It occurs to me that when I was writing about the show last week, I may accidentally have created a false sense of opposition between the gifts the production gave me and the insights I was exploring around fatness and self-hatred. That’s not exactly the case.
I mean, don’t get me wrong: it was hella sobering to face up to the self-hatred. (I kind of imagine some wacky Dorian-Grey-like scenario, only with me gazing into a mirror with some twisted and bestial reflection.) Nevertheless, I am also profoundly grateful for this deeper level of awareness. You can’t clear what you don’t acknowledge, and so I am grateful to Spirit for bringing me this wake-up in the guise of a theatrical part.
So, yes, count this new awareness, however uncomfortable the truth may be, to be one of the production’s gifts to me.
But there were other, more ribbon-wrapped sorts of gifts, too.
So d’you remember how in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — note this is the title of the L. Frank Baum novel, not the Victor Fleming*/Judy Garland film — it turns out the Emerald City’s glorious emerald oversheen is caused by these lovely green goggles that get locked onto your head as soon as you get within the city walls, not be removed until you depart?
Why no, these things we’ve LOCKED onto you aren’t significant in the littlest tiny bit….
I’m not really wanting some emerald overlord to lock more glasses onto my head. (The vision corrective specs I must to wear daily are rather enough on that score.) But I do find myself wishing for something spiritually similar to that tonight.
A coworker who I sometimes find challenging has been particularly so the last couple of days. She’s been running a bit of a martyr-complex kind of game, with all sorts of guilt-trippy chit-chat about how we don’t understand how HARD she’s working. And yet when any of us try to offer assistance or to share the workload, we are well and truly rebuffed.
It feels like a bit of a no-win situation, but I don’t especially feel like spinning through all my ego-emotional triggers around it. Instead, I’m on a bit of a different train of thought.
I truly believe that everyone has that intrinsic spark of divinity** within them. A “heart-self,” for lack of a clearer way to say it.
And I also believe that sometimes negative behaviors emerge because someone is unconsciously trying to get a little bit of care, attention, energy for their heart-self, but their past experiences have taught them the only way to get energy is to run these sorts of dysfunctional games. (I know for damn sure I’ve done that lots of times within my OWN limitations.)
So at one very small level, I can have compassion for this co-worker as I imagine the desire to get some energy for her heart-being. But the challenge I’m feeling is that I’m so triggered by the no-win/guilt trip/rejection cycle that I am not finding any capacity to actually see her heart-being.
Which brings me back to the magic specs. Wishing for that heart-colored lens or filter that I could hold in front of my eyes and see this woman’s heart-self. See everyone’s heart-self. See my world and the people in it with a lot more kindness, compassion, and acceptance.
Of course, the wizard’s magic was all humbug in that book, so I’m guessing that my ability to see beyond the behaviors into the heart-self is going to be a lot more about practice and prayer and a lot less about being the child who gets a magic present.
* I know. That’s not really even half of the directorial lineage here.
** Spirit, light, heart, authenticity….whatever name for the “Big Good Thing” speaks true for you.
Self-Love: It's Just Another Lifestyle Change 