Retirement: Am I Still Relevant?

Giving a seminar on my book in Colombia.

Dreams were a very important factor in helping me deal with a mid-life crisis from my mid-to-late thirties. I read as much about Jungian dream work as I could get my hands on to try to understand them. I recorded my dreams faithfully in notebooks and had a spiritual guide help me understand them. It is very difficult to understand one's own dreams because our waking conscious does not normally want to deal with the shadowy parts of our unconscious. 

As a result of my inner work on dreams and other methods, I wrote a book with my sister titled: The Spacious Heart: Room for Spiritual Awakening. (see column on the right). 

Today we have AI as a tool to help us get to potential meanings for our dreams. So I ran the following dream which I had last night through AI. "I was talking to a colleague of mine at Eastern Mennonite University. He told me that my position at EMU had been eliminated for financial reasons. I walked by other colleagues and they seemingly ignored me because I had lost my position." This dream was disturbing.

What's interesting, is that both my former colleague and I are retired. My initial waking response to this dream was to feel compassion for those at EMU who had actually lost their positions for financial reasons as well as many in our country who have lost their jobs for political reasons.

My dream seems to refer to me not feeling relevant since I retired. Am I still emotionally attached to my former role and feel "invisible," or worthless around my former colleagues as they ignore me? 

Jung gives some helpful insights to the dream, saying that dreams are meant to restore balance. In my dream the balance needing restoration could be between my active identity with my retired/elder identity, my personal experience with collective compassion and my fear of irrelevance with the wisdom I carry.

Indeed I often deal with thoughts of irrelevance during my retirement years. While I was working at EMU, I was so involved in preparation, presentations, meeting with students and grading, that I had little time to reflect on how relevant my life was. However, feedback from colleagues and students affirmed my relevance, even if I wasn't reflecting on it. 

Jung stated, "When the Hero retires, the Elder appears." These are both Jungian archetypes.

Giving a seminar on my book in Switzerland

Perhaps I was a hero by surviving those years in front of students. But that hero has retired and the Elder needs to appear. AI describes me this way: "You’ve likely lived a life of deep insight, discipline, and experience. Now, your dream signals a possible shift from active contributor to wise guide. 

I like that picture of me. In some ways I have made the shift to "wise guide." I continue to write blog posts, teach Sunday school classes, deliver seminars on my book in three languages and four countries. I teach for both JMU and UVA's life-long learning programs. I have also been tutoring Spanish for various groups and individuals. I've written about these in a previous blog on a dream I had: Mentoring. 

Yet I have lots of free time on my hands, and during those times I often wonder if I am still relevant. I guess I'll have to work with more of my dreams. They are now like the notes and cards I previously received from my students and colleagues.

If you are retired, how do you measure your relevance?

Mentoring

As a middle schooler, my Sunday school teacher traveled over 30 minutes once a week to meet with me for a Bible study. This was long before mentorship programs began in many churches; he did it all on his own. These sessions were extremely valuable for me and gave me a different male role model from my father along with deepening my connection to my church and faith. 

Mentoring students on intercultural programs
 leads to some unusual experiences.

Over the past number of weeks, I have been working on my dreams and their meaning. Dreams are a special way of learning more about what is happening in one's unconscious and can be messages from God. I had a spiritual director who said: "Dreams are like letters from God. If you received a letter from family or a friend, would you refuse to open it?" 

With guidance from some online sources, my dreams overwhelmingly affirmed my role as a mentor, both in the past and currently. They point to a need to continue my deeply ingrained love of being a mentor, and the joy that accompanies it. 

I retired from teaching in 2016, mentoring young adults for more that 30 years. Retirement ended my mentoring role with them, even though I have kept in contact with many former students through social media and emails. Unfortunately, these engagements have faded as the years went by. I keenly feel this loss, but I hope I have had some influence with my students like the church member who mentored me in my youth.

Group of students on a cross-cultural program to Mexico

I have kept up my mentoring in other ways. I have given numerous seminars in three languages on the book I wrote on spirituality. I teach my adult Sunday school class at least twice a month. I have taught courses for James Madison University and the University of Virginia's life-long learning programs. I consider this mentoring.

My dreams are an interesting mix of satisfaction from my past mentoring involvement, and my desire for future involvement. It seems to indicate future desire for mentoring young adults. Since I am no longer surrounded by young adults, is mentoring through my teaching and writing enough? I think so.

According to Erikson's stages of life, I should have moved on from "generativity" to "ego integrity vs. despair." Generativity is mentoring. My dreams indicate to me that I should continue in the stage of generativity if I want to satisfy my inner desires.

Do you work with your dreams, God's letters? What have you found to be life-changing?

Are you mentoring? How does that give you meaning and purpose?