Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of Hard Times - The Middle Passage by James Hollis

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Welcome to another episode of the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Podcast, where confusion dies and progress thrives. Today, we’re diving into the dark tunnel many find themselves in around midlife.  But before you turn away, let me tell you—this tunnel might just be the birthplace of your most powerful self. Explore how our breakdowns often lead to our most significant breakthroughs. We’re talking about what author and Jungian analyst James Hollis calls The Middle Passage. It’s that confusing, destabilizing, often painful stretch of life where the identity you’ve built begins to crack under its weight. And here’s the thing: that’s not failure. That’s your invitation. That’s your soul, banging on the walls of your ego, begging to be heard.   Episode 93 Resources: The Middle Passage by James Hollis  - https://amzn.to/3F4NvAP Andrew Huberman Interview - https://amzn.to/4kcMdmd   ►Follow Dr. JC Doornick and the Makes Sense Academy: Instagram: / drjcdoornick   Facebook:  / makessensepodcast   YouTube:  / drjcdoornick     MAKES SENSE PODCAST Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast: This podcast covers topics that expand human consciousness and performance. On the Makes Sense Podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW & SHARE our new podcast. FOLLOW the NEW Podcast - You will find a "Follow" button top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each week.  Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1WHfKWDDReMtrGFz4kkZs9?si=003780ca147c4aec Podcast Affiliates: Kwik Learning: Many people ask me where i get all these topics for almost 15 years? I have learned to read nearly 4 times faster with 10X retention from Kwik Learning. Learn how to learn and earn with Jim Kwik. Get his program at a special discount here: https://jimkwik.com/dragon  OUR SPONSORS:  Makes Sense Academy: A private mastermind and psychologically safe environment full of the Mindset and Action steps that will help you begin to thrive. The Makes Sense Academy. https://www.skool.com/makes-sense-academy/about The Sati Experience: A retreat designed for the married couple that truly loves one another yet wants to take their love to that higher magical level where. Relax, reestablish, and renew your love at the Sati Experience. https://www.satiexperience.com 0:00 - Intro 2:22 - The Middle Passage 4:08 - What is the Middle Passage? The dark stretch of life? 5:39 - How to navigate trying times by changing your perspective. 10:21 - The Crisis of Meaning 12:19 - The Invitation to Shadow Work 13:39 - The Journey towards Authenticity 15:57 - The Role of Suffering 16:49 - Plugged into the IRS (Interface Response System) 21:17 - Some practical tools and strategies Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. This podcast covers topics that expand human consciousness and performance. On the Make Sense podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. When you change the way that you look at things, the things that you look at begin to change. The Make Sense podcast is sponsored and primarily funded by the Make Sense Academy, our private community where open and curious seekers of growth and expansion apply the Make Sense principles and systems to move from simply going through life to growing through life. So check out the Make Sense Academy risk-free for less than you'll spend today on shit that you don't need. Welcome, my friends, to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses.

Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast. Make sense. Great morning, my friends. Great morning world. This is yo boy, Dr. J.C. Dornick, aka. The Dragon. And welcome to another episode of The Makes Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast.

This one is going to be fun because it's real time. And I'm going to kind of tee it up here a little bit and we're going to free flow. But I call this one the middle passage, losing to find yourself while your breakdowns might be your breakthroughs. We're a work in progress here. And for years and years and years, I made a distinction that there. There was some fear associated with public speaking and putting yourself out there. So, as you know, you have a couple of options when you identify something that you're fearful of,

whatever that might be for you. You can either run from it and like the monster in the closet make it bigger or you could subject yourself and indulge into it. So that's what I've chosen to do for all these years. I think that's important for people to understand when you see somebody coming live all of the time. And it is just extraordinary how many people. are listening to it and we don't know who's listening to the podcast unless you reach out because we're international. That tends to get interesting. We're going to be reviewing an amazing book or correlating it. It's another book that exists here on my wall of about a year and a half of what I've read. I think

you're going to really love it. Today we're going to dive into that dark tunnel that many of you find yourself in or have found yourself in. And it typically happens around midlife. Before you turn away from that dark tunnel, though. And I think you know what I mean by that dark tunnel. Let me share this information with you, because that tunnel may in fact be the birthplace of your most powerful version of yourself. And we're going to explore how your breakdowns, as I said before, can often lead to your most significant life breakthroughs. So we're talking about something that the author of this book, the Jungian analyst. Imagine being a Jungian analyst. What an interesting thing. His name is James Hollis. Look him up on YouTube. This is a great interview, and I'll put it in the

description. It's a great interview that he has with Andrew Huberman on his material. Calls his book The Middle Passage. The Middle Passage is something that I think we can all relate to in life. And what we want to do is we want to arm and equip you with the awareness of it, and then allow you to entertain. This is one of the most powerful things you can do, is learn to entertain a different perspective. Remember, the moment that you think that you're struggling, if you have the courage and the power to recognize that is based on a perspective, causing a perception that you're struggling, if you can recognize that, and that's what the interface response system is for, and that's a massive power move for you, because in that space where you recognize it, you can separate yourself from participating with that idea and just be an observer of it and say, hmm, and you can start to dispute and contemplate a lot of things. things and entertain a different perspective. And that's where the win is. So James Hollis calls his book The Middle Passage. It's that confusing, destabilizing, often painful stretch of life where the identity

version of you or the identity that you've built starts to crack under pressure. That's another interesting thing right there is when you're going through dark times, we very often label them in a certain way. But what we just said is that dark times are very, very much correlated to and associated often with the breakdown of who you thought you were, in most cases, who you were taught to think you were. And here's the thing about this. When you experience that, we're going to entertain the idea that it's not failure. It's actually an invitation. That's your soul banging on the walls of your ego, begging to be heard.

I love that. On my ride to school today, we're just talking about some challenges, because this is the theme. Whenever I have a talk, I kind of like beta tested on my daughter. but we were just talking about challenges and adversity and things like that. She made the distinction that there's nothing to learn from the victories and the wins and the good days. There was really not much to learn from winning. The lessons and the growth take place in the discomfort and the unease and the struggle and

all of the things that we spend our lives avoiding. We just made this distinction and she did it that the appearances that human beings are avoiding growth. We think that we're avoiding struggle, but we're actually avoiding growth. And that's an interesting component of today's conversation. So I wrote here, although it is trying to say the least to navigate the darkness of things like depression or midlife crisis, I love this idea of just acknowledging that it's very, very difficult to navigate some of these things that I just said were potentially growth oriented, like depression or midlife crisis. If you're not having or experiencing depression or a midlife crisis right now, you're not in the throes of it, you could look at it

and see that it was a potentially positive thing, something that would be advantageous for you. You could read a book while you're not in the throes of the suck and struggle that teaches you that the obstacle is the way. But when you're in the throes of it, it's trying, like to say the least. You have to think about these things, and this is the choice that you get to make. Are they necessary and advantageous in our journey towards self-actualization? What I mean by self-actualization is coming home to yourself, to your real self, not the one that you were taught to observe. And can a simple shift in our perspective,

this is what my life's work is, can a simple shift in a snap of our perspective of this perception of the dark tunnel or the midlife crisis or hard times, Can that shift in perspective be the antidote for that poison? Isn't that an interesting way to look at it? One of the things that I noticed in life is that when I'm tethered to or attached to a label or a projection of what I think is happening in life, good day, bad day, if it serves me, I can let it happen.

But if I'm not experiencing what I would call a good day and I'm not satisfied with it, what I've learned is to just capture a different perspective of it. Not just look at the bright side. Refram it. We do that very often in my relationship with my wife. We always say, how can we reframe this? And it's just a game changer. It's a game changer.

And what lies in the balance is you following through with what you said you were going to do today. You know, we're going to be teaching some really, really cool courses coming up. But it's who you are that determines how well what you do works. So if you ever notice that you learn something that is promised to give you results, but you don't get results, it probably has to do with your perception. and your current reality. So if you learn how to shift that by gaining different perspectives, oh man, that's a game changer.

So the work that I'm doing myself right now, and I know dark tunnels, and with those in my community, has much to do with becoming that dominant force and shock caller by learning to recognize this automatic conditioned program that's running your life. This is a big, big part of this discussion right now is if you look at what I call the interface response system,

phase one of it, which is what makes it unique, is taking a moment to acknowledge that you have this programmed conditioned mind running in the background. And if you don't acknowledge it, then you will easily think that you're calling the shots today. So if you're not happy with your results, step one, phase one of the interface response system would be you first acknowledging the potential faultiness and the potential dysfunction of this program that, it's been running that you were actually given from the outside in. Remember, we're talking about this middle passage, this dark tunnel. And I'm going to be completely transparent and honest with you that I'm in that dark tunnel right

now. But I just have a different perspective of it. And when I say that I'm in that dark tunnel, and you might be too, and you can share with me if you are, what I'll say is that it's a very trying time. You know, it's not an easy time. It's confusing. It's one of those times of my life where I put forth all of. my effort to take two steps forward and the universe seems to push me back four steps. One of those

things where I find myself feeling like the universe is plotting against me. You know, my, and my feelings are high and low. So I have this ability through my work to say, hmm, is that right? Is that right? And just reorganize that and entertain different things. Like, for instance, this is an invitation for growth. One of my favorite quotes ever in the way I live my life is when people ask me during these trying times, when I'm just facing a lot of challenges, and I don't have the perception that I'm moving forward, which I can change. I just say, with all this shit, there's got to be a pony somewhere. Do you recognize the pony? Are you a pony acknowledger in the sense that when you're facing tough times, do you understand that there's value to it? And if you can

learn how to do that or even entertain it, as I said, you're going to love that. So I want to talk a little bit about this book, The Middle Passage. It's got some really, really cool takeaways, and then I'll give you my own thoughts on it. So Hollis talks about this idea of the crisis of meaning. So think about what that means to you. He teaches us that the first half of our life is often built on unconscious program. Those are the first seven years, right, the formative years. And then we kind of like consume things in support of what the formative years teach us. And that's how we create our programming. And my way of explaining that is our mother, father, teacher, preacher, society. And we spend a lot of time in that part of our life, seeking approval, meeting external expectations.

Try to catch yourself seeking approval and trying to meet external expectations today. If you do that, the chances are that's egocentric, but you're running a program. It's not your authentic self. Your authentic self would probably not look to do that. So catch yourself. approval, meeting external expectations, and also creating an identity that's rooted in survival. So this is the beginning of our life. We create an identity that seeks approval and tries to meet expectations of our surroundings, and it's all rooted in survival. So around midlife, you know,

you call midlife whatever you want, and most of you that are listening to this probably have experienced it, that structure, that house of cards, begins to collapse. Not because we've failed. That's not why it collapses, but because it never truly was. So this is what he means, the crisis of meaning. Isn't that an interesting way to look at things? What he's saying is that when this midlife crisis or this darkness or this challenging time happens, it's not happening to you. It's just a sign and it's totally normal that everything that you thought, because you were

taught, begins to collapse. And it's not because you've failed. It's because it never really true. truly was. It's very easy to see that it's a good thing. Now, once again, and if you're in the throes of it right now, you'll say, no, no, no, you don't understand. So the second takeaway that I had is called the invitation to shadow work. So, and a lot of people talk about shadow work. Remember, this is a Jungian analyst, this guy, James Hollis. So he talks a lot about the dark night. I talk a lot about the dark night of the soul. What that is, is that like really, really trying time when you're

thinking about crazy thoughts. So the dark night is not just about suffering, but it's the the psyche's way of demanding that we confront what we've repressed, ignored, and denied. That's what sucks about a bad time. And that's kind of plant medicine like. When you experience plant medicine like I have, you don't have a choice. You can't run from it. You're forced to face something. That's why most people are afraid to do it. But that's what the dark night is. It's this moment where you're being forced to acknowledge. You know, a lot of people will say that when you have anxiety on stage in public speaking, it's God's way of pushing the truth out of you. I love that.

And because I very much resonate with it. So that includes our shadow, right? And that means our false selves, ungrieved wounds, and unlived potential. Now, the first thing I would share with you about shadow work, I like to acknowledge my shadow, but I also acknowledge that it's behind me. You'll never notice that your shadow is preceding you in life. I mean, I know that if the sun's behind you, somebody's going to say something like that, but you get what I'm saying.

So the third one is the journey. towards authenticity. And I believe that we might think that we're going after things like material things, but I think that self-actualization and authenticity are the answers to those questions that we have that say things like, what's my purpose here, what's my meaning, things like that. So the journey towards authenticity. He says the middle passage asks us, who am I? Really? Now there's a difference between saying who am I? Because you might accept what comes to mine. But when you say who am I, And really, that's a different way of looking at it, isn't it? Not who was I taught to be, but who have I been pretending to be and who am I really? So it demands that we stop outsourcing our

authority and reclaim it. Think about what that means for you to outsource your authority and your identity, that we stop seeking validation and start embodying the truth. Once again, our journey towards authenticity. Do we have the ability to make an assessment? of our true authentic self, or is this an illusion that we accept and acknowledge that the goal is to just do the best that we can, because this is my stance on it. How are you ever going to come to the conclusion that you are your true authentic self? You're going to decide, and that's why I say I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm never going to make up my mind, and I'm the kind of person that thinks that it's a very powerful thing to replace exclamation points

with question marks. Today's a bad day to today's a bad day. I try to never make up my mind about anything because even if I find my true authentic self, it could very well just be another illusion, but I still get to choose to do the best that I can to take the path of least resistance in accordance with my values, the things that matter most, and more importantly, the direction that I say that I want to go. It's very easy for you to acknowledge that you're trying to get somewhere in a rocking chair in an ineffective structure. As long as I'm moving towards the destination I want, I'm okay with that illusion. But if the illusion is ineffective, I'm not going to buy into it as my authenticity. So I'm going to seek authenticity just like I would seek perfection. It's a destination

I don't think we'll ever arrive at, but we can always journey towards. So put that on my tombstone. And then finally, my last takeaway from his work is the role of suffering. Obviously, that's a very Buddhist thing. I love acknowledging suffering and reframing and creating a different relationship with it. So Hollis refrains suffering not as a punishment, but as an initiation. I just love that. The Stoics would say that the obstacle is the way. Pain and suffering, the suck, embrace the suck, is an opportunity. But what he's saying is it's a necessary part of your initiation. Pain has a purpose. It strips us of the illusion. If you were never confronted by this darkness and this pain, you would never have the opportunity to wake up and be stripped of the illusion that is happening.

And that illusion very well might be something that's not serving you at all. So it invites us to shed the skin of our false self and emerge as something real, if that's your sort of thing. Let's connect this to the interface response system, as I always do. As a reminder, the interface response system is a four-step process that arms and equips people with the awareness first, and that's step one, of the condition nature of your mind. mind. Remember, if you're going through exclamation point, exclamation point, thinking that you've got things figured out, what's the Mark Twain quote? The biggest problem is that the things that we think

we know just ain't so. So if you're going through life thinking that you've figured things out, you just don't understand the way the brain works. Most of the decision making that you think you're making has been made for you in the lower parts of your brain. And when it gets to your prefrontal cortex and you think that you thought it, it happened before you thought. It happened before you thought it. So if you don't understand that kind of science, you'll never be able to really effectively embrace phase one of the interface response system, and that we call perceive, but it's just the awareness of the conditioned and programmed mind. And we're talking about that here. And then phase two would be based on that idea that it's potentially faulty because it's not ours. It's not our true self. We would put

a pause on it. And we teach to pause by saying, hmm, and hmm, with 3M stands for haven't made up my mind. And it's just a nice way to separate yourself from your programmed automatic response from something. This is Victor Frankel's work. He says the game is one between the stimulus and your response. So before you allow your automatic knee-jerk response, you distance yourself and you create space to do what? To step three, process things from different vantage points. And that's why when you say, as a way of cognitively distancing yourself from something, it puts your mind in a curious contemplation And in curious contemplation, we can actually acknowledge different perspectives. I just love that.

That's where we can proceed and make a healthy. How does this work when you're experiencing the dark night of the soul? When you're experiencing that middle passage, I was having a conversation with my friend Jim. And we were just talking about this idea that we go through this passage. And a lot of people write about this, this dark tunnel where we don't see the light. And I was acknowledging, yeah, I'm in that tunnel right now. Most people don't understand is that we emerge. out of the other side of that tunnel as the king.

I saw a great quote, the king doesn't emerge until the boy is willing to die. What I love about that is it says there is a king or a queen for the ladies that is there already and capable of emerging. But the first step would be to release yourself from your old learned identity. I just love that. So the interface response system, those four steps would be your way of disputing these negative feelings.

If I'm having a tough time in life, and this is how we arm and equip ourselves and empower ourselves, if I'm having a tough time in life, I can acknowledge that tough time from the standpoint of a victim, or I could say, huh, I wonder why I'm having a tough time. And then I can entertain some of this stuff. Maybe this is part of that initiation. Maybe this is my invitation to do the real work so I can strip myself of the boy and allow the king. the more sovereign, the more self-actualized, authentic version of myself that can enjoy a better life experience. Make sense? So I create that space by disputing it in acknowledgement of the

condition nature of it. And then I process and I look at it from different standpoints and I can incorporate and filter this information through some of James Hollis's work. And whatever I darn well please, I can filter it with. Then all of a sudden I make my decisions based on that. as somebody that still perceives that I'm in the dark tunnel, which I don't look at as a bad thing, it's an initiation. So I'm putting my reps in. I'm putting my work in right now. I almost think that it's a blessing because I would almost challenge myself and anybody else to say that this is the best part. Because remember what I said before, my conversation with my daughter is we don't learn from the wins. So once I get on the other side and emerge as a king, I don't know if that's the best part. I don't know

if the win of emerging as a king as my most sovereign. I know that it's going to feel good and I'll be self-actualized and I'll have a better life experience. But I often wonder if the challenge is the best part. That's just a decision. I reshape and I reframe and I get excited about the suck. Let's look at a couple of things that I do. So I do meditation and I call this my daily allowance. You know, like kids get allowance. I allow myself to meditate. So when I meditate, I allow, I allow myself to step away from my regular scheduled program. This is the value. I've been meditating almost every day for a year now, and it gets pretty trippy.

I allow myself to step away from my regular program, conditioned, scheduled program, right? And I make an assessment of what's inside. So I separate myself from my opinion and my conditioned responses, and I allow myself to just see what's left over inside. Behind the story, behind the mask, what is there? and what is within behind the story, behind the mask. So self-reflection is something that I do, and that is I don't just say, hmm, and dispute things that I perceive. I also do that with my thoughts and my feelings, right?

And I ask myself powerful questions like this, and this is a question you can ask yourself any day. What is my calling and in service of what? And if you do that, you're probably going to hit a little bit of a wall because you'll have to think about it. You'll have the head tilt. You'll have to think outside. And you know what's great about thinking outside of your mind? That's for many people the first time you think for yourself. We don't really think for ourselves. In our communication breakdown class, when we teach people how to network and communicate and start conversations and increase sales and all of that stuff,

it's important to understand how people's brains work because most people don't think for themselves. So you can either manipulate that or you could work with it in an autonomy way. So here's a message of that I have for you today. So if you're in that dark tunnel right now, confused, grieving, disconnected, maybe even afraid, I'm inviting you to know this. You're not broken. You're being broken open. You're not falling apart.

Maybe you're falling inward into yourself. And the old you, the one that we now realize is dying, that's okay. It's an initiation. It's necessary. Because what's being born is someone far more real. That's something to be excited about. Not the version of you that plays the role. The one who writes the script, that's the king that is emerging once the boy or the girl is left behind.

So if you're in that tunnel right now, I just want you to know you're not alone. I'm there too. We're there together. A couple of final thoughts. Your pain is not the enemy. It's the portal. Shift from pain being the enemy to pain being the portal. The darkness is not the absence of light.

It's the place where your soul whispers the light. loudest. Hmm. You're not lost. You're arriving. You're pulling into the station. This stuff is complicated, my friends. I know this. And it carries a twist of never really knowing, like I said before, the answer, right? That's the thing about perfection or authenticity or self-actualization. I believe will always be in the hunt of it. It's a direction. My recommendation is to leave room for growth in all of your breakthroughs. So if you have a breakthrough, you do not have to. assume that you figured everything out. Leave room for growth. Always leave the right protect switch open. Leave room for breakthroughs and self-discoverys by adding three magic words at the

end of every sentence, especially statement that you make from this day forward. And those three words are at this time. Whenever I make a statement, I allow myself to say, at this time, this is this. Because what it does is it leaves the door open. Because you're saying, at this time, I don't know about the future. But at this time, here's how I think and feel. So remember, I said this before, the king does not emerge until the boy is willing to die. And when you emerge from that passage, tired, scared, but whole, you won't be the same. You'll be sovereign and you'll make more sense. So here's your call to action today if you're looking for some action. Because remember, learning and knowing is just another form of distraction in the absence of action. So here's an action step.

If this resonates, you can take some time to sit with yourself in your middle passage, if you're in it. And here is a journal prompt. You can journal based on this question. What parts of me are dying so that something truer can live? And if you want a guide or a map as you navigate the unknown, consider joining where all the work is done. Can't just go around with a shirt that says, I know this stuff now. Consider joining and checking out our private Makes Sense Academy and community. What it is that we do in there is we walk the path together.

And that's where you learn the interface response system and a lot of these tools. Any coursework that I ever do on the outside, even if for sale, everybody in there gets it at no cost, no extra cost. So we walk this path together, one breath, one pause, and one choice at a time. We don't just survive in this passage. We emerge, reborn. And that's the Make Sense Academy. So if you learn something today, remember, give it away. That's the only way it's going to stay.

and by the way, have a great day. I love and appreciate you, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Makes sense.