The Self Imposed Prisons of Our Lives

Day 215 – I started week 5 of "The Artist’s Way” program where it asks me to list 10 ways I am mean to myself and I realized that one of them is not enough sleep – I fall back to that bad habit time and again, and another is not treat myself enough. So I decided to change it from now on, I have to do something special, to have some kind of entertainment on a weekly or almost weekly basis. So for this week I decided to finally go to a movie. I am planning that for almost a week now. I had few options and the one I chose was “Get Low”. Aa amazing movie, run to see it!! It tells the story of a man who did something he felt deeply ashamed of and he suffered a great loss and he spent the next 40 years of his life as a hermit in the forest next to the town where he used to live. Never talked to anyone, never had anyone in his life – practically, he locked himself in prison for the rest of his life and now, when he is about to die, he wants to come clean and tell his story to the people who had so many rumors around his name, who hated him and feared him.
The more I think about it the more I see how it applies to everyone. We all burry our shames and our secrets deep inside and we never let go; we live in prisons we create for ourselves, punishing ourselves for real or imaginary faults, bad deeds, sins. This is actually so in line with this week’s subject – we don’t allow our spirit to take flight and instead we chain ourselves to the grinding stone. We are looking down and back instead of looking up and forward; we burry our dreams instead of living them. I know I did it for so many years. I felt like a prisoner when the doors to my cell where never locked. It was my misconception that kept me there. It is so strange that most of us find it easier to be punished than to dare to dream and even more so dare to live the dream. I took the first step out but I am still fighting every day for the courage to fly. There are days I find it extremely difficult and I fall back to my old habits, and then there better days when all looks so fresh and full of potential. I think the first step is to understand that this is what we are doing and only then there is a potential for change. To recognize something good or bad is the first step in bringing in a real and permanent change. I feel it is such a serendipitous event to go and see this particular movie just in the right time just when this is the issues I am working on. It was meant to be. It is part of the bigger plan. As we set the wheels in motion so many magical things are popping all around. and this movie at this junction is a gift sent to me from the universe.

I am thankful for an evening of great kindness to myself. I am thankful for a wonderful, truly amazing movie. I am thankful for a new understanding I gained thanks to this movie. I am thankful for every serendipitous moment in my life.