Midlife Liminality: 3 Questions to Ask Yourself

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Liminality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In anthropology, Liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”[1]) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rites, when participants no longer hold their preritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold”[2] between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the rite establishes….

During liminal periods of all kinds, social hierarchies may be reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition may become uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted may be thrown into doubt.[5] The dissolution of order during liminality creates a fluid, malleable situation that enables new institutions and customs to become established.[6] The term has also passed into popular usage, where it is applied much more broadly, undermining its significance to some extent.[7]

In Carl Jung’s stages of life, midlife is seen as the Summer/Noon of our lives, where “what has been is no longer and what is to be has not yet come into focus”  (Nancy Millner, PhD)

Jungian analyst and author Murray Stein names three stages of mid-life transition in his book, In Mid-Life: A Jungian Perspective.  Stein suggests that as people move from the accommodation of early life, they go through the rites of SEPARATION, LIMINALITY and REINTEGRATION on their way towards fuller individualization.

What happens to us when the sun shifts and shadows are different, and all we know is bathed in a new light?  When our stories need to be retold, when we make room for others at the table who are younger and fresher.  How do we handle that threshold?

For many of us, we question our relationships.  Maybe the spouse with whom we have lost the feelings we once had,  the job or career that no longer engages our souls and gives us a sense of purpose,  maybe our mortality as we almost audibly hear the click of a generation moving up in the cue of life.

This is such a vulnerable time as we call into question our choices, our values, our place in the world.  How do we find time in this culture or do, go, be to just relax, sit and ponder?  You can start by asking yourself these three questions:

3 Questions to Ask Yourself During Liminality:

  1. What does my soul require?   – The next stage in life will come with the understanding that it is a personal connection with self that will aid us in becoming our true self.  We let go of the need to please others.
  2. What do I need to know now?  – This is where we get in tune with that quiet, authentic voice that has been there all along, but has perhaps taken the back seat to responsibilities, expectations of others and life in general.  Take some time for yourself, sit quiet and ask yourself that question.  See what comes up.
  3. What should I explore?  – Often in our younger days we may have explored socially accepted  or expected pursuits and maybe it is some of those that you can go back to and explore through the lens of your new life viewpoint – finding a renewed sense of connection and purpose in them, but in our later phases when our personality is secure enough to explore the underdeveloped side of our personality, we may also find ourselves drawn to areas that we would have never given ourselves permission to explore in earlier life  but where there is passion and growth available for us (for example, a very “masculine” man taking up knitting later in life or a very “doting on husband” woman taking up intercontinental solo trips).  Chances are it is a very real part of yourself looking to express itself.  Give it some light.  

Asking yourselves these questions can start you looking at life in a new way.  I know I am going through this right now.  I have struggled with who I am and how I fit in.  I have left a job and am still on the threshold of something, not sure what yet though.   Let me know how it goes for you.