CARL JUNG’S LIFE REVIEW – Tasks of Aging

MOM’S LIFE REVIEW

When my mother was in her nineties, she became obsessed with telling me stories of her life. I heard about people, places and experiences that she had never shared with me, or perhaps anyone, before. I understood her need to go back and revisit her life having read and studied Erik Erikson’s Stages of Development.

INTEGRITY VS. DESPAIR

The last stage, “Ego Integrity vs. Despair”, is the stage when an individual develops the virtue of wisdom. During this stage of development, an individual reflects on her life and a life review determines whether or not her life has been of value. Depending on the conclusion they come to will determine whether they fall into despair carrying the belief that their life was wasted or find peace as they conclude that their life was both meaningful and of value to society. 

Mom told many of her stories again and again, almost word for word. It was as if she was rehearsing them, or was not quite ready to let them go. She seemed to need to share them to hold onto them and make them real, or struggling to reach a place of acceptance and affirmation where she could let them go. She frequently ended her stories with the statement, “It’s been a good life”.  I wondered if she believed this affirmation or was just trying to convince herself of its truth. After all, she was prone to despair throughout her life. 

UNIVERSAL & PERSONAL

Now, as the years of my own life mount, I’ve noticed that I have already begun to see dimension of the developmental process taking place.  I am thirty years younger than she was at the time. Does that mean this process went on for her for thirty years, or had it only just begun? Or did I start the process early? Perhaps, there is another way to look at it.

Carl Jung’s second task in his Seven Tasks of Aging is a “Life Review”. Life tasks arise on cue in most individuals, but we have the choice to accept the challenge of undertaking the task, or not.  We decide when and how to step into, or engage the task at hand. Each task must be taken in order to be prepared for the next step the task. 

If we choose to undertake a life review, we wrestle with our mistakes, our regrets and disappointments and find a way to realign ourselves with our beliefs and values. Perhaps that is why memoirs are such a popular genre these days. People have more time and freedom to undertake this lengthy review process.

“We all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. We respond before we know how to speak the language, before we know all the answers, and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves

GROWING IN WISDOM

It is through a life review that we find our answers. Through participation in the tasks of aging we grow in wisdom and become increasingly congruent. It is important to remember that though we are called to undertake these tasks, it might be better to think of them as on-going processes.  We learn and grow when we embrace them, but they ebb and flow in importance. Sometimes they urgently call us, while at other times they slip out of sight for a time. Rising to greet the urging when it appears rather than shying away from it will enrich our lives as we age. 

Have you begun the task of a “Life Review”? What have you discovered?