Living our unlived life is the most important task in our mature years, to be achieved long before a tragedy shakes us to the bone or we reach our deathbed. To live our unlived life is to become fulfilled, to bring purpose and meaning to our existence. . . .
What is unlived life? It includes all those essential aspects of you that have not adequately integrated into your experience. . . .
Unlived life does not just "go away" through underuse or by tossing it off and thinking that what we have abandoned is no longer useful or relevant. Instead, unlived life goes underground and becomes troublesome — sometimes very troublesome as we age.
When we feel restless, bored, or empty despite an outer life filled with riches, the unlived life is asking for us to engage. To not do this work will leave us depleted and despondent, with a nagging sense of ennui or failure. As you may have already discovered, doing or acquiring more does not quell your unease or dissatisfaction. Stuffing down these vague feelings or dutifully serving your life's routines will not suffice. Neither will "meditating on the light" or attempting to rise above the sufferings of earthly existence. Only awareness of your shadow qualities can help you to find an appropriate place for your unredeemed darkness and thereby create a more satisfying experience. To not do this work is to remain trapped in the tedium, loneliness, agitations, and disappointments of a circumscribed life rather than awakening to your higher calling. . . .
We are called to live everything that we truly are.
— Robert A. Johnson, Jerry M. Ruhl, Living Your Unlived Life