Writing the Shadow: The Shadow in midlife and ageing
If we’re lucky to live long enough, there are some experiences we will all go through. There is no escaping them, and they will bring both challenges and gifts, Shadow and gold.
Much of the writing that resonates with us stems from these places, and our experience of them can inspire our deepest work.
The Shadow in midlife
“In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost.”
—Dante Alighieri
We spend the first half of our lives constructing a persona that is acceptable to our partner, family, friends, our faith, culture, and society. But as we reach a midway point, we start to question whether that’s how we want to keep living.
To revisit Robert Bly’s metaphor in A Little Book on the Human Shadow, we spend the first half of our lives stuffing aspects of ourselves into a bag that we drag behind us and then spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again.
At midlife, there may be a clash between who we’ve built ourselves into, who we feel we truly are, and who we want to become. It might be a realisation of needs and desires we’ve denied and repressed. It can be a time of grief as past roles become less important, your body changes, and you feel a loss of purpose.
At midlife, the Shadow demands attention.
Owning and accepting it gives us a chance to make conscious choices about how to live the second half of life in a different way.
But that doesn’t make the journey any easier.
How I met the Shadow in midlife
“At midlife I met my devils.”
—Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow
I stopped sleeping properly in November 2019. I could fall asleep at first but would wake in the early hours and not be able to sleep again. I tried meditation and all kinds of natural supplements, and I read books about different ways to beat insomnia. When the pandemic started soon afterward, I blamed my sleeplessness and misery on anxiety.
The lockdowns took their toll. My mood darkened.
I often went to bed in the afternoon. I wasn’t able to work and didn’t want to. Some days, I cried for no reason. I was angry and frustrated, then empty and blank. Everything felt pointless.
On one particularly dark day, I stared down into the swirling waters of the flooded river and thought about sinking to the bottom. I’ve written about this time in Pilgrimage, but suffice to say, it was difficult.
One reality of being a woman in midlife is the menopause, although some women go through it earlier, and we all experience it in different ways. Once I realised that many of my symptoms were hormonal, I made some changes.
Going on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) helped me sleep and reduced other uncomfortable physical symptoms, while also helping my mental health. I know HRT is not for everyone, but it has been life-changing for me. If you or anyone you love is going through menopause, then I recommend reading Menopausing by Davina McCall.
Menopause also brings a psychological shift. It’s an animal thing, completely out of your control. Your body changes and you cannot hold back time as each day ticks by.
It’s also a visceral realisation of ageing.
I grieved for the young woman I had been and everything she represented. Perhaps I’m still grieving.
I took so much for granted, and when it’s lost for good, there is an inevitable impact on how you perceive yourself. There is so much to say here, but I’m not through it yet.
I’m reading lots of books on midlife experience. I’m finding Connie Zweig’s book The Inner Work of Age helpful as she writes of facing your inner ageist, “that part of you that rejects yourself by hanging onto youth, self-image, success, control, and denial of death at all costs.”
I spent years pushing midlife and ageing into the Shadow, pretending it wasn’t happening, almost denying it would happen to me. When symptoms of perimenopause hit, I spent more than a year without even considering that hormonal change might be the issue. I literally did not even imagine the possibility I was entering menopause. That was for older women, not me.
When I finally accepted the possibility, I could address it, and I’m slowly accepting what that means in other ways, some more metaphorical and meaningful than others.
Older women have not been served well by stories and myths, or the media. While older men are considered the elder statesman, the silver fox, or the distinguished gentleman, older women have been called the crone, the hag, and sometimes — thankfully — the wise woman.
In her book Hagitude, Sharon Blackie uses the metaphor of alchemical transformation for the experience of menopause, equating it to stages in psychological transformation. She notes that “the substance that is transforming suffers deeply, and it’s forced to shed superfluities so that its true nature can be revealed… The goal during this initial phase of transformation is to reduce the individual down to her bare essence, to strip her down to her most essential parts.”
It is here we face the Shadow and the difficult emotions we have pushed down or refused to face, the parts of our life that we no longer fit into, our conformity to roles imposed by others, the parts we can now burn away.
I love how Blackie talks of the fire that burns us during menopause — the night sweats, the hot flushes, the rage. She says its function is “to burn away the dead parts of our lives so that we can reveal the buried treasure within.”
In reading the words of other women, I’ve found a path forward and am slowly pivoting into what the second half of my life will look like, with a much greater sensitivity to what truly matters.
Your experience will differ to mine, but acceptance of the inevitability is perhaps the first step for us all.
Ageing
There is much we can do to have a healthy, happy old age, but there are also many potential challenges.
If we push aspects of ageing into the Shadow so we don’t have to face reality, at some point, they will rear up regardless.
Denial of age and its impact on the body may lead to avoidance of doctor’s appointments and check-ups, or overly aggressive corrective procedures for cosmetic reasons. It may result in unhappiness with how your older body looks and feels.
Pain and decreased mobility, as well as recognizing a limit on what is possible in the time left, can lead to bitterness and irritation with self and others. There may be regrets around past mistakes or feelings of failure, sadness at choices not made, or disappointment at dreams unfulfilled.
There may be grief at the loss of loved ones and anger at the damage done by those closest to us. There might be a different kind of grief at the loss of identity and a difficulty in accepting that society — and perhaps even our family — sees us in a way that we cannot reconcile ourselves to.
As Connie Zweig says in The Inner Work of Age, “This is the last line of the song.”
What will we sing in those last notes?
I write this from the perspective of a healthy forty-eight-year-old in the process of uncovering what is in my own Shadow around old age. Frankly, I’m terrified of what could happen if I’m lucky enough to make it that far.
My highest value is freedom, and independence defines my life. From a young age, I was encouraged to be self-sufficient, to be my own knight in shining armour. To make my own money, to never ask for charity, to never need help from others.
To be considered useless, lazy, stupid, and a burden are the worst things I could be accused of. They are the essence of my Shadow and the things I struggle to integrate. Who am I if I cannot work? Who am I if my brain starts to atrophy and I lose my independence?
Statistically speaking, I am likely to end up on my own. Jonathan is a few years older and men usually die earlier than women, plus we are (happily) childfree. So, I save and invest for the future, to make sure that I can look after myself in old age since it’s unlikely there will be decent government support by the time my generation gets to retirement age.
But of course, there is much gold to be found in the Shadow and many gifts of old age, if we can accept them: The perspective of years of life and the wisdom that comes from experience. The rewards of helping family and friends and enjoying the maturation of relationships. The ability to mentor others and help those on the same path towards new insights. Time to spend on personal growth, creative pursuits, and new adventures in the world with a loving partner, friends, or happily alone. The appreciation of small things, and the ability to live in the moment.
Years ago, a wise older friend told me, “Just wait until you don’t care what other people think anymore. That will be the most powerful time for you creatively.”
I couldn’t understand what she meant back then — how could I ever get to the point of not caring what other people think? But now, I’m starting to glimpse who that person might be, and she is empowered by what has previously been kept in the Shadow of ageing.
Connie Zweig, in The Inner Work of Age, recommends moving “through the passage of late life as a rite, releasing past forms, facing the unknown, and emerging renewed as an Elder filled with vitality and purpose.”
That is what I’m trying to move towards, and this book marks another step in the journey. Perhaps I will write another memoir when I’ve figured out the next chapter — or perhaps I will read yours.
Questions:
• What feelings, thoughts, and words come up for you around midlife and ageing? Include aspects of your physical body as well as career, family, mental health, money, and anything else that comes up.
• What are you resisting in this area?
• What ‘devils’ did you meet at midlife?
• Are there ways you can achieve what you want to in the second half of life? How can you reframe the experience?
• How do you feel about old age? Where does the Shadow lie there for you?
Resources:
• Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life — Sharon Blackie
• Menopausing: The Positive Roadmap to Your Second Spring — Davina McCall
• Midlife and the Great Unknown: Finding Courage and Clarity Through Poetry — David Whyte
• The Gift of Aging: Growing Older with Purpose, Planning and Positivity — Marcy Cottrell Houle
• The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul — Connie Zweig
