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Turning Points: Queen to Play
Lots of movies are based on a script of turning points. Of course: a dramatic turning point is a really great story.
But few of the turning points are of any use for the viewer because you cannot see, cannot recognize the dynamic of the turning point. No distinction…
There is a movie though where the turning point is generated by the heroine, and therefore it could be really useful for you.
Our heroine is a cleaning lady on a French island. She cleans rooms in a local hotel, and cleans houses in the afternoons. She is dutiful (Elm), never says no (Centaury), and is lonely.
One day, as she cleans a room while the room’s occupants are on the balcony, she sees the couple playing chess and sharing intimate moments where they are equal.
- They are together,
- they are doing something together,
- and they are equal, we could even say, the female is equal to her partner.
Our cleaning lady decides that it must be the chess…
Chess becomes the symbol of the life she wants… and doesn’t have.
So when she sees a chess set at one of her private employers, she opens the box… and gets caught by the employer.
But the desire has now burns in her. It burns like a fever. She negotiates a deal, a trade: she wants the employer to teach her chess for cleaning the guy’s house.
Playing chess is fundamentally different from her daily activities. Her daily acitivities require no thinking. Thinking is hard, but the prize: togetherness, equality, are worth the struggle it takes for her to get through the barriers to play, and play well. She needs to expand her mind, she needs to re-evaluate her role in her own life, her worldview about herself and about the world.
Her relationship to the people around her shifts with her taking charge of her life. She starts owning her own power. Even in her relationship with her husband and her daughter.
Her sense of loneliness eases. Her life will never be the same.
She has started herself on the path to become an expanding human being, obeying the calling of the soul.
This is the kind of turning point that you can create for yourself if you manage to have the desire AND the hate of how it is now.
Doing the soul’s purpose needs you to have enough alone time so you can
- hear what the soul is saying. Hear what the soul wants and doubly hear what the soul HATES.
- look what that means specifically to you
- execute the steps that would put you in the position to actually do the soul’s bidding.
My experience is that this is near impossible to do while in a relationship that is only about the relationship. If the relationship’s purpose is not bigger than the relationship itself. The other person will not want to give you room to do this work… G-d forbid you get ahead of them.
What there is to do is distinguish between alone and lonely.
Lonely is a feeling, and it probably covers up that you are out of place. That you are wasting your life, wasting your resources, you are off-track, engaged in a mundane life, in a life not worth living.
You have resources, you have a brain, you have eyes, perception, hands, feet… all used to merely survive.
Just like our cleaning lady chose to expand herself, you can choose to expand yourself. Expand in a direction that makes the least amount of sense.
She didn’t decide to learn flower arrangement, cooking, or something that would keep her still in the same social/gender caste she started in. She decided to do a decidedly male path: expand her intellect.
For most of you that is not the direction you would choose to go: I recommend therefore that you do!
Choose to expand your mind. Chess is a great way! Reading is a great way! Joining Toastmasters, joining a debate team, are great ways.
Get bigger! grow vertically, not horizontally. You are wide enough already… Wide and shallow. Like a puddle.
PS: If I asked you to summarize how this woman used her pain, her HATE of being a dependent, AND her desire to feel like a person: could you?
If I asked you to find all the ways she made that happen that you don’t. Could you answer?
If yes, please comment or send me an email.
thank you for the reminder ~ sometimes I need to reflect on good things that happen so that diving into the darkness doesn’t seem like it is all for naught.
just strike a balance…
An amazing entry at just the right moment. It reminds me of how incredibly limiting our thoughts of ourselves and our paths, and others can be. I have been there, and am there, still at times. Finally, we take control and take a step across a threshold of something we previously thought almost impossible, or maybe, out of reach at that moment. Remembering there are abilities and whole glorious world to explore and partake in is an amazing realization indeed.
Amy, let me warn you that when you talk as if you were on the other side of it, you act counter to your soul’s purpose. The soul isn’t interested in you reminiscing over your victories: it is interested in you conquering new territories, you delving into the darkness…
What you are doing is the perfect way to go backwards.