Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the...Second Half of Life by Robert A. Johnson, Jerry M. Ruhl, Jerry Ruhl

Synopsis

The esteemed Jungian psychologist counsels how to cope with feelings of failure or regret in the latter half of life and how to open to a more meaningful existence, even if outer circumstances cannot be changed.

We all carry a vast inventory of abandoned, unrealized, or underdeveloped talents. These do not just "go away" through underuse or by tossing them off. Instead they go underground and become troublesome-sometimes tormenting-as we grow older.

In Living Your Unlived Life, using warmth, humor, and elegant simplicity, the renowned therapist Robert A. Johnson, writing with longtime collaborator and fellow Jungian psychologist Jerry M. Ruhl, helps us understand our own heritage of unlived life-and how it must be examined and transformed if we are to make peace with ourselves and others in middle age and beyond.

The authors provide intelligent ways to explore paths not taken, without causing damage to ourselves and to others. They show how to:

•identify those unfulfilled hopes, yearnings, or needs that have gone "underground"; discover how we unconsciously burden others-
•friends, spouses, coworkers-with our unlived hopes; create new life options and unlock hidden talents;
•transform fruitless fantasies or "silly" dreams into tools for inner growth;
•start truly living in the present moment; and
•revitalize a connection with God and spirit and attain peace in purpose in our mature years.

Publishers Weekly

As one grows older and life's choices seem to diminish, it's easy to regret the roads not taken, which then lead to an inability to embrace your life as it is now. A remedy can be found in Johnson and Ruhl's wonderfully insightful, possibly even life-changing book. Jungian psychologists and the co-authors of Contentment, Johnson and Ruhl believe the roads-not-taken needn't be cast aside; they can-and must-be integrated into present-day life and used to find new opportunities for fulfillment and wholeness. How? By engaging in what the authors refer to as "active imagination"-a disciplined, spiritual form of inner dialogue. The book is intelligent, refreshingly free of psychobabble and best of all heralds the power of the imagination to transform and possibly keep you out of trouble. (Oct.)

Biography

Robert A. Johnson has been arguably the most influential interpreter of Jungian psychology of our time. He is the author of the bestsellers We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love; Inner Work; and He: Understanding Masculine Psychology.

Jerry M. Ruhl, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and a popular lecturer, as well as a former director of corporate communications at United Artists Entertainment. His previous books include Balancing Heaven and Earth and Contentment, both coauthored with Robert A. Johnson.