The gift of a children's movie

Sometimes we find our messages in the most unlikely places - places that, as adults, we wouldn't normally take seriously. Perhaps standing taller than our children (as we are naturally inclined to do having 'grown up'), we tend to miss things presented to us on a simpler scale. Like movies such as KungFu Panda2. My family and I saw it the other day and when I think of that movie...I get a warm glow. I loved the first one but I LOVE the second. Truly a gift of beauty. Why? Because presented throughout the movie were ideas that my adult mind just hasn't been able to get past by thinking rationally.

The main character Po comes to discover that his people were the victims of a murderous campaign against them that was brought about by a prophecy. He finds his way through this emotional minefield, discovering his true heart and inner peace along the way. Throughout the movie is the message.....'Your past doesn't have to define who you are.'

It's such a simple message that I have heard before and even understood but for some reason it never actually got through. It's frustrating when you've actually pinpointed a behaviour and you know it's there. You know when it came into being and the mindset that created it but you can't for the life of you get past it. Something hasn't gelled somewhere and you're still holding onto it. I was discussing this very thing with a beautiful friend of mine who said that sometimes a person can hold onto these things because they have come to believe that that pain defines them. For that person, they have co-existed with their pain for so long that they are to afraid to find out who they could be without that pain.

It sounds a little loopy but perhaps some of these things need to be presented to us at a child's level. It was at a child's age that the damage was done, deliberately or otherwise. In response to the original emotional wounding, we naturally develop a defence mechanism. Once that defence mechanism has been established, we simply stop developing ways to cope with that particular pain. As far as our psyche is concerned, it has a solution. It doesn't take into account that the solution may be just a quick fix and won't continue to work later on. It's like a seed pod that gets harder and harder and eventually the seed inside starts to shrivel and perish because nourishment no longer reaches it and it cannot grow. There are seeds in this world that literally require a bushfire to crack its outer covering. Perhaps we're not so different. Many of us miss our lessons again and again till the lesson comes around so brutal, its a sink or swim situation.

But for once - this time - there's a beautiful way to see and and hear and understand.

The message that made me cry (and still does) came from the Soothsayer.....

"Your story may not have had a happy beginning but that doesn't make you who you are - it is the rest of your story - who you choose to be."

And another from Po himself......

"You gotta let go of that stuff from the past because it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what you choose to be now."

So there it is......
Stand up my lovelies and visualise the people who represent your pain.....the people from whom the painful words and actions issued from like flaming arrows through your heart....see them for the human beings they really are....understand that their actions are born of their own pain and their own fears and say to those illusions......

YOU DO NOT DEFINE ME.

Then step forward to discover with wonder who you really are and who you want to be.
Here and now is where you have the power to do that.