try this exercise for 15 minutes every day.
The problem is that we have essentially been living from only half of the personality. When we begin to access the rest, we get a kind of turbo charge. As the neglected function breaks through, we suddenly see the world in cinemascope.
This is the realm of second chances, of mega-do-overs, of personal reinvention and rebirth. In Jung's view, it's also part of some grand evolutionary process that's leading us toward higher forms of creativity and collaboration.
A thinker can conjure up an abstract field and determine how much it's worth.
An intuitive sees the probability of a good yield but leaves the field as soon as he knows the seeds are ripening.
The sensation type is not satisfied until the seed is in the barn.
The feeling type is concerned with giving everyone a fair share and making sure the harvest is appreciated.
Each function has its own gifts and limitations But when we begin to use all four of these capacities in concert, we are experience an "aha!" or visionary moment where we grasp the whole. Of course there will be variations on the theme, depending on what we each bring to the creative process.
This new, expanded consciousness often leads to more meaningful work, deeper relationships and new ways of giving back--a rejuvenation just at the point in where life seemed to be getting narrower and less interesting.
Instead, you get ultimate payoff: the privilege of being fully and completely who you are.
How do you begin your own experiment?
Take some time this week to consider your default settings---do you rely more heavily on thinking, feeling, sensation or intuition, to make sense of your surroundings? Whatever your habitual mode, begin to invite the opposite. Try this exercise for 15 minutes every day.
Thinkers: Step back from the facts, and make room for feeling. Be aware of the emotional tone of a conversation. Listen to what your gut is telling you about a person or a project.
Feeling types: Adopt a neutral stance. Take the time to consider how a portion of your life can be better organized.
Sensation types: Stop cataloguing the material world for just a moment and ask yourself, "What if?" Let your imagination dwell on possibility.
Intuitives: Let the future take care of itself and concentrate on being in the moment. Focus on what you can taste, touch, see and smell.
As you ease yourself into a different mode, don't worry about how well you do. The exercise isn't about judging, but about exploring a new way of being in the world.
To learn more about the art of late blooming, and the next stage of the adventure: stay tuned.
An excellent introduction to typology can be found in Sally Keil's wonderful book, To Live in the World as Ourselves.
Artists who were late bloomers: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/late-blooming-artists_n_1758135.html
Creativity after midlife:
Wow! Thanks Val.
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