Imagine telling your story – your healing story
Dr. Anita Johnston here, and I am in Delphi, Greece.
I am just getting ready to climb the Sacred Way, where the ancient Greeks came for eons to see the Oracle.
In those days, The Oracle was the equivalent of what we might consider a therapist. They would come to visit the Oracle, especially those for whom it was really the last ditch effort in their search for healing. Of course now, the Oracles, didn’t give the answers to the problems for healing, just as therapists don’t. They gave a riddle. The riddle then would be interpreted in terms of how you understood it. You would give it your own meaning, so that the answer, the correct answer, was inside of you. Very much like how we view recovery today.
Here the Greeks used theater for healing, because they understood that there is healing in the stories themselves. Just like today, we might use fairy tales or folk tales to take the images into the deepest part of our being. The Greeks understood this, so they told their stories, and they told their Greek myths, in service of healing the psyche.
Now check out this theater. You can see where people would come and sit. They would watch the plays; they would watch the performances; and then, find some way to make some meaning of all of that in their own lives. Just as we have to watch the play that is our lives, and see if we can come up with what the true meaning is for us.
Can you imagine the stories here? The tragedies? The comedies? All of us, it is we who get to decide what is our story. Is our story going to be a tragic tale, “Oh, her life sucked when was born, and it sucked when she died?” Or, is it going to be an inspirational tale? Or a tale of a transformation, or healing, or maybe a Horatio Alger tale from “Rags to Riches?”
We don’t get to write Act One. Act One is given to us. The script has been written. The characters have been cast. The stage has been set, We proceed into Act Two, where again, the script has been written. The characters have been cast and the stage set. Yet, there is a little room for improvisation. There is a little room for ad libbing. But Act Three – Act Three is ours to write. You get to decide. You can’t change Act One, but Act Three! What is your story going to be?
Oracles had riddles, and so I have a riddle for you. What is truer than truth? The answer to that riddle is …. story. Because story carries the meaning, the meaning that you give to truth. Truth is greater than facts and figures. It involves story. What is it that you need to bring center stage? What is it that you need to tend to, to listen to, that is going to bring you the healing that you desire?
Imagine telling your story – your healing story. You know the wounding all too well. But this is an opportunity now when you begin the healing journey. That’s when you use your imagination, where you get to imagine your Third Act. You get to decide how this story is going to be for you. We can’t control the past. The future, though, is another matter. The future depends on the story we get to tell in the theater of our lives.
And so from the Light of the Moon Cafe, at Delphi, I invite you to think about your healing journey – what it has taken for you to find the way towards wholeness, to find the answer to the riddle from your own inner Oracle, that will answer your struggles with eating, your struggles with weight, so you can tune inside … and find the answer that is yours, that is embedded in your story, and in your healing journey.
I would love to hear what you think, share a comment below!
Until next time. Thank you for joining me at the Light of the Moon Cafe.
Anita