Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up

by James Hollis

Book Overview

What does it really mean to be a grown up in today's world?

We assume that once we "get it together" with the right job, marry the right person, have children, and buy a home, all is settled and well. But adulthood presents varying levels of growth, and is rarely the respite of stability we expected. Turbulent emotional shifts can take place anywhere between the age of thirty-five and seventy when we question the choices we've made, realize...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592402070
• ISBN13: 9781592402076
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Avery Publishing Group
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Truly helpful advice!

This book is helping so much. I needed it just at this very moment in my life. I'm so very grateful. It's very refreshing to learn about myself and to further understand what I'm going through. Ty Dr. Hollis!

Engaging, compassionate, insightful and wise

This is a terrific book, really a synthesis of many undercurrents of psychological wisdom explored in contemporary terms. I savored it over several weeks, reading a few pages a day, so that I could fully absorb and reflect on James Hollis's insights. Both penetrating and accessible, the book also provided a common vocabulary to talk over the real issues with a friend going through a hard time. ("This book is me," was how he expressed his feelings of relief and validation.) James Hollis writes with clarity and compassion about profound and complex dilemmas, in a deeply engaging way that reflects his personal and professional experience. The best thing about FINDING MEANING IN THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE is that rather than providing easy answers it asks the right questions, so that one is inspired to further evolve toward her own truth. I also recommend James Hollis's other books for their soulful exploration of meaning that can be pragmatically and creatively absorbed.

A Classic

This is not a book that will give you sequential bits of advice on how to change your life but will instead offer insights which will encourage internal changes through the increased knowledge of our own personal and human condition. Neither is it a book, at least for me, to be read at one sitting. But it is a pleasure to read in small bits and then ponder what was just read. I gave a copy to an alcholic friend of mine, who is also looking for some deeper understandings in life, and he said it was the most important book he'd read since he quit drinking over 20 years ago. It is not a 'how to' book, but if you approach it with some patience and curiousity you will be immensely rewarded.

So Helpful and Provocative!

I've read a ton of books about psychology and the inner life. The vast majority are so simplistic as to be mind-numbing. Hollis is, I think, the best psychologist writing today, and this latest (I recommned ALL of his previous books) is an empassioned guide towards getting real with yourself. The best "self-help" book I have ever read. I think it should be required reading for everyone when they turn 40. Rock on, James!

A Good Read, A Good Guide

In these times of extensive power-posturing, blame and fear-mongering from our leaders, it is a relief to have this voice of genuine strength and courage gently working its way into our psyche and society. This voice is James Hollis, Ph.D and he blazes the path toward giving meaning to the second half of our lives. We can learn how to forgive the unavoidable mistake called "the first half of our life" and go confidently forward into the second, with our compassionate guide, James Hollis. With his writings, he serves as the scout that we need to enter this uncharted territory within ourselves. We need not be scared to enter these depths. We can do this effectively if we read and heed the words of this sage. I credit Hollis and his book "Eden Project, in Search of the Magical Other" for saving my marriage. I would recommend this book to anyone in a relationship. Hollis will guide you in an eloquent way through relationships and where we tend to go wrong in them. I look around me, at all the dissatisfied couples and think, they could save a lot of misery and money if instead of getting new partners, sports cars and face lifts, they just bought a copy of the Eden Project. It is not light reading, it is not band-aid psychology, but it is well worth the effort. Now Dr. Hollis will guide us through the second half of life with this book. This is the stuff of real strength, written by a real hero. He has lead us to the promised land that is within.

Forget Dr. Phil - Here's the Real Deal!!

James Hollis is far and away the most brilliant psychologist of our time. His latest contribution to a series of books I cannot live without is as exceptional as the rest. In an intelligent and thought-provoking manner, Hollis encourages the reader to examine what lies under the emptiness at mid-life despite having attained all of society's achievements such as marriage, career and financial success. He challenges us to discover what forces and fears formed us, and how our lives have been shaped as a result. His words lead you towards finding meaning and also a personal spiritual connection for your life. This is no "Step One: Do This" and "Step Two: Do That" formula that is all too common in self help literature. Instead, Hollis takes you to the place where you can actually understand why you do what you do, why your intimate relationships fail, why your work lacks meaning, and why you feel disconnected from the world around you. He teaches you how your responses to normal anxiety have taken you further and further away from understanding your life by avoiding the things that discomfort you. He gives you the courage to put aside your frenzied existence, and confront the wounds carried since childhood. I feel blessed to live in Houston where Hollis heads the C.G. Jung Educational Center and routinely teaches. It is rare to have access to such great wisdom. This book and the many others by Hollis, most especially The Eden Project, provide readers an opportunity to access the knowledge and experience of the world's leading expert on Jungian psychology. My life has been completely changed by learning from Hollis.