Awakening at Midlife: A Guide to Reviving Your Spirit, Recreating Your Life, and Returning to Your Truest Self

by Kathleen A. Brehony

Book Overview

Fraught with physical, relational, professional, and psychological changes, midlife can be a challenging time. But according to Jungian-oriented psychotherapist Kathleen Brehony, "tranformation at midlife offers unparalleled opportunities for a rich, meaningful second half of life."With special sections on recovering childhood dreams, enriching creative expression, learning to appreciate our physical selves, heightening consciousness, and more, this...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573226327
• ISBN13: 9781573226325
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Midlife is a time for growth

Awakening at midlife is an intelligent book. Instead of focusing strictly on physical changes, it touches on issues that affect us, both men and women in midlife, in a larger sense: the search for wholeness, losses and death, continuing growth strategies, and relationships. It then goes on to give us techniques for enriching our lives that include dreamwork, creativity, and spirituality. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in making the second half of their life as rich as or richer than the first half. Too often the focus at this time of life is on our losses--physical changes, death of friends and family members, role changes, and career stagnation. This book shows us how to focus on the positive aspects of growing older. It's a time when we can recreate our lives in the present, discover our true potential, and return to who we really are.

Buy this book!

A mixture of Jungian psychology, ancient wisdom and common sense, Awakening at Midlife is simply an incredible resource in a very difficult time. I've read and reread the book several times. I'd lend it out to friends if I could part with it!

In Crisis there is both Disaster and Opportunity

A woman or man in the middle passage, a friend or lover of someone, a parent or companion, a mentor, therapist, counselor, or even boss of such a traveler, will benefit from the giving, gifting, or receiving of this book ~ BUT only if they read it. Please, READ this book. The author has beautifuly and skillfully sythesized Carl Jung's work related to the middle life passage/crisis. She speaks eloquently and articulates the personal/case exemplar histories with the theory and reality of the awakening that is potential at midlife. I have been so effected by her work that I have purchased 15 or 20 copies (I am losing track) and regularly give the book to persons in my life or whom I cross paths with. That action puts my money where my mouth is. This book speaks volumes and has truth for the taking. I am in the midst of my own awakening and this book is a marvelous travel guide. The insights and understanding I have gained in reading and discussing this work help me in my practice, personal life and in the work I do in the lives of others.

READ IT!

This is one of the best books I've ever read! If you are suffering from a seemingly vauge, unidentifiable dissatisfaction with your life, you owe it to yourself to take advantage of the help offered in this book. It has enriched my life and helped me take a more positive, proactive view of the changes I've gone through as well as the ones that are yet to come. I plan on keeping this book close at hand for review, rereading and guidance.

A godsend!

For those enduring a midlife transition, _Awakening at Midlife_ is a godsend. Relying on her own experiences, both personal and professional, as well as the writings of Carl Jung and other gifted teachers and sages, Kathleen Brehony's focus is an overwhelmingly positive one, offering hope and practical guidance for what can be a confusing and tumultuous time of life. The message is that the midlife transition is not an affliction, but rather a profound opportunity for growth and positive personal transformation, and that the goal of this transition is not perfection, but rather completion. She writes of the "tension of opposites", the agonizing feeling of being torn in two which is often at the root of midlife turmoil, and she understands that the urge to give in, or to choose one over the other, is what one struggles with during this difficult time of life. The solution to this struggle most often does not lie in making a choice, writes the author. Rather ! it is the holding of the tension of opposites which is the secret behind the alchemy of transformation through which we become more conscious, creative and whole human beings. The encouragement and wisdom found within the pages of _Awakening at Midlife_ helps to give the reader the strength to accomplish this, making Kathleen Brehony's book an invaluable aid for anyone facing the challenges of such an amazing midlife metamorphosis.