Are You Living Unlived?
A quote to make us pause and reflect
“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.” Carl Jung
Editorial Note: I have had this in draft form for a very long time. In 2019, I decided that 2020 would be a year of renunciation. It was possibly the best year of my life. I felt free, open, and ended up becoming my own best friend.
Damn, Carl!
In this year of self-reflection, wondering how the unlived parts of my life have impacted my kids. I’m also wondering how I can be everything, do everything, plan everything for my kids, and NOT have fallen into the unlived pattern.
The balance of wanting so badly to be a mom, then getting there through many challenges, finally getting to where I want to be, only then to wonder if I have been living. I struggle with this. Society begs me to do something other than be the only thing that I’ve ever wanted to be. Yet, as they get older, become teenagers, and go off to college, my mommy role has changed. Am I really unlived?
What now?
Redefining Living Life
Before kids, I had an incredible life. I didn’t really think I was going to live past the age when my dad died, so what was the point of getting married and having kids? Then, of course, was the pact I made with my brother. We agreed not to get married — he broke it and got married. (Because don’t we all make pacts with our older brothers?)
Before kids, I would say I lived a couple of whirlwind lifetimes during those years.
Does Carl mean living unlived while in the throes of parenting? Is that just a different living? I remember being bored before kids! Never once have I been bored since being a mom. I’ve not been excited about doing the same crap day in and day out — but I’m not bored. There is a difference. Bored is a lack of participation in life; I definitely took part in life.
Renee’s Definition of Unlived
Unlived is when you are in a trance. Not in a rut. More like a staggering zombie. Unlived is when you stop doing. You stop experiencing it. You stop feeling your own feelings and probably haven’t thought about anyone else’s feelings in a long time. You stop being love.
You are just there.
It is sex while mentally making a grocery list.
It is driving and having no idea how you got home.
It is watching your kid’s soccer game and not knowing how long they played.
It is binge-watching Netflix.
It is not caring what you eat for dinner.
It is cracking open another beverage and not tasting it.
It is mindlessly ordering a Caramel Macchiato with light ice and two extra pumps and not noticing how much ice or pumps you got.
It is rechecking your phone.
Facebook, Instagram, constantly Snapchatting (mostly kids but adults do it too!) to scroll for no reason.
How do we shift from unlived to living fully?
Glennon Doyle speaks about this in her new book Untamed. I’ve not read it yet — but in her interview with Mario Forleo, she uses this same quote by Carl Jung! I thought dang so glad that this bit of writing is in a draft so I can add Glennon’s ideas to it as well.
Page 128 and 129 from Untamed by Glennon Doyle
If we keep passing down the legacy of martyrdom to our daughters, with whom does it end? Which woman ever gets to live? And when does death sentence begin? At the wedding altar? In the delivery room? Whose delivery room — our children or your own? When we cal martyrdom love we teach our children that when love begins, life ends. This why Jung suggested: There is not greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.
What if love is not the process of disappearing for the beloved but of emerging for the beloved? What if a mother’s responsibility is teaching her children that love does not lock the lover away but frees her? What if a responsible mother is not one who shows her children how to slowly die but how to stay wildly alive until the day she dies? What if the call of motherhood is not to be a martyr but to be a model.
Right there, on the floor, I looked deep into my own eyes, I let the Knowing rise and stay.
My children do not need me to save them.
My children need to watch me save myself.
I’d quit using my children as an excuse not to be brave and start seeing them as my reason to be brave.
Yes, Glennon, I’m emerging!
What a delight to have another author validate your ideas.
I need to emerge.
I need to save myself.
I need to be a model.
My kids do need to see me become the person I would have become had I not stopped loving myself as much as I loved my beloved. I put myself just out of reach, but the Knowing was always with me.
What I know now . . .
My children need to discover life for themselves.
I need to save myself and emerge. I’m so ready.
We (my family and I) will all be the better for it.
2020 is my year of renunciation no social media, booze, or idleness. It is my intention to live fully by practicing awareness, compassion, and lovingkindness. I’m also trying to be my own best friend and THAT has been the hardest challenge of my life.