JH: That’s a very good question, because we all have with us the internalized models of the lives that were lived before us, and there’s a strong tendency for folks to repeat those models. That’s why you have phrases like the biblical, “The sins of the parents are visited until the third generation”—until that sort of wears out, you see? So the first tendency is, in the face of these influences, to repeat them. Therefore, you see patterns running through the generations. Second is to run from them. Anytime a person says, well, I don’t want to be like my mother, or I don’t want to live my father’s life, we’re still being governed by that. We’re still saying, “I want to be not that,” and yet that’s still playing a role. Or thirdly, maybe we’re out there unconsciously dealing with this in a life of distraction, a life of busyness, a life of addiction—we’re not uninfluenced by these forces.
We’re always influenced by them. So the question then is always to ask this pragmatic question: What do those examples have a tendency to make me do, or to keep me from doing? That’s a different question. And that begins to open the doors to saying, well, I found that myself, I’m often inhibited in the areas where my parents were. Or I find myself sort of pushing toward the same values they had even though they don’t fit me. Or they blocked me from making those choices. I didn’t get the permission that I needed to have. And one of the issues I mentioned in one of the Sounds True books is one of the central tasks of the second half of life is to grab hold of the permission, live your own journey. If you don’t have that, you don’t have anything.
And if you don’t struggle to find that personal authority that we were talking about, you don’t have anything. You may have a well-adjusted life, you may have a productive and affluent and “successful” life, but it’s somebody else’s life. Oscar Wilde said once, “Most people wind up living somebody else’s life.” And there’s a lot of truth to that because of the power of examples around us.
TS: Now, I listened to A Life of Meaning. And as I was listening to this eight-session series, it’s over eight hours, I took a bunch of notes. And before having this conversation with you, Jim, I went over my notes and I circled the things that I thought were the most interesting to bring forward. And I noticed a theme that again and again, I wrote things down that had to do with giving into fear. And I’ll just give one quote here you say, “It’s all right to be scared, it’s not all right to live a scared life.”
And you talk about the work you’ve done with people. You specifically focused, in this one comment, people who are between the age of 65 and 80 and how they said—you saw this theme—the thing that kept them from feeling fulfilled at the end of their lives were all the different ways that they had given into fear and were living a constricted, fear-filled life. So this really stuck with me as a theme, that if we’re going to have a meaningful life, we have to work through our fears and move through them. And I want to know more about what you’ve seen really helps people do that.
JH: Well, yes, first of all, it sounds horribly reductionistic to say, good, many of our behaviors, maybe even most of them are fear based, fear driven, or defenses against our fears. That’s natural, because fear itself is not the problem. If we didn’t have any fear, we’d walk right in front of a truck. Fear is provided us by nature to protect us. On the other hand, fear also constricts, often limits our capacities and our range of options. And so when we get right down to it, there are elemental fears that a child has that stay so deeply lodged in people, they continue to dictate their lives, such as the fear of what will happen if someone doesn’t like me.
That alone you see, when you’re a child, if nobody likes you, you’re in big trouble. You’re very isolated. And you feel that sense of exile that you mentioned before. And I realize I didn’t quite finish that question, let me just touch on that a moment. Many times people feel there’s something wrong with me if I don’t fit in and secretly they’re in exile, but they think there’s something wrong with them when that’s the case. Where I say there’s a community of exiles, because many people feel that they just don’t have political parties, they don’t meet and talk about it. They keep it because they’re secretly frightened or even ashamed. And so underneath all of that, you see, is the fear of disapproval, of being outside of the circle of welcoming folks.
So again, the fears that we have are normal and natural. The question is, what does it mean to be living a fear-based agenda? Then your life is always constricted. Then it’s sabotaging the expression of your possibilities in life. Jung said once, in a book published in 1912, “The spirit of evil is negation of the life force by fear.” That’s strong language. Only boldness can deliver us from fear, and if the risk is not taken, meaning of life is violated. Now, I think of that as a kind of daily reminder to me. The way I put it in one of the books The Middle Passage, “Every morning, two gremlins at the foot of the bed, challenging us and threatening us, fear and lethargy. Fear says, it’s too much, it’s too big for you. You can’t handle this life. And lethargy says, chill out. Tomorrow’s another day, turn on the television, try to be distracted if you can.”
And both of them are the enemies of life, and they’ll be there again tomorrow, no matter what you do today. So we have to realize they are inside of us. The biggest enemies to life are inside of us: fear and lethargy. If we can address that life opens up and begins to be what it’s supposed to be, in my view, the unfolding of the gem that each of us embodies in this world.
TS: All right. But I’m still wanting to understand, for those of us who have a lot of fear, maybe it’s the fear of humiliation or fears of failure, other things. And we can say, Jim, I’m inspired by you, but I’m going to tell the truth here, these fears are holding me back. I get it, I get it. They’re holding me back. Are you just telling me, go through it anyway, bust on through, I mean, just . . .
JH: Well to a degree, but also realize that probably 90 percent of the energy that is blocking you really has its origin in your childhood, where everything was overwhelming. That where we are stuck, and everybody has stuck places in life, is the triggering of moving through whatever the stuck place may be, activates a field of archaic anxiety that lies in the basement for all of us. And we have to realize that’s where it’s coming from, it’s all from the past. Now, for example, many surveys have indicated the American public’s greatest fear is public speaking. And what’s the fear underneath that? Well, I’ll say something and somebody’s going to dislike that. That’s a very childlike, an archaic fear, but again, it operates in us to the degree that that’s people’s biggest fear. Now what you have to do is smoke that out and say, all right, but that’s like asking the child that I was to drive the automobile that I drive today.
We would never dream of that. And yet we’re placing that childhood fear in the driver’s seat of our lives. So what you have to stand up to is the child’s fear of whatever it is that you are being blocked by. And yes, sooner or later one has to go through it. So the way I always deal with public speaking is to say look, it’s not about me. My role here is simply to be the vehicle for certain kinds of ideas or values. So pull yourself out of the picture, right? At the end of the day, you still live with your own journey. This is about being a vehicle for life, and it’s true for all of us. Life asks us to serve it and we don’t serve it when we’re constricted and our life is narrowed down to fear-based responses.
TS: Can you give me an example from your life, if you would, of identifying a fear that was holding you back and how you were able to work through it?
JH: Well, I just gave you one, I think, as a card-carrying introvert, I was always afraid of public speaking and yet I spent all my life in teaching, so that’s public speaking every day at some level. And that’s why I began to realize, it’s not about me, it’s about standing in relationship to the material that you care about and sharing that with others. So it was about reframing the fear and recognizing in subsequent life, but that’s something derived from your family of origin really. In fact, I grieve at how intimidated my parents were, who would never speak up on behalf of something because of their life history, and how constricting that was for my life for the early years.
And rather than judge it, I grieve it. And at the same time, I can’t afford to have my life governed by their fears. So sooner or later, again, what is our ultimate obligation? It’s to serve whatever our soul asks of us. And I use that word soul in the sense of our deepest sense of purpose and identity in life. And again, it has very little to do, per se, with outer tasks. It’s often being willing to surrender to something that’s truly important to us, something that’s truly meaningful to us, and it’ll be different for all of us as well.
TS: I, myself, am turning 60 next year. And sometimes I think, gosh, to still be working through some of this stuff, some of these fears from my childhood at this age, really? After all this inner work? And yet in the series A Life of Meaning, you normalize that. And I wonder if you can speak to that for people who are like, wow, I’m going back to when I was 10, still?
JH: Well, I’m afraid to tell you, it will keep going. Again, Jung spoke to this very articulately when he said, “We don’t solve these problems, because they’re part of us.” We can’t cut our history out of us like a tumor. He says, “Our task is to outgrow its influence.” That’s the point. You don’t rule out what is wired in you neurologically and in your psyche. You could have a dream tonight of your third grade teacher, someone you haven’t seen or thought of for decades, and yet suddenly there she is in full glory. And you realize everything that’s ever happened to us is somewhere contained and recorded within us and has the potential to be triggered.
Although that’s true, it’s far superseded by other larger capacities that we all have. And so we don’t solve these things. And if we keep thinking we have to solve them, we’ll be forever thinking of ourselves as failures. You have to say, you recognize it sooner, you get out of it sooner, you lessen the damage this time. And each time, you’ve gained a little more purchase upon your present, conscious life. That’s what he means by outgrowing it.
TS: Now just a little bit more on this topic of fear, Jim, because you and I had a conversation about a year ago when you were diagnosed with cancer and were starting to go through these treatments. And I remember in talking with you about it, you seemed very matter-of-fact about it. I didn’t feel like here’s somebody who’s meeting a fear of death in their life as much as someone who’s like, this is the next thing I have to do, and then the next day I’m going to see my clients and I’ll get back to you. It was all very matter-of-fact, and I’d love to understand more about that.
JH: Well, I think that’s an accurate description of how I felt and still feel. I had a history of cancer in the family—the entire female side of my family had perished of cancer, including my mother and grandfather and uncle and others. So I’ve always known that was in the genetic load up, it didn’t come as a surprise. But as I said before, I wanted to allocate to it whatever it asks of me in terms of reasonable commitment to the healing process. And I’m grateful to say that to the best of my knowledge, I’m in good shape today, but also to continue my life as fully as I can. Why would I shortchange the life that’s available? It’s always finite, it’s always shorter than we would wish perhaps. And to say, all right, meanwhile, life goes on. Meanwhile, what are you going to do today with your life? Meanwhile, what are your choices about today? You’re not going to let it be defined by this.
And as far as fear of death itself, my ego’s not keen on the idea, to be sure. On the other hand, I’ve often thought along with Socrates, who said when he was asked almost three millennia ago, reportedly, he said, “Either it’s a big sleep and I can use the rest or there’s another life and it’s beyond my power to imagine it.” Socrates says, “I’d like to look forward to talking to the other philosophers and see what they have to say.” So I think whatever death is, it’s a cessation of the ego’s worries and or it’s a transformation of such proportions that it buggers our imagination. So whatever I think, feel, and believe at this moment literally is rendered irrelevant. And if I remember that I’d think, well, all right, we’ll leave that to the mystery. Won’t we?
TS: So you don’t have an utter confidence in continuity, it’s more just an open exploration of the unknown for you?
JH: Of course. No, no. I mean, if I knew, I would tell you, right? I don’t.
TS: Thank you Jim, friend to friend, yes.
JH: Yes. Among friends, people have different opinions, but that’s what they are. That’d be different belief structures. I’m agnostic in the sense that I think it’s a mystery of such magnitude that I don’t presume to comprehend it anymore than I comprehend life. Life itself is a mystery. Why are we here? That’s another mystery. What’s wanting to unfold through us? That’s greater concern than the cessation of this. Because as far as I know, any cessation is going to terminate my daily concerns and worries anyhow.
TS: OK, so you’ve said several times this idea, how important it is, what wants to come through you, how life wants to come through you, what wants to be expressed? How do we know when we tune in and we listen that this is what wants to come through us and that this is not an ego agenda of some kind?
JH: Well, that’s a very good question. And it’s always a discernment process because many of our decisions that we thought were correct at the time were driven by complexes of one sort or another or by fears. And for me, I’ve always thought of myself, since childhood, as a teacher. When I went into my first classes, I remember thinking, these people are here to help me and they’re teaching me about how to live in a larger way in this world. I don’t know if I would’ve expressed it that way, but that’s what I experienced. And I thought, how marvelous to be that kind of person in your life. So I felt that calling, even in grade school, and that’s what I’ve always done is be a teacher, just in different forums. And so I think for a person, there is such a thing as a calling, and I’m not talking about job here.
Job is how we pay our bills. A calling is what are you meant to do or be as a person. And part of our calling is to stand in relationship to other people. Part of it is to stand in relationship to nature, part of it is to stand in relationship to what is wanting expression through us. So it’s reasonable to experiment. I’d also liked to make Major League Baseball player when I was a child. I didn’t get the body for that. I’d also liked to be a painter and a musician. I don’t have the talent for that. I have the experiment with that and I learned pretty quickly, that’s not the vehicle for me. So there’s a little trial and error that’s good in life too. But along way, there’s often . . . I mean, how many times have I’ve heard as a therapist: I always wanted to do this. And there’s a but in that sentence, but there was always a reason and many times outer forces at work, yes. Many times an inner reluctance to step up to the challenge, an inner terror of stepping into that largeness. Another question I’ve often asked folks to ask at junctures of decision along the way, does this path enlarge me? Does it diminish me? And we usually know the difference between the two of them and choose the path of enlargement. Not as world sees it, but as it is confirmed within you. That’s the key because always, no matter what I do, all the right things I’m supposed to do will not matter a hill of beans if it doesn’t matter to my own internal life, because that’s where these decision are really being made. That’s why people can follow all their instructions, do all the right things, and then find it is without meaning, without purpose. There’s no energy there anymore.
That’s what happened to me at midlife. And frankly, I look back upon that now as a good thing that happened, though I didn’t understand it at the time because it said to me, look, your psyche has autonomously withdrawn its approval and support from the places where you want to keep putting the energy. Now, wonder what we could figure out if we begin to pay attention more to what’s going on inside of you? Then we realize there are other initiatives, other forces that wish expression through you. When you have that kind of conversation with your inner reality, then your life becomes richer, even more interesting. Again, this is not about narcissism. This is not about withdrawal from the world, this is about improving the quality of your relationships, the quality of your contributions to the world. But if what we do isn’t rising out of a right relationship to our own in internal life, it’s not going to be right out there in the long run.
TS: As we’re talking, Jim, I’m reflecting on how listening to you feels so, I would say, healing for me, balancing for me, resetting for me, something like that. And I think part of the reason—and I just want to share this and also give you the chance to comment on it—is so often in the spiritual journey. In our contemporary world, there’s some notion of arriving somewhere, getting things to be all glittery, shiny without problem. Some notion of it’s all just like bright sunlight if you’re doing it right. And somehow, spending time listening to A Life of Meaning for eight plus hours and being with your worldview, helped legitimize a kind of inner wrestling that I often feel in my life that I think I somehow thought was something wrong with me. Like, what are you doing? Why do you always have to wrestle with so much interior sorting, Tami?
JH: Well sure, because there’s a divine ferment within your spirit. That’s just what it amounts to. I had a client years ago who said, “I just wish I was a happy carrot.” And I said, “It’s too late for that, you are not a happy carrot. You’re here as a person for whom life matters. You have questions and if you live your questions, you’re going to have a larger life.” We all, as young people, want answers. We assume there are answers, and we might find answers from time to time, but we often outgrow them or there are answers for a short time only. We have to say, all right, where is life leading me next? That’s the question for me. And what do I need to do to be prepared for that? What work do I have to engage in?
Because it does take courage, it does take discipline. For example, writing. I have a lot of books and I’m not doing it for money. They don’t make that much money. It’s that something inside of me is wishing expression. And so I’ve been willing to sacrifice an evening of relaxation for sitting at the computer and pounding away. And out of that chemical process, something emerges that feels good, feels right, and that I consider part of vocation. In other words, in your life there is always a question. What is life asking of you next? What matters most to you? What in the end enlarges your journey, brings you into proximity to the mystery of this journey?
Because in the end, it’s all a mystery. Jung said once, in one of his letters, he said, “Life is a short pause between two great mysteries.” Now it’s very succinct, but that’s as good a definition of life as I can think of, a short pause between two mysteries. And part of the mystery is for us, I think, to render this short pause we call our life as luminous as we can by the powers that we are already given and to somehow respect them enough to serve them.
TS: Which is interesting. It’s the final point I want to talk about, this notion of allowing what’s mysterious to be mysterious. I’ve noticed a couple times in my life when I share some deeply mysterious things, people ask me, “Well, how do you explain that?” And things that have happened, like voices I’ve heard of guidance and things like that—and they’re like, “Well, what’s your explanation for that?” And I noticed I felt under pressure to offer an explanation of some kind, and sometimes I’ve even made up explanations, but the truth is I have no idea. I don’t know, but I feel—is that OK? It’s a mystery and you seem very comfortable with that.
JH: Well, if I could explain it, it’s not the mystery. Really if it’s something that I don’t know or understand then I’m willing to abide, I can tolerate that in a way I couldn’t have as a young person. I don’t mean I’m passive around it, it makes me all the more curious, but I’m comfortable with mystery because I think the things we can understand are going to be byproducts of where our psyche is at that moment. And tomorrow, I hope we’re going to be in a different place in a larger frame of reference. And it all gets a little confused, a little murky, and to be able to tolerate that and to go with that, I think, is one of the real adventures of life. It’s like being a white water rafter. You are not in charge, you go with the flow of that. But when you do, it’s also exhilarating.
TS: I’ve been talking with James Hollis. With Sounds True, he’s created two audio series. They’re both gorgeous. If you ever want to go on a long drive or take a long walk and listen to something that will put you really in touch with your insides, what’s stirring inside of you, I recommend both of these series. The new one is called A Life of Meaning: Exploring Our Deepest Questions and Motivations. And then a previous audio series we created with Jim, Through the Dark Wood: Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life. With Sounds True, James Hollis has also written the book Living an Examined Life and Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times. Jim, thanks so much for your friendship most of all, for this conversation, and really all the inspiration you give to so many. For all of us, thank you for serving life. Thank you.
JH: Thank you, Tami. It’s a privilege to be with you, you always have a great interview with some tough questions, and that’s why I look forward to it.
TS: Thank you for listening to Insights at the Edge. You can read a full transcript of today’s interview at SoundsTrue.com/podcast. And if you’re interested, hit the Subscribe button in your podcast app. And also, if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave Insights at the Edge a review. I love getting your feedback, being in connection with you, and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program. Working together, I believe we can create a kinder and wiser world. SoundsTrue.com: waking up the world.
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