Transcription
How do you define a life of meaning? This is a good question. I think meaning is not something we go out and find as if it's uh hiding somewhere in Brighton or something. Meaning rises out as an experience when whatever is going on within us or whatever we're relating to in our outer world is in accord with the agenda of our soul.
Now I know that's very vague, but you know, to give an example, let's say I'm supposed to adopt a certain career or a certain um athletic regimen or a certain ideology and that will quote make me happy or bring me meaning. And perhaps it will to a certain degree, but in the long run, if I'm giving my energies to something that's really not in alignment with what's true within me at the deepest level, a level which I may not know much about consciously.
Um, so I had my own experience of that. I think I told you the first time we met, I'd achieved all my outer goals in my mid-30s and then was hit with a serious depression. And it was, it was an opportunity for me to sort of go within. It was a necessity, not an opportunity. It was a necessity to go within and to explore why is the psyche autonomously withdrawing its approval and support from the places that I want to put it, or the world tells me I ought to be putting it there. And uh, that was the beginning of a different kind of journey of recovery of personal authority and and a striking out in some very large and new directions.
So meaning is something experiential. I think it's not conceptual. We may from the conscious standpoint assess things from time to time. Of course, there's a place for consciousness here. But it's, it's not like meaning is hidden somewhere and we have to go find it because, you know, many times, for example, people are in extreme circumstances, but intracychically, they are well. They are in the right places they should be. As Jean Paul Sartre said, sometimes the person who is in prison is freer than the one who imprisons. And I think what he was getting at there is maybe the person who's the imprisoner is uh a functionary of the state, let's say, or he does it because it's his job, or even a certain ideology. But the prisoner has a sense, "My being here is a statement of my values," or "My being here is an expression of my willingness to care deeply about some value." And so I can have a sense of great meaning intracychically, even when my outer world is quite conflictual and even painful.
So I don't think meaning is something we choose. Although we can choose paths that bring us into that accord, it's something we can experience, and we experience the loss of it.
So many times, as we all know, people achieve their goals and there's a dissatisfaction to it. There's a sense after a while of indifference or boredom or ultimately depression. And in those moments, what you, you see there is there's an autonomy of something inside of each of us. That which I would also say knows us better than we know ourselves. It has its own agenda. And you can call it the agenda of nature seeking to express itself, or the will of divinity, if you so wish to to use that metaphor. Um, and that's something transcendent to ordinary ego consciousness. And when I'm in right relationship to that, even if everything else around me is troubled, then, then there's that sense of interiority that supports. We, you can put it this way, what supports us when nothing supports us? Now, I've learned the hard way, and I know other individuals have as well, that even when our normal coping strategies or ideas about self and world are no longer working very well, there's something inside that still can sustain us and pull us through those times in very meaningful ways. And it'd be nice to be able to package that and merchandise that. But it's, it's something autonomous.
It lies wholly without my will to call it up. Although, as I said, I can use my will to perhaps make those sorts of choices that might be difficult choices, but which bring me into that right relationship.
Yeah. I love this idea that there's something deep within us that knows us better than we know ourselves. This underlying force or energy that underpins everything that goes on in our life. Right at the start, though, I think we should define a couple of terms that you've used. You've used the term ego consciousness. You've used the term psyche. Uh, intracychic awareness. And for people perhaps who are not familiar with those terms, could you give us a little bit of an overview so that we can follow along?
Ego consciousness is my conscious awareness of myself in my environment. So I'm conscious at this moment that you and I are having a conversation. So ego consciousness is that which we usually tend to think of as ourselves. Uh, the, the psyche is the Greek word for soul. And in analytic psychology, the psyche is the totality of the human being. It's, it expresses itself through the body, through our emotions, our cognitions, and and so forth. But it's also a manifestation of that autonomous other. The, the psyche is properly understood a verb. If it were a noun, it would show up on an MRI or a CAT scan. It, it's not. It's, it's an energy system. It's the energy of life. It enters mysteriously at birth. At death, it mysteriously departs from whence it has come. Whether it goes, we don't know. We really don't know. People speculate. We don't know. And it's understandable that one sort of identifies who one is by one's conscious world. So when people lose their job, or they're forced to retire, or an illness removes them from some activity, uh, there, there's a great sense of loss, of course, but it's like that's not who you are. That's what you've been doing, or that's how you've manifested in the world, but that's, that's not who you are. There is this autonomous other again that knows what's right for us. What, what the nature of that is, is at heart a mystery. Mhm.
So to take an obvious example, you know, you as a physician didn't heal people, but you could bring about the conditions in which healing could occur. Healing is something that occurs from within the organism itself. And learning how to live in accord with that is is part of how one becomes a healer, not just a technician. So the, the intra psychic means what's going on inside of me. You and I are engaged at this conscious level at this moment, but who's monitoring the death and rebirth of cells in us, right? What agency, what governmental agency is digesting our our lunch, you see? Um, what, what's growing our toenails? All of these myriad operations are going on autonomously. And out of that, there is a, a sense of a, a kind of nature that is expressing itself in the world. But that's the natural function. The epiphenomenon, which is to say the secondary function, is to be separate from that and to observe that. I, I can see on here I need to get a haircut, for example. Right? So that's consciousness paying attention to some detail, but I'm not growing the hair, for example. Um, and, and underneath that, that's why the question then is to what degree is my ego consciousness, that is to say my ordinary awareness, in accord with or aligned with. Now, early on, as children, of course, we're tiny, dependent, and vulnerable. We know what's right for us. We cry when we're hungry. We sleep when we need to sleep, and so forth. But that core vulnerability and the need for protection and so forth makes us dependent upon our environment. And the more we're dependent on the environment, the more we have to engage in tradeoffs, which is how we begin to get separated from that presence within. Now, recovering a relationship to that is really about recovering a personal sense of authority. We have it when we're born. It's called instinct. We get socialized, and necessarily so, of course, but that socialization ultimately becomes costly because again, it's separated. So, for example, there is no one who hasn't felt shame of some kind, or there's no one who doesn't have mixed messages about sexuality, for example. So those, those are culturally acquired experiences, inevitably, that can separate a person from his or her instinctual guidance system. That's why when there is a significant violation of the agenda of our own nature, it will always show up pathologically.
Now, when I say pathologically, I don't mean that in any judgmental way. Pathos is the Greek word for suffering. In other words, it will be some form, it will cause some form of suffering. You know, as I gave the example, a person prepares for a certain career, assumes this will carry me my entire life. And after a certain period, even if one has been productive, maybe one has been rewarded for that productivity, one finds it no longer quickens the spirit when you enter the office, or no longer feels uh, something that energizes. In fact, it depletes.
And, and then you see that other within us has expressed its uh, intent. It's expressed its concern. And so it's typical for us to keep rolling to say, well, I, I'll take a pill for this, or I'll go skiing next weekend, or something like that. All of which may be useful at some point, but sort of misses the point. And I've learned the hard way, and I emphasize the hard way, over the years, that if I need to know what's right for me, it could range from the mundane, like how to start an essay, for example, or what to deal with some emotional struggle, or how to approach a client's troubles. I sort of put it in there. Speaking metaphorically, I put it in there, and something works on it, and it gets back to me. I can't explain that. It gets back to me. Not necessarily in a predictable way. Not necessarily having a report on my desk by 5:00 in the afternoon, as I would prefer, but it'll come as a dream 3 days from now, or I'll be driving down the the motorway, and something's suddenly clear to me, or I wake up and I look at the situation from a different angle.
And that tells me what is right for me. Then, of course, I have to mobilize whatever intentionality, sometimes including courage, to to live that in in the world. And if we do that, this is not narcissism. It could sound like that at first glance, but it's not. It actually calls the ego consciousness into service. Now, if the project of the first half of life is to figure out what they're asking of you out there, you know, what do my mom and dad want from me? What, what does the school teacher want from me? What does the partner, what does the employer want from me, what does the state want from me, etc., etc. Those, those are all again adaptations to the world that fate has thrust us into.
Yeah. However, in the second half of life, we have to ask, "All right, now I've sort of created a provisional identity. I maybe I have a family, maybe I have a home, maybe I have a job, etc." And that's how many people live their lives, you know, it's, it's a kind of rote repetition.
But then ask the question, so what is worthy of my service? What should I be giving myself to? I don't mean at the neglect of our honest relationships. You know, you don't stop trying to be the best parent you can and the best partner you can, the best citizen you could be. But there's also something else that calls for your personal growth and attention. Now, at some level, it sounds obvious. At another level, it's pretty radical because what it means is you step out into the unknown. You don't know what that means to you. You don't know where that's going to take you. At midlife, when I had that depression, I, I realized for the first time I had to to really start looking within. I thought I'd always been a thoughtful person, a reflective person, but it wasn't working so well. So, I had to to engage in some other kind of conversation around what's going on inside. And, and, and not so much to ask the question, well, how quickly do we get rid of that depression? That's understandable from the ego standpoint.
But rather, why did it come? Why has it withdrawn its approval? What would it want from me? That's not a question that we normally think about.
Now, if you remember, the word psyche is also translated as soul. Sort of asking, what does the soul want of me? Now, when I use the word soul, some people are shut down because they have complexes around, you know, what, whatever that word has meant to them and their cultural history. But we're using it in, in just in a sense of whatever is most deeply true within you, that timeless dimension within you where you carry that spark of the human that is universal. It's in everyone, but rather few people have access to it or pay attention to it. And it doesn't mean that one withdraws from the world. In fact, ultimately, it means when we engage in the world, we bring a kind, a different kind of presence into our relationships with others and with that exterior world. So this is a humbling process. Yeah. It's not about becoming wealthy or powerful or finding abiding love out there. All of which could be important in a person's life. But it's, it's about trying to track that mystery that shows up in each of us. Another example, I'm sorry if I'm running on too much.
No, this is great. Please. These are important questions and they're not easily answered. In therapy, for example, I remember Marie Louise von Franz, an analyst in Zurich. I had the privilege to cross paths with her briefly when I was in training there. And she said, "Look, I'm not a god. I don't know what's right for a person." But there's something inside of them that knows what's right. And I try to pay so much attention to that process that the client or the patient begins to pay attention to. Mhm. And then what is right for that person will emerge. You see, the, the therapist's role there is not to fix something or even offer five easy steps to this or 30 days to that. That's pretty superficial stuff. Sometimes helpful, but often transient in its efficacy. So ultimately, this is about respecting what is wanting to enter the world through you. That's a different question.
It's not about ego aggrandizement. It's, what, what is wanting to enter the world through me? So I'm 85. The one thing I, and I've had, you know, many medical issues as a person does at this stage of life. But one of the things that has always been meaningful to me has been learning and teaching. So I continue to teach classes. That's why I have these podcasts. I'm not building a career at this point. At times, I would wish a lot of people would leave me alone. But I, I know it's also a medium whereby I can perhaps be helpful to people in looking at their lives in a different way. And that seems to me to be a calling. That's not a job. It's a calling.
Yeah. And you know, it, it doesn't have to eventuate in what we might call professional activities. Your calling is to be the fullest possible human being you can, you know, to share who that person is. When Jung said, "The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parent." I think what he was saying is, we don't have to be perfect. Who's perfect among us? Be a, a rich and authentic human being. Live your journey with as much courage, fidelity as you can. And that includes serving relationships, for sure. Again, we're not talking about narcissism, isolation. We're, we're, we're saying that part of the arena in which this meaning can arise is through the quality of our relationships. Now, when we look at it that way, you realize, all right, I have a, I have a duty here, a calling to my own soul, but also to be that in the world in as many places as I can, even if that's uncomfortable. So I'm a card-carrying introvert, but I've lived for a good part of my life an extrovertive professional life. There's always an inherent conflict there. There's always stress. There's always anxiety that just comes with the, with the, that's the price of the ticket, so to speak. If you're going to do what you're meant to do, not everybody is going to like it. Not everybody's going to appreciate that. It may stretch you beyond the comfortable. And yet, and this takes us back to your initial question, you'll experience a richness of serving that which wants to enter the world through you.
Now, again, I'm not talking about finding a cure for cancer or making some miraculous invention. It's, it's about being who you are. That's the gift.
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I think much of what you have said there was beautifully summarized in one paragraph in the conclusion of I think one of your latest books, "A Life of Meaning." And you wrote in that conclusion: "We know what the world wants. We know what our parents want. We know what the employer wants. We know what popular culture wants. But what does the psyche want? That's a whole different question. It's not narcissistic. It's humbling. It will lead us to places that we may not want to go, but that's exactly where we're meant to be."
It would have saved us a lot of time if you just read that paragraph. Well, no, you, it's, it's, it was funny as you were going through that and you were expanding upon it. I thought, it's all kind of, it's all there, isn't it? You know, that the, the idea that why is it that we are living through a crisis of meaning at the moment? Well, of course, one of the big causes is that societal and cultural conditioning, the stories we hear as children, the stories we hear from the world around us about what it means to be successful. So it's almost a cliché now, but the amount of people who in midlife, in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, like you, James, you know, they think they've done all the things that they were supposed to do, yet there is this inner emptiness, this longing for something more. The longing is there for a meaningful life. And one of the things that's become quite clear to me over my medical career, and I'm sure like you in your psychotherapy journey, me and my medical journey, my viewpoint on health and the wider world has evolved significantly over the years. And the way I see things today, James, is that 80 to 90% of what we see as doctors is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles. But the real learning for me is the lifestyle behaviors that people are engaging with that are resulting in all of these problems. A huge amount of them come from a lack of meaning. Right? So when you have that lack of meaning in your life, you end up doing the wrong things. You know, you get burnout, you get overly stressed, you have problems in your relationships. You know, I remember from our first conversation, James, you said the, I think you said, "Greater than 70% of doctors and lawyers who've come into your therapy room over the last 40 years have told you that they never ever had any calling for those professions." So what's interesting to me is I qualified and studied to be a medical doctor, but more and more in the 21st century, I'm realizing that the only way I can help my patients is with a deep understanding of psychology.
Well, I, I concur. In my life, I was invested in academia. I was a professor of literature and philosophy, which I still treasure. But I also realized that there was uh, a, a deeper conversation occurring in the psychiatric hospital where I worked and on the academic campus. So that tells you something. And b, I had to address from whence do these things come? Where does this originate? Well, it's within the human psyche, within the depths of the human soul. And I fully agree with you that analytic psychology, unlike behaviorism and cognitive psychology, which have their contribution to make, tend to be more topically oriented to better adaptations to the world we live in. But what if the world that you're living in and investing all of your energy in is is really inimical to your well-being, or in the end, is delusional? Won't take you where you think you want to go. That, uh, the biggest issue is, is the issue of meaning, always. And, and Jung said, "When you discover the meaning of your suffering, then you have a deep sense of purpose. Then you have a deep sense of the rightness of it." We, we can't be free of suffering. That just comes with the human, uh, condition. We are sensitive creatures, and life, it hurts at times. But, you know, he said, "Neurosis is the flight from authentic suffering," which I think is a profound distinction.
Can't avoid suffering because, let's just say you say, well, you abandon yourself to the career track and so forth. Well, in the end, you have a paycheck and a, you know, a gold watch when you leave the company, or whatever, whatever right of exit occurs. And, and then you sort of ask, but then it's, it's a little late to say, "I wonder if this was my path." You know, again, that was the story of told stories, the death of Ivan Ilyich, back in 1885. Yvonne, Ivan, John, Johnson, in Russian, so to speak, so an everyman kind of guy. Did everything he is supposed to do. Espoused the right values, married the right person, lived in the right neighborhood, pursued the career track, and one day, there's a pain in his side that doesn't go away. And he goes through the stages of death and dying that Kubler-Ross identified, you know, of, uh, you know, just trying to ignore it, and, and, and then being angry at the interruption in his life, and then a depression, and all kinds of searches for magical cures, and ultimately worked his way through to ask this question that had never troubled him in all of his life, namely, "I wonder if my life has been wrong." And no one around him wants to talk about this because they're busily involved in their various agendas. It's his problem, not theirs. And his only truly profound conversation, and it's a very simple one, about life and death, is with an illiterate peasant who's assigned to his, um, his care. And then he dies. And one gets the sense that only in those last three days did he become a, a, a deeply human creature, a profound moment in his life, because all the rest had been playing the role. Not evil roles, well-intended, but at the same time, um, keeping him in some way deluded that this is what his life was about. And I think to some degree, we all do that. Yeah. Because careerism, finding the right person to marry, of course, marriage is important. Of course, relationships are important. It matters with whom you spend your time and energy and what you invest in in terms of your values. At the same time, you know, we all have an appointment with with our own souls. And the question is, are we going to keep that appointment? Mine occurred when I had that depression. Ivan Ilyich is in his dying moments.
So, you know, this is, this is the human story. It's always been this way. But the more so today, I think, as people have gotten away from, you know, village life, agrarian life, the great rhythms of death and rebirth in nature, and live in increasingly artificially constructed realities, such as economics and increasingly artificial intelligence and so forth. And, you know, this, uh, tool that we're using right now that allows us to communicate across the ocean is astonishing. Our ancestors couldn't have imagined such a thing. I have trouble imagining it. And, um, because I'm old enough to remember when the milkman came with a horse-drawn buggy, believe it or not.
And here we are talking to each other live. And, and I treasure that. At the same time, you know, we increasingly live in in a world that's an artificial construct, you see. And does that, it can link you to people and ideas and learning and experiences, and I love to learn through the internet. On the other hand, as we all know, it's mostly used for diversion. The chief treatment plan of modernism and modern culture for our existential dilemmas is diversion, you know, 24/7, um, just turn on something, plug in, and it takes you away from whatever your distresses are.
Or buy something. Or, yeah, consumerism. Exactly. Yeah. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. You know, Blaise Pascal recognized this. He said, "Our chief difficulty," this is 17th century, "is being alone with ourselves in our private chambers for just an hour a day." And he said, "That's why the court had to invent the jester, because even the king and queen, with all of their abundance, if they reflect on self, on them, their souls will grow miserable. Hence we have the jester." Now, that was in the 17th century, and he recognized that tendency. Today, it's ramped up. The more so as we are disconnected from the tribal myths that, uh, when they were functioning, linked people to a bigger story, you know, are, are linked to the gods, are linked to questions like, well, what happens to us when we die? You know, what, what is the will of the gods for us, and so forth? That linked us to nature, how do we live in harmony with nature rather than as a predator? Thirdly, the, the, the mystery of tribal identity. Who are my people?
You know, I believe it's in the UK, and I know in Japan as well, there are cabinet-level ministries today on loneliness. And for all of this connectivity, loneliness is growing and growing and growing. And the Surgeon General of the United States said in a previous administration that one of the chief causes of mental illness and, and physiological problems, as you were just alluding, uh, comes from loneliness.
Well, this is the problem, James, with the medical profession the way it is today, or one of the problems is that you, you know, you mentioned your own depression. Okay. And we know that the diagnosis of mental health problems is rising rapidly in many countries. Now, if you take a step back, or if I take a step back and give you my perspective, I've actually always had a problem with how we deal with depression in medicine. First of all, I'll be honest. I don't really like the label depression because you could have 10 people coming into your consultation room, all who have symptoms that are consistent with a diagnosis of depression, and they could have 10 completely different causes. Right? So I find the label quite reductive, personally. Okay? I appreciate other people may not. I've never liked labeling my patients with the term depression because once you label someone, that can often become their identity, and then once it's their identity, it can be very hard sometimes to break out. The way I've always looked at patients who come in with these symptoms is that these symptoms are a signal. They are a signal to me that there's something misaligned in their life. Instead of calling it depression, for me it was almost like, well, what's going on? Why is this person showing these symptoms? Have they moved away from their family and friends for a job in the city and they're lonely? Are they doing a job that they can't stand? So they feel empty inside, you know? Are they not getting out enough in nature and eating well and they're just stuck indoors in artificial light and on screens? Maybe their symptoms are completely appropriate responses to the inputs that are coming into their being. Like for you, you know, James, I don't know the ins and outs of your story, from but from what you're saying, in midlife, you had a very successful career as a tenured professor, good income, guaranteed job for life. Everyone around you saying, "What a great job." But you knew inside that wasn't what was meant for you. So maybe your depression was simply your body saying, "Hey, James, you can't keep going like this. There's a problem here." The depression was there to alert you. And the truth is, James, I've always found that approach very, very helpful with people because it really empowers me and empowers them to start figuring out together, well, what might be going on in your life that may be causing this. I don't think that's how most doctors are trained to look at this, unfortunately. We're trained to say, you've got depression. Here's an antidepressant. And I think, well, what on earth does that teach an individual? How do they learn about their life then? What happens if this happens again 10 years? What are they going to go back on that pill? Well, what if we could teach people the life skills, the learning, so that they then, you know, have these tools to progress through life. Hence my comment to you before that I find more and more I'm interested in psychology as opposed to what I was taught at medical school.
Sure. Well, in the last few paragraphs, you've exhibited a lovely psychological attitude, and that's what's missing. Part of what's happened to mainstream psychology, ironically, has been the medicalization, where you think about disease and cure, or disease and treatment plan, which from time to time has its usefulness. But you're right, it's often missing the big question. But we need to distinguish depressions. There are biologically driven depressions, such as bipolar, for example, and major depressive disorder. And I wouldn't rule out medication for certain individuals. I also know for the great majority of people, the antidepressant is not really addressing the issues in their life. You just gave some good examples of the dislocation that has occurred in their world, and out of which their psyche, again, I put it this way, has withdrawn its approval and support, which is, you know, a way of saying, "Hey, something here within you is being violated. Why don't we pay attention to that? What is it asking of you?" That's a different kind of question, which is wholly ignored in most medicine and, and most psychology, as a matter of fact. So there are times when there are appropriate reactive depressions. If you know, if, if my wife dies, I will be depressed for a while. That's appropriate, where all of the energy invested of that now comes rushing back and inverts. I'll carry on. In time, it will lift a little bit, but that will always be, and attendant to that is, of course, appropriate sadness and sorrow and loss and grieving. So, and I'm depressed at times by the injustices of the world. I should be. I'm also angry about some of those, and I should be, you see. But that again has an identifiable cause, most of which, and you were suggesting this, is again that something that wishes to live, or something that wishes expression through us, is being ignored, suppressed, repressed, violated in some way. Find out what that is.
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You know, just to ask yourself, what happened to that creative, spontaneous, bubbly little child that most of us were? How did we get civilized? You know, how do we get so much of that good juice pushed down? The joy of learning, you know, children are busy learning. They're, they're, you know, they can be frightened by other big people or big events, obviously, but at the same time, at heart, they're saying, "Hey, this is interesting. This is marvelous. This is, this is, look at this over here." That's who we are as an animal. It's like the, the, the curious animal. And I think as long as we can give some genuine energy to pursuing what stirs our curiosity, we're going to be living a vital life, even with these peripheral, so-called depressions on, on the side.
You, there are things to be depressed about in this world, that's quite rational and humanitarian, but that doesn't make you a depressed person. And throwing pills at that or simply saying, you know, here's the three or four-point steps here is, is ultimately delusional and, and doesn't work over time. It's interesting that earlier on in our conversation, James, you mentioned that you had to learn these truths the hard way. So, I guess the follow-up question is, is it possible to learn these things the easy way?
Well, I would like to think so. I don't tend to meet people who've had that privilege. And of course, maybe they don't show up for therapy. But, uh, I, I, I think if people, I mean, look, it goes a long way to, or if the child felt reasonably safe, secure, and truly valued for itself. That's a huge advantage. That sounds so obvious, but I don't see that that often. We, you know, we have to remember who makes babies, young people struggling with their own issues, trying to break away from their own issues of their history, and not really knowing what they do, what they're doing. And that's why sometimes grandparents or aunts and uncles can be people who are playing a more positive role in the life of the child because they've had some maturation go on. They've had some distancing. They intuitively know what that child needs, which is affirmation and support. So, um, it, it would be life would be easier. You know, it was interesting. I was being interviewed about, I want to say two years ago, maybe three now, by someone in London who said, at the end of his program, he always asks people, "Whom would you wish to speak to in history if you could talk to anyone?" Well, I, I grew up in a town that was the home and burial place of Abraham Lincoln. So, the first thought that popped up on my inner screen was Abraham Lincoln. I wanted to show him what had happened in the world, you know, so I could imagine he'd be curious. But then I thought, and this was happening in just a few seconds, I'd like to go back and talk to myself as a 10-year-old and say to that 10-year-old, you know, it's going to be all right. Don't, don't worry so much. Um, things are going to work out. A lot of things that you are curious about, you're going to find out about these things. You, you're going to have an interesting life. You're going to have the opportunity to travel and and meet some interesting people and learn some interesting things. And, you know, you're, you're not here to please everybody, which was a message I got. You're, you're here to find your path and live it, and that will work best for you. In other words, what I'd want to do is affirm to that child what you think, feel, and believe is is right for you. Treat others with respect, obviously. At the same time, trust your, your own journey. I think that would have been revolutionary.
Yeah. I wish we could say that to every child at some point. So, let's talk about parenting. Um, because as a father myself, I would say that one of the biggest motivators for me to excavate my inner world and make peace with it was becoming a parent because I, I didn't want my conditionings, and I'm not blaming anyone for these, to be clear. My, my parents were amazing and did the best they could for me based upon their their childhoods and their understanding of the world. Right. But I also recognized for all the benefits of the way I was parented, there were some things that I would probably choose to change for my own children. And so, you know, like many Asian immigrant families, there is a huge pressure put on us for academic achievement. And it's a little bit of a cliché, but I'm sure you've seen many, many clients over the years like this. You know, it is not an exaggeration to say that you're often given three career options: doctor, lawyer, or engineer. And it completely makes sense when you think about your parents' lives. They've had struggle, discrimination, they've come to a new country. Of course, in their head, the way that their children don't face those struggles is to be a straight-A student and get one of these, so-called, respectable jobs. But of course, we've also said that you've seen many doctors and lawyers who end up in the therapy room with problems later on in life because it wasn't the job for them. So, as a parent myself, one of the things I've tried my best to do is to make sure my children feel safe, secure, and that they feel that they are loved irrespective of their achievement. From your decades of experience, for any parents listening, what would you say are the key things that we should be thinking about to increase the chances that our kids are going to live meaningful lives and I guess therefore happy lives?
Well, first of all, your example gives a beautiful illustration of the logic that our grandparents and our parents served. There's, there's no question out of their experience, they did what made sense to them, their world at that time, which is again depending to some degree on their environmental circumstances rather than what's inherent to their son. You see, now that was inadvertent. You know, they can love the child and still want to impose on them whatever that template may be. Um, and, and by the way, part of what we can communicate to our children is sometimes, if you want to open a door, you will have to pay your dues. Don't expect this is about, uh, sitting around and waiting for someone to show up and give you what you want. You may have to go earn it. So, I mean, this is not about trying to make the path easy. The path will be whatever it is. And part of what we can do is be realistic about that. But the biggest issue is most of us don't have permission to really feel what we're feeling, desire what we're desiring, and make the choices necessary to try to honor that. My, my, my parents were working-class people. My father, this is before child labor laws, was pulled out of grade school, primary school, sent to work. At age 13, his life was over. He worked in a factory the rest of his life. My mother was an orphan, and her Swedish father was killed in a coal mine. She, she barely knew him. They grew up in abject poverty, and their message to me was well-intended. They felt crushed by the circumstances of life, and, and their message was quite different than yours, but it was coming out of their real experience.
Don't go out there. It's just too much. Stay here. Circle the wagons, and we'll try to take care of each other. And, and their advice was, rather than work in the factory, which was dirty and dangerous and hot, literally, and I worked there when I was going through college, shards of metal flying everywhere, building tractors and graders. Um, get, try to get a job at the telephone company because there you can wear clean clothes. It's safe. And most of all, security, because, um, they'd gone through the depression and will always need telephones. So that's going to be a job that's there for your lifetime. You see, and that was good advice based on their experience, and it would have killed me, right? And so something in me knew I had to leave. And I don't know if this is, this is a heartache for me. I don't think they ever understood why I left. They knew I cared for them. I knew they cared for me deeply, but I had to leave. And for me, I happened to be born into a culture that allowed a poor child to go and get an education. For me, the ticket was education. And as was for you, in a quite different context, and for that, I'm, I'm very grateful. So, in some way, if a parent could say, in so many words, "Who you are is terrific. Who's who you are is what we value and love. You're here not to please us." Now, not many parents can really say that. Love becomes conditional. I want you to grow up and by and large espouse my values. This is sometimes communicated overtly. Many times it's covert. I want you to grow up espousing my values. Maybe live in this neighborhood. Uh, may somebody that's we would approve of, uh, and have a lifestyle, maybe religious values, cultural values that are consistent. In other words, we would love to have a replication of us. Right? That's the unconscious narcissism of the parent. We'd like you to become something like us, which is of course our issue, not you.
And, and can you be explicit, James, because there'll be many people listening who probably fall into that trap. What are the consequences do you believe on that child if that's the messaging they get?
Well, the consequences are a huge burden. Either I succumb to that, and most children do, or if I break away from that, there's a significant price, up to and including alienation from those parents, you see. And I mean, I've known people who, well, for example, if you're young and gay, many parents have said, "You're not welcome in our house." Well, this is something that's innate in their nature, and you're, you're, you're saying, you know.
Your soul doesn't matter to us; you have to conform to our cultural values and their limitations. Or let's say you marry outside your religion. See, these defining bonds have diminished somewhat over the last few generations, which is a good thing. For example, my parents and certainly my grandparents were hugely governed by gender role expectations. You're right, there is an example. If you're a man, this is what you're supposed to do and be. And if you step outside of that, there's going to be a price for that: ridicule or shunning of some kind. If you're a woman, this is your role. And that's totally constrictive.
Now, we've challenged those definitions. Those are cultural contrivances. They are cultural constructs. And we've deconstructed some of them, but they linger.
"Yeah."
"And so it's the conditionality that the child has to face. In other words, if I want your love and support, parent, I have to meet your conditions, or I have to spend my life struggling against them. Every child needs to hear, and more than once, 'Who you are is terrific. You're not here to please me. I'm addressing that issue in my life, child. Right. Know that I always have an opinion. You want my opinion? You know, just ask. You'll get my opinion. But you're not here to agree with it. You're going to be cared for regardless.'"
"You always have a home here, someone who cares and loves you, but you're here to live your own journey."
Sounds so simple. Parents tend not to be able to give that to the child when they don't have it themselves. Only when you've been able to find your path can you really see the importance of that freedom for your own child.
"Or as you've said before, your relationship with others can only ever be as good as your relationship with yourself."
"Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes."
"And then there's this wider point for me, James, which I was thinking about this morning. If you or me were born in a different country, right? Maybe I was born in Ethiopia and my parents were farmers. My viewpoint of the world, my belief system about who I am, what I need to do, what constitutes a meaningful life will be, of course, influenced by that environment. So when we think about our psyche and what is our psyche calling us to do, asking us to do, surely to a certain degree, my life of meaning is going to be dependent on where I live and where I was brought up."
"Absolutely. Now, that's why I make the distinction between the Self (capital S), which is that sort of the driving energy that is seeking its expression in the world, and it's a verb again. It's the Self is seeking something. It's it's solving. It's not an entity; it's an energy system. And our sense of self. So if you're born in Ethiopia in an agrarian society, your sense of self is going to be quite different. Now, the question is, to what degree does the sense of self, the cultural message, line up with the interior reality of the person? So could it be, James, that let's say the essence of my psyche could be, I don't know, creativity or curiosity or, you know, looking to seek answers to important questions, and that essence can be lived here in my job here in the UK, and what I do now, let's say on this podcast, I get to express those things each week on this show."
"But let's say I was brought up in Ethiopia."
"You're basically saying the essence of who I am would still be the same, but perhaps I would express that essence in a different way. The Self is still the same, no matter where you're born. It's just how do you express that Self? Is that what you're saying?"
"That's correct. But I have to add another element to that. It may well be that if you're born to that agrarian village in Ethiopia, maybe in another century where these other pathways are closed to you, they don't even exist. There would be a terrible deformation to your soul. Something would always mourn within. Something would always be full of yearning within. And maybe you would never have any clue as to what that was about. That's more likely the case for most people."
"So, therefore, is a life of meaning in many ways a privileged thing to think about? Do we need to live a certain quality of life and have certain avenues open to us before we can possibly think about that?"
"Well, it's being thought about in our bodies and our psyches regardless. And I would never want to forget that or denigrate that. I'm just saying, what happens to the soul when the social conditions or the psychological conditions or the political conditions suppress that individual? You know, there, you know, that's why I was saying gender roles were good examples of people's understandings, and it gave them a certain security, and it gave them marching orders. So there was a certain cohesion to that society, but at what price to the individual talents and yearnings of women and men along the way? So, you know, in Thomas Gray's poem 'On a Distant Prospect of Eton College,' you know, there's some village Milton who never even got to go to school. My father was one of them. He wanted to be a physician and never was allowed to finish the eighth grade. And his life, as he understood it, was over at 13. And I, and he never complained. But I, I know I grieve that. And I think about it all the time. And I think of the privilege I had that he didn't have. And so many are the souls that were extinguished or crushed, or at least profoundly constrained."
"Yeah. Conditions of the world without around them."
"Yes. And maybe that's the job of our time. Maybe we can look back and go, 'Well, listen, the soul's calling is always there, but many of our ancestors have lived in times and environments where they were unable to express their soul's calling. But perhaps the task that lies before all of us in the 21st century is, can we evolve? Can we evolve humanity so that more and more of us can first of all listen to the voice of our souls and then try and express that meaning in our lives?' Because you mentioned your dad. I think about my dad's death a lot. You know, Dad's dad's work basically ended up killing him because he slept for three nights a week for 30 years. He did two jobs, basically, a day job, and then he'd come home and he'd work all night. And I don't know if he enjoyed it. If he was alive today, I'd ask him, 'You know, Dad, was it worth it?' And I don't know. Part of me is like, no, I don't think he was living a life of meaning in some ways. But in other ways, he was right because my dad's main focus in life was to provide for his family back home in India and to give me and my brother the best start in life that he could. So you can kind of look at meaning through multiple different lenses, can't you?"
"Oh, absolutely. Yes. No, and again, our lives are quite different but very parallel. My father would have said, 'You know, to be a man in my time is to support your family at all costs.'"
"Yeah."
"'Live your life? Are you kidding? I don't have an opportunity to do that. I'm here to take care of everybody.' And he did without complaint. And I admire him for that. There's something to that code that gave a sense of purpose. I also know it was at huge cost to him. That is what I grieve. I appreciate his loyalty and love, and I cherish it. I also grieve the loss of his own journey. Both are true. Absolutely."
"Yeah."
"In your latest book, there's a beautiful section called 'Asking Questions That Matter.' And in that section, you write, 'The path of personal growth and development is not found so much in finding the answers, which we all certainly wish for as youths. Because the answers we do find, at best, serve only for a little while, or are someone else's answers. Life is forever evolving, and yesterday's truth is tomorrow's prison.'"
"I really love that. I love this idea that you focus on people asking questions instead of giving them the answers. So let's say, James, there's someone who's listening to our conversation who is in midlife. Let's say they're in their 40s and they have realized throughout this conversation that they're in the wrong career. Maybe it's one of those doctors or lawyers who end up in your therapy room. They're like,"
"Mhm."
"'I'm here. I've got used to earning this amount, and that's what pays for the mortgage and my lifestyle, but the truth is, my soul feels empty.' And so I compensate for that lack of meaning by getting drunk on Friday and Saturday nights, or some version of that."
"What kinds of questions could that person ask themselves to start changing things?"
"Sure. And you're right. The moment you start probing, then they'll say, 'But, you know, I've got the kids' tuition, the orthodontic braces, well, I've got to pay off the mortgage.' It's all of which are factual, but that's again binding us to the choices that we made at an earlier stage of our journey. You see, that's the self-imprisonment that we all walk into. The single most important thing I learned in my years of analysis in Zurich, and I've learned it many, many times through many repetitions, is what you've become is now your chief obstacle. And what we've become is this provisional personality operating in the world as best we can, given the information we have, the pressures we feel, the context in which we find ourselves. And we do the best we can, you know, but something inside knows better. So, you're right. The moment you start probing those questions, then all of the good reasons not to make any changes. And then you're in the position of Ivan Illich. Okay. Well, on your deathbed, will you look back on this stage and say, 'Well, I could have made some changes there, but I didn't, did I? And what's the price of that?' So I would ask questions about, you know, what fired your imagination as a child? Has that totally gone away, or is it something that still speaks to you? What do you find spontaneously energizing to you? And many times it will be. I mean, I'll give you a quick example. Many people I know have found through music a deep calling. And it doesn't mean they have to be musicians, although in some cases they learn the guitar or the piano or something like that. Or people who say, 'You know, I always wondered if I could write something.' Well, you know, writers are people who write. And write something, don't you know? Don't shackle yourself saying, 'Well, it has to be publishable.'"
"Yeah. Well, publishing is driven mostly by economics these days, not quality. And write because something in you wants your attention. You don't know what you think, feel, and believe until you start writing about it. And somehow out of that dialogue, something emerges. That's one of the reasons I keep writing; it's a form of self-discovery. It's a form of developing. I sometimes look back on something I think, 'Oh, that's interesting.' Where then it's realized it's my own writing. You know, it's like, where did that come from? I don't know, but there was something in there that was responding to this in a deeper way. So, in a way, it means recovering a sense of the depth of your own journey in a new way."
"Yeah. Um, just to sort of respond to your music point that you just mentioned, I can remember a patient of mine a few years ago who was a doctor, actually, and was burning out in their 40s. And very much, you know, to cut the story short, it wasn't their calling, but they felt trapped that, well, this is my life. You know, I can't not work because we depend on my income for the mortgage, etc., etc. And I remember chatting to him saying, 'Well, okay, well, what else did you used to like?' You know, he goes, 'Well, I've always, I love music. I love being in a band when I was at school, but, you know, part of me thinks I could have been a musician, right?' And and I remember, and it deeply resonates with me because I'm a very keen musician. And I remember saying to him, I said, 'Well, maybe you don't need to quit your job. Maybe you just need to start playing your music again.' And over the next few months, they got back in touch with the music. They joined a local band, and he would then perform, I think, maybe once a month at the weekends. They would perform. And that's all he needed to do to almost rebalance things. Sure, medicine wasn't the right job for him, but just by getting enough music in other parts of his life, it seemed to make his job as a doctor much more tolerable. Um, what's your take on that? Do you see that quite a lot as being a sort of halfway house where people can get that life of meaning without quitting their jobs?"
"Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I have many examples of that. And it's not necessarily if people say, 'Well, tell me about this meaning thing. How do I find it?' Well, you know, that's what I said, 'Just move to Brighton, and it'll all be there for you.' That's not the point. It's about various pieces of your life maybe that need to be moved about on the chessboard of your life."
"And, you know, maybe include some things that, such as what we were illustrating, that are missing in your life that feed the spirit. Because in some way, it's the cash account of the spirit is being drained on a daily basis. What replenishes it?"
"Yeah."
"You know, what spiritual cash, so to speak, comes back into the account? And many times people, because there's going to be routinization, there's going to be institutional values that legitimately have to be served, that there are bills to be paid. That's part of the reality. That doesn't mean I shouldn't want anybody watching or listening today to think we're being idealistic. We're being utterly realistic. You know, you pay a price if you live in violation of what is most deeply true inside of you. You know that intuitively. You may be afraid of looking at that. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to drop all here and move to Madrid or Berlin or whatever. It means you need to take seriously the valuing of those aspects of your personality that have been left on the roadside behind, possibly necessarily so in terms of certain developments that you had to attend. But then again, there is a price. You wouldn't say, 'Well, you know, let's get rid of these fingers,' or 'I can get rid of my left leg,' because I haven't been using it that much. Well, right, you are a whole person. We never achieve spiritual and psychological wholeness, but in some way, that's the goal. And that's never going to be one this because there's always this over here that is also calling for our attention. A good example of that is the balance between privacy and being engaged in your society or your relationships. You know, if too much of one side will diminish the other."
"Um, what would you say in your multiple decades of practice has changed the most? That's one question. And the second question is, what have you found to be the most helpful tools, or some of the most helpful tools, that people can use to better understand themselves and get a better sense of what they should be doing with their lives?"
"First of all, in my relationship to the client, when I began, I was, shall I say, trying to be too helpful, making too many suggestions. What I've since discovered, along with colleagues, is that I'm really there to pay attention, to listen, to contain, to hold, and allow the conversation to grow and develop. Mhm."
"I think my awareness of the mystery of the process has grown. And again, what is right for that person needs to emerge. And that's quite different than the notion that the therapist has somehow answers for what a person is. And then the various tools of dream work, of journaling, and that sort of thing, all are designed to evoke a more respectful conversation with the other. You know, the word 'therapy' means to listen or pay attention to, from the Greek. So it's like, and 'psyche,' of course, is soul. So it's like listening or paying attention to the soul."
"Yeah."
"How do you go about doing that? Well, there are venerable techniques that are age-old whereby people have engaged in that kind of conversation. And for me, it happens in our conversations. It happens in my clients' conversations. It happens when I write. It happens when I dream. You know, Yeats said once, 'The world is full of wondrous things waiting for our senses to mature enough to be able to discern them.' So this is about a discernment process over time. The psyche is always speaking to us, and the question is, are we listening? And what is it trying to say to us? And then can you mobilize enough insight and courage to address what that means in the concrete details of your life?"
"Yeah, James, I love that. I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, like I did our first one. And for people who want to stay in touch with you or, I guess, go deeper into your work, you do have 22 books out there. Is there a couple you would direct them to to start on their James Hollis journey?"
"Well, that's a tough choice. If they're in midlife, throws, you know, 'The Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life,' which is the publisher's title, not mine. And if they're in the middle of some difficult times right now, maybe 'Swamplands of the Soul.' And if they're dealing with relationship issues, 'If You Can Bear Handling It,' look at 'The Eden Project,' which calls us back to a personal accountability and so forth."
"James, thank you so much for coming back on, and, yeah, we'll talk again soon, I'm sure."
"Thank you very much for the conversation. And I, I have enjoyed both of them as well."
If you enjoyed that conversation, then I think you are really going to enjoy this one. Most things that adults are doing that is counterproductive have a logic, a certain logic, a twisted logic you might say, that dates back to their early childhood where that behavior made a certain sort of sense.