“You were not like this. What happened to you?” Sr. Anita’s superior asked her with some annoyance in her voice. Anita had been a very self-sacrificing nun, a compliant and pleasing type of person, always saying “yes” to whatever others asked of her. Now she had learned to say “no” and take care of her own needs. While Anita felt good about the changes in her, others were less pleased: they could not now get her to fulfil their expectations that easily.
Fr. Paul had been a difficult person to deal with. He was very demanding on others, used to get easily angry and irritable. He always wanted things to be the way he thought they should be. Now those around him noticed that he had changed. He was more calm and more considerate and understanding. He was now less driven by the need to achieve and they found it easier to relate to him.
What Sr. Anita and Fr. Paul were experiencing was the kind of changes midlife can bring about in our personalities.
These changes are part of the journey toward wholeness that Carl Jung described with the term “individuation.” For us to become more whole, for individuation to occur, it is necessary to bring about greater balance between our masculine and feminine qualities.
Animus & Anima
All of us, men and women, have both masculine and feminine qualities. In the first half of life men develop their masculine characteristics. Their feminine characteristics remain underdeveloped within them and are personified as the anima. In the first half of life women give priority to development of their feminine characteristics…
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Fr Jose Parappully SDB
