Midlife AWAKENING
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

The following article appeared in the Washington Blade in the Local Life section on Friday, January 25, 2008.

Midlife crisis?
Gay California-based workshop on gay men’s rites of passage comes to D.C.

by GREG MARZULLO

The term “midlife crisis” conjures up images of straight men speeding around in red convertibles with a 20-something blond woman lolling in the passenger seat. But according to California-based gay Jungian psychologist Don Kilhefner, this so-called “midpoint” of life can also be also be an opportunity for gay men to wake up and start living life in more fulfilling ways.

“We tend to get lost at midlife and don’t quite know what to do,” says Kilhefner, 70. “We get to a point and say ‘and now what?’ We begin to look at what our life’s work is. Many times there’s nothing in place as gay men to help us make those transitions.”

These questions are the basis of a three-day workshop led by Kilhefner and Roberto Blain titled “Gay Men and Midlife Awakening: Rites of Passage Into the Second Half of Life.” Held at the Center from Feb. 1-3, the workshop consists of discussions, writing, dream work, mythology and rituals for men undergoing this process, which Kilhefner says isn’t defined by age.

“Midlife is not chronological, nor is it linear,” Kilhefner says. “We have some people who are 32, some are 56.”

MORE THAN AGE, one of the commonalities of the midlife awakening is feeling utterly lost. Kilhefner cites the opening of the famed Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno” as a perfect expression of this time.

“Midway in life’s journey I found myself in a dark wood having lost the way,” writes Dante.

Kilhefner’s own lost point came after years of working in L.A. as a central organizer of the city’s gay community center, founding the first recovery house for gay and transgender people and helping to found the Radical Faeries along with Harry Hay.

“I was depressed a lot,” he says. “There was some experimenting with drugs and feeling like sex was the way out and none of that worked. It was really about bringing something out of me that was in me, but I needed some help in that kind of birthing process.”

Ken Stofft, the local coordinator for the workshop, which this year is also being offered in L.A. and San Francisco, agrees that having support is helpful for getting through this disorienting period.

“It’s necessary to have companions on the journey,” Stofft says, adding that gay men can support each other because of common experiences. “For gay men, too often it seems to me that we try to fit into a mold — what it means to be gay, should I act a certain way, should I look a certain way.”

Echoing Stofft, Kilhefner says that institutionalized homophobia can provide additional obstacles for gay men.

“We want to be invisible and part of that invisibility involved swallowing our power,” Kilhefner says. One of the characteristics of a mature adult is that he takes care of himself and he’s also concerned about something larger than himself.”

DON KILHEFNER and ROBERTO BLAIN talk about the growing phenomenon of their unique MIDLIFE AWAKENING Workshops, helping gay men embrace their gifts and calling.

Published on Thursday, April 6, 2006 by
IN MAGAZINE Los Angeles

by Christopher Cappiello

"It's in them already, it's just a matter of bringing it out into the world," says Don Kilhefner, of the gifts within each gay man that he and Roberto Blain seek to bring to light with their ongoing Midlife Awakening workshops. The multigenerational duo first spoke with IN magazine in March 2005 just before their inaugural workshop. In the intervening months they have conducted two highly successful workshops in Los Angeles, planned a third for January 2006, laid the groundwork for taking their unique program on the road to Ft. Lauderdale, San Francisco and San Diego, and have begun planning a book about their process and discoveries. They took some time on a sunny December Sunday to discuss the ideas behind the workshop and its growing popularity.

The Midlife Awakening workshop is based on the idea, taken in part from Carl Jung, that a major shift occurs in the life of most men somewhere around the age of 40. "People's maturation isn't linear," Blain explains, "We've had people in their 50s who are just getting in touch and others in their 30s who are getting an early start." Whatever the age, sometime at midlife most people experience "the need to all of a sudden be doing something different that doesn't quite fit into the corporate or university mold," he says. Kilhefner, a legendary figure in the Los Angeles gay liberation movement and a Jungian psychologist, emphasizes the awakening is a calling to go from serving one's self to serving the wider community.

"Doing two of these workshops and preparing for a third one, two things come up for me," the garrulous Kilhefner enthusiastically explains. "One is the question, 'What does it mean to give your gifts to society? What does it mean to give your gifts to the gay community? What does it mean to give your gifts to the world?' And getting people to reorient their thinking to a much larger stage than most of them have been used to operating on. The other thing that comes through is how gay men de-power themselves. How gay men are afraid of their own power. How gay men are afraid of their own gifts. How they many times will swallow their largeness, again to minimize what they're capable of doing."

Whether this de-powering comes from internalized homophobia, fear of failure or a combination of those and other factors, Kilhefner and Blain want to help gay men realize their full potential for themselves and the community. "We're trying to avoid the fate of becoming a potted plant in Palm Springs," explains Blain, whose own awakening has led to life and career changes, including a new, high-level recruitment position at USC, where he often recognizes job candidates in the midst of their midlife awakening. "And they're completely lost," he offers.

The weekend workshop takes place on Friday evening, and all day Saturday and Sunday. The two and a half days are divided into sections clearly delineated with ceremony and ritual. "Friday evening we focus on ending the first half of life, whatever the means [for each participant]," explains Kilhefner. And then we do a ceremony on Saturday morning of completion. And I would say everybody is ready to complete that! Everybody!" he emphasizes with a generous laugh. "There's nobody that's holding on, saying, 'Well, couldn't I have a couple more years at the Abbey?'" Blain adds that in the ceremony, "We actually declare to them, as a group, that you are not your history. Your point of power is the present."

The rest of the weekend is devoted to helping participants locate where they are in life and identifying where they want to go, using a variety of exercises, readings, music, writing, and group discussion. "The closing ceremony is where people declare, they really declare, what is their purpose," explains Kilhefner. "What concrete steps are they going to take in the next two weeks to manifest that? If someone is thinking of going to veterinarian school, in the next two weeks finding out where there are veterinarian schools that will take people who are 38 years old."

Of course each participant comes away with a different sense of urgency about making changes. "I haven't quit my job and moved to the country, although I've contemplated all those things," Ed Evans, a November 2005 workshop participant, tells IN with a laugh. Evans, 56, decided to take the workshop out of "a sense that if the end of my life is going to have some significant meaning, I need to start planning that now." The workshop helped him to see that every day presents "a conscious choice to choose a different path." Another November participant has already made all the necessary arrangements to go back to school in January to study acupuncture and make a break from his career in the music industry.

The Midlife Awakening workshops are limited to 15 people. "Somewhere around 12 people would be optimum," Kilhefner explains. There is a substantial packet of pre-workshop information and work for participants to do, including writing a short "faery tale" of the first half of their lives. The pre-workshop work allows the group to hit the ground running and have some shared reading material to draw on in discussion. After a January workshop at Glendale's Wellness Works, the New Year will see Kilhefner and Blain hitting the road and taking the workshop across the country, helping gay men navigate the treacherous midlife terrain. "A midlife crisis is a poorly managed midlife awakening," Blain reminds us.

"There's a larger life that gay men can be living," Kilhefner enthuses, with decades of gay liberation work and psychological exploration informing his determination. "And any gay man who lives a larger life is going to benefit the whole community."

Space is limited so register early!