The Male Soul At Midlife
Updated: Jun 25, 2024
Written by: Bill O'Brien, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Let’s call him Fred. Fred is a quality individual. He applied himself in school, unaware that nearly all his education exercised the left side, rational, logical part of his brain while mostly neglecting the right side. He launched a career in a profession or occupation generally respected by the mainstream culture around him. He married, had two or three children, felt energized by his life and all was well in his twenties and thirties.
By now Fred is 42 or thereabouts. His body has begun to settle a bit, as has his wife’s. The kids are gone or soon will be. Fred is feeling a little low on energy and enthusiasm. His once interesting job now inspires little more than a yawn. Out of habit, inertia, or simple bewilderment, Fred soldiers on. After maybe another year of stiff-upper-lipping-it, Fred begins to sink into depression. He is living on automatic pilot and barely notices his depression until his wife and friends start asking him if something is wrong.
At first, he just shrugs it off and deflects the comments but soon they become hard to ignore, especially when his boss begins to bring it to his attention as perhaps interfering with his job performance. Soon Fred finds himself willy-nilly in psychotherapy, or spiritual direction or Consciousness Coaching.
What is wrong with Fred? Basically, he’s been climbing the “ladder” only to realize in midlife that the “ladder” is against the wrong wall. Like many good people, Fred unconsciously bought in to the assumptions of the mainstream culture. This means that the point of his education was to learn a lot of facts and how–to stuff, mostly utilizing the left side of his brain with little emphasis on the inspirational, artistic, intuitive, spiritual side of his psyche which was largely left on its own. This is like lifting weights with your left arm for twenty years while leaving your right arm hanging at your side. Now at midlife, Fred is grinding to a halt. His neglected right brain is demanding its due while Fred continues to live his life from his left brain until someone enlightens him. The right brain is taking energy from Fred’s psyche to keep itself functioning. This in turn is overtaxing the left brain and gradually draining it of energy. The result is depression.
Since Fred is unaccustomed to dealing with his right brain, he undergoes a longer or shorter period of ennui until someone intervenes.
A psychologist will make him aware of all this, may suggest that Fred reflect on his core values and reshape his life choices around those. A spiritual director will likely propose a daily spiritual practice, such as meditation, to engage the soul and they will likely discuss the here and now of the Present Moment. A Consciousness Coach will help Fred enliven his life by introducing higher levels of consciousness. All of these approaches will expand Fred’s imagination about life, including his own.
Just as the Hubble and now the Webb telescopes have shown us new vistas of our universe, so Fred’s troubles can lead him to awe and wonder and dramatically transform his life. If, on the other hand, he refuses to address his issues, he likely will become a disgruntled old curmudgeon.
You can get in contact with Bill here!
Bill O'Brien, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Bill O'Brien has decades of experience helping individuals and groups expand their awareness of the capacities of their inner selves, their full, or divine, potential. He utilizes a range of methods to expand consciousness from meditation to self-knowledge techniques to guided imagery to shamanic healing methodologies such as Illumination and Soul Retrieval. With his Consciousness Coaching, experience is the touchstone. The goal is drawing up into conscious awareness the infinite contents of the individual unconscious. Bill spent twenty years in the Jesuit Order before launching out on the great adventure of the discovery of the Self. His Wisdomkeepers reach a worldwide audience. He is the author of "Wise Guyde: The First Forty-Five Columns" available on Amazon. His mission: feeding the spiritual hunger of the world by healing and elevating human consciousness.
