When I was working on my Master’s Degree I took a class in Human Life Span Development. I learned about each of the stages we walk through (as developed by Erik and Joan Erikson) as we age and grow, but which also must be passed through psychologically for ongoing mental and emotional maturity. The stages mark our ongoing development, our strengths, and our weaknesses.
- Infancy: Trust versus Mistrust; the strength gained is HOPE.
- Early Childhood: Autonomy versus Shame; the strength gained is WILL.
- Play Age: Initiative versus Guilt; the strength gained is PURPOSE.
- School Age: Industry versus Inferiority; the strength gained is COMPETENCE.
- Adolescence: Identity versus Confusion: the strength gained is FIDELITY.
- Young Adulthood: Intimacy versus Isolation; the strength gained is LOVE.
- Adulthood: Generativity versus Stagnation; the strength gained is CARE.
- Old Age: Integrity versus Despair; the strength gained is WISDOM.
As you look at these stages, think back and remember. Consider the ways in which you overcame obstacles. And pay attention to the skills you gained in doing so – they are part and parcel with the particular conflict you survived. They are yours. They define you. You are strong, unique, profound, and have these abilities innately.
We already possess everything we need to move forward. Each of us has inherited all the bold vision, the courage, the compassion, and the integrity to repair our lives and spirits. These sturdy roots may have been neglected and hidden under years of accumulated dirt, misunderstanding and social conformity, but they have not withered. It is our job to reach down, retrieve the strengths that our our birthright, and wrest them out into the light…
…it’s time you looked at the many strengths you have developed on your own. We all need to see and feel our independent power, to search for our life’s meaning, and learn that it is all in [our hearts]. When we realize this, we no longer need to look outward for affirmation.
(A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People
Look within. You have everything you need to move forward. Claim yourself. Claim your strengths. Claim your life!
Preachin’ to the choir:
Look within, Ronna. You have everything you need to move forward. Claim yourself. Claim your strengths. Claim your life!
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh that just feels so right, Ronna! You know when you read something and it feels like the jigsaw just came together to form a whole picture? The life stages just did that for me. The last stage is particularly poignant as i can see this stage in my grandparents, who are faced with much loss, and could begin to despair, and yet they choose grace and integrity. True wisdom. The second stage too, I can see in my niece as she strives toward independence with a fierce determination.
And for myself – generativity vs. stagnation – just rings so true. I’ve been turning a lot to the concept of flow recently – so much so, that I recently moved next to the broad Firth of Forth, where the water flows in and out all day and all night. And yes, what is gained is ‘care’ – for myself and for others. A hugely expansive feeling.
Thanks so much for sharing this, Ronna
Amy
xx
Amy: love your imagery of (and current placement in) flow and water. So expansive, so nurturing, so good. And yes…to be able to see the stages for ourselves – and simultaneously others – deepens our awareness and, I think, our gratitude. So much movement in a lifetime. If only we can be aware!!!
Hmm… According to Erickson I am still somewhere between Adolescence and Young Adulthood. Should I be flattered or worried?
Young at heart? Up for new beginnings? Ever-learning? All good, Rebecca.
Goodbye stagnation. Time to start generating great things again. I paid money (and don’t regret it for one second) to a lady who said she was channeling Jesus Christ for me. “Jesus” told me the same thing: I already possess everything I need to move forward. I was asking about an idea I had to attend nursing school. I already have oodles of initials after my name. The answer was so quick, so simple. I already have everything I need to live a life doing what gives me joy….so go do what brings me joy.
I have everything I need to move forward. That water I’m diving into is a deep river….flowing….rushing…no stagnation…no muck. Full of live and energy. Washing the stagnation off of me with its ebb and flow. Living water.
Love this, Angie. And love the water metaphor! Feels important for you…
Today the metaphors elude me. Even these seemingly simple stages of life seem devoid of personal meaning for me, as if my entire life was shot behind soft focus filters from a grand distance.
I don’t know where I am in this cycle, or what is next. Since recently I have discovered that some of my great strengths are actually some of my great vulnerabilities (an actual physical issue), understanding what to claim as my strengths has gone from a simple affirmation, to the big question of life the universe and everything, with all the mystery of quantum physics and murky underwater exploration.
Daily I throw myself on the mercy of beauty, searching for peace and share this with the world. I’m less worried about defining what is strength and what is not when I’m held aloft in its colourful embrace.
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
PicsieChick´s last [type] ..Naked, I Lose Myself to Her. Again.
If I heard no other words today than these, “Daily I throw myself on the mercy of beauty,” it would be enough. May you know “enough, ” as well. And thank you.
Yes. I finally realized that in order to move forward in some of my work, I needed to claim it. Claim the work, claim my title, claim my strengths. And it has been revolutionary.
Alisha´s last [type] ..What leap do you wish to take?
Revolutionary! Sounds rather “renegade”-like! I like it!!! And yes, claim away!!!
My life doesn’t seem to have fallen into these neat steps. It is by fire that I’ve come to know, and claim, many of these qualities of essence. Resiliency is a key one for me. And, neediness. That’s been a tough one to claim. Yet, in the Sufi tradition, when you open to your real need to drink in the love that the divine is always offering up, you come to know you aren’t alone.
Ronna, I love the way you always offer up something to us that asks us to look within, to consider what’s true, to find our way.
THank you.
Blessings.
Julie Daley´s last [type] ..Love of Woman
Oh, Julie, I so know of what you speak. If only the categories were so neat and tidy, so explainable and diagnosable. No…life is fire, for sure. But gratefully, as you so beautifully remind, never alone. Thank YOU.
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