I’d been a runner for about thirty years when I was sidelined with a lower back injury. Not being able to get the physical, emotional, and mental lift that came from running really discouraged me. Then I discovered that running stairs didn’t hurt my back. My new routine became jogging up and down the six flights of steps in our apartment building. It was a great substitute.
But that recently changed. While running the stairs, I started feeling sharp pain in my knees (hello, 51 years old). My initial response was stubbornness and denial. I’d take it easy for a day or two, then be back at it, only to aggravate the injury. My rest and recovery periods became longer between each flare up. I finally admitted that my days of running steps are probably numbered. Time for another change.
For years my daughter Kennedy has recommended that I try yoga, but I’d always put it off. Desperate for another workout option, my wife and I started a 30 day beginners program on YouTube (Yoga with Adrian – highly recommended, she’s amazing). It’s only been a few days, but so far it’s going really well and doesn’t hurt my knees.
This experience reminded me of an uncomfortable truth about personal development – sometimes practices that once served you well no longer work. What was wonderfully helpful in one season of life is not helpful in another. In order to keep growing, you have to listen to what your body, mind, or spirit is telling you. To move forward requires a willingness to let go of something you loved and try something new.
That kind of admission and change is hard. As a routine person, I’m slow to switch gears. That’s why I ignored my knee pain for too long before listening to what my body was telling me.
I should know better. Years ago, I taught classes on how to connect with God through spiritual practices. I intentionally provided my students with a wide variety of techniques because different practices appeal to different people. Also, I knew from personal experience that the effectiveness of practices change over time. For example, a prayer technique that at first felt fresh and invigorating became like sawdust in my mouth a few years later. Conversely, a meditation practice that felt useless when I first tried it became a lifeline in a different season.
So as you pursue your personal development goals, try adopting these steps:
1. Listen to what your mind, body, or spirit is telling you
You may need to slow down a bit and practice tuning in to the voice of your True Self, but you can hear it.
2. Be willing to let go of a practice that’s no longer serving you
Be grateful for the role it played in your life, and remember that its usefulness may come around again.
3. Try a new exercise, routine, or habit in its place
Sometimes this can feel scary, but it can also be really fun and refreshing.
If your struggle or goal is physical in nature, you might try a new piece of exercise equipment, adjusting your sleep routine, or changing how you eat. If it’s mental, it may mean taking an online class, learning a new skill, or playing on lumosity.com. If it’s spiritual, you could try listening to new teachers (a few of my favorites are here and here), studying a different religion, or changing up your prayer practice. If it’s emotional, it may mean starting, working on, or ending a relationship, volunteering, or prioritizing an activity that fills your emotional tank.
Personal development is not a destination. It’s a life-long journey toward a beautiful horizon. The tools, techniques, and practices that help you will change along the way. Be mindful. Listen to what your True Self is telling you. When needed, let go and try something new. If you do, you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
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Since the following post was originally published in November of 2018, it has been one of the most popular here at Becoming Yourself. Given that many of us are streaming a lot more media in these days of the coronavirus, I thought it was a good time to share it again. Also, I started a YouTube channel focusing on book recommendations, writing advice, and personal development that I’m really excited about! You can check it out HERE. I hope you find both resources enjoyable and helpful.
Once upon a time…
It was a dark and stormy night…
Call me Ishmael…
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…
How do you feel as you read these famous opening lines? I get a tingle of excitement and anticipation. Why? Because I LOVE stories. I believe most of us do. We seem to be hard-wired as humans to be respond deeply to a well-told story. A lecturer once said, “If I want to say something really important, I tell a story.” Even Jesus used stories as his main method of teaching. Stories speak important truths about ourselves and the world in ways that entertain, inspire, challenge, and remain embedded in our memories.
That’s why I’m excited to introduce a new friend to you. His name is Khemit Bailey, a fellow writer and blogger who understands the power of fictional tales. He specializes in helping people use movies as tools to help them tell their own story. We each have a story to tell, and as the famous poet Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” So when Khemit said he was willing to do a guest post on Becoming Yourself, I jumped at the chance. I hope you’ll find his words as inspiring and challenging as I have, and that they will help you on your journey toward Becoming Yourself. Enjoy!
“The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right.” Hushpuppy, Beasts of the Southern Wild
So there I was, sitting in a dark movie theatre with my best friend watching the film Beasts of the Southern Wild in 2012. The movie ended, and the house lights came up. I immediately stumbled over my friend in a rush to get to the bathroom.
Once safely there in the confines of the stall, I immediately found myself shaking and sobbing uncontrollably, but not for the reasons one might normally do so in a bathroom stall. No, my tears were from the pure, unadulterated resonance I felt with the film. There was a little sadness, a little joy, but mainly a deep and fulfilling inspiration.
It wasn’t the first time I’d cried in a movie, but it might have been the first time I asked myself a question whose answer might not be as obvious as it seems: Why??
What is happening when you are moved so strongly by a movie or a piece of fiction?
One answer might be that your empathy for the characters has overwhelmed you… and that may be true. Another answer might be that the technical harmony of the movie (acting, directing, soundtrack, etc.) all drove you towards an emotional climax… and that’s probably not wrong either. But both of those answers are incomplete.
The role of our deeply personal resonance with stories can’t be ignored. Film (and fiction of all kinds) evolved with our emotions in mind. The stories that play themselves out on screens across the world all attempt to gain proximity to our fundamental human nature: the thing inside of us that yearns, strives, and searches endlessly for meaning.
But it isn’t just a generic thing that resides in all of us in the exact same way. If that were the case, every single person would cry at the exact same movies and scenes, and movie theaters would be even more intense places to be.
No, we all seem to resonate with the specific aspects of movies that speak to us on an individual level. We see reflections of ourselves in the stories that surround us. The stronger the link to our unique emotional worlds the stronger the resonance, like tuning forks vibrating in time with each other.
“Someday it’s all gonna be on you.” Hushpuppy, Beasts of the Southern Wild
That day in 2012 when I fled to a theater restroom to sob over a movie I’d just seen was not long after I’d gone back to school in the US after an extended and tumultuous 3 year excursion abroad. I was still adapting to life back in the States and things were not going well. I couldn’t keep my grades up, and my social life was nonexistent. I was failing and just couldn’t seem to adapt to the new environment. What’s worse, I didn’t feel like there was anywhere I belonged.
At that time in my life, and many time since, a well-told story about a little girl’s sojourn into unknown lands in search of secret knowledge was like a lightning rod for my emotions. Every scene felt packed with some secret significance meant only for me. I felt like the world was shifting into alignment around me; I felt like I wasn’t alone in my fear and wonder at the mysteries of life.
Certain things stood out to me: The hero of the movie seemed powerless in a chaotic world. The forces of man and nature seemed rallied against her. She had one point of control in all the world: herself. And we, the audience, followed her awash in hope and fear.
As the story spun itself out, I could feel myself resonating strongly with all the impactful scenes that spoke to me personally, and especially with the little heroine confronting her fears one by one. I started paying close attention to what I was feeling as I was watching that film. I’ve continued to do so for the thousands of films since. Instead of paying attention to what the characters felt as I used to, I started paying attention to what they did in response to those feelings: the things that made me respect them.
The characters I’d admired so strongly over the years reflected an ideal back at me: a compiled, but singular pattern of action aimed at overcoming adversity. It was a pattern I could also see in real life when I paid attention. It involved facing fears, taking action, asking for help, and the myriad other things we know but often ignore.
That single pattern of action, a single character composed of all the others, was alive inside of me: an answer to the uncertainty that plagued my life, if only I would turn to ask it for guidance.
“When you’re a small piece of a big puzzle, you gotta fix what you can.” Hushpuppy, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Once I saw the potential in viewing movies this way, I was able to refine my understanding of that underlying pattern with each new inspirational film I watched. More than just giving me a greater appreciation of film (which it certainly did), doing so told me things about what I could do about challenges in my own life, and about what I wanted to be doing in the world.
More than just vague inspiration, I saw that there were implications for action there. I started using the movies I resonated with as generators, refiners, and reminders of who I was trying to become. They became my life coach in a very real sense.
I’d always been a movie fan, but I started consuming with an intention that was absent before. I watched movies very closely, and I watched myself just as carefully while I did. I saw what I respected reflected back at me constantly, and I worked to bring myself into alignment with it.
I brought the lessons I was learning to my studies and to my personal life and things began to improve, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. My grades improved drastically; I found the courage to share myself, and build relationships and lifelong friendships. More importantly, by looking to my heroes for inspiration, I found my way back from the edge of hopelessness.
In using my resonance with movies as a guide, I discovered a personal hero all my own, the embodiment of all the traits I found admirable. I still look to that character for guidance today, and every great movie I see brings it more into focus.
“We’s who the Earth is for.” HushPuppy, Beast of the Southern Wild
The crafters of movies, the writers who plot them, and the real-world people they draw on to drive their creative works are the bedrock of inspirational resonance that movies call forth in us. People follow patterns that take their life on trajectories that are often hard to see except in hindsight. The medium of film is an art form because it can distill those complex patterns and lengthy timelines into kernels of wisdom about human action that are enjoyable, poignant, and powerful.
In life, the inevitable question that arises for all people is: what do I do now?? Some films, ones that inspire and resonate with us strongly, ask that question and then provide an answer. They do so by showing you a character moving from a place of tumultuous uncertainty to one of spiritual equilibrium.
They show you patterns of action that yield answers to the big question, and they have a rationale that justifies it. They keep you engaged, and speak to deep truths within you. They inspire you to be more than what you are, and they show you exactly how. They make you believe it’s possible. They give you hope.
One would be very lucky to find a life coach who can do better than that.
Movies are one of the most powerful tools we can use to assist us in becoming ourselves. Because I’m committed to having everyone share in that process, and I believe what resonates with you is all about YOU, I give out free recommendations of great films based on individual taste in my free time. You can follow this link to get yours 🙂
BIO:
Khemit Bailey is a writer, entrepreneur, and true believer in the transformative power of fiction.
He blogs about great fiction and the mastery of personal stories at The Character Arc. He also co-hosts the FYMP Podcast which focuses on the same topics.
Gravatar e-mail: tyshalle99@gmail.com
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Pretend you wanted to get really good at freehand drawing straight lines. How would you measure your improvement? By checking your work against a ruler.
Every personal development goal has a metric, an external standard to gauge your progress against. If your goal is being able to run two miles, the metric is distance. If your goal is having three months worth of expenses in an emergency fund, the metric is money. If your goal is spending fifteen minutes a day meditating, the metric is time. Those personal development goals, while not always easy to do, are easy to measure.
But what about goals that aren’t so clear cut? Like being more loving? More patient? More wise? These are where things get murkier for me. I’ve pursued personal development for over forty years, and I still struggle with measuring my progress on some of my most important goals.
What’s helped me clear the waters is choosing a person as my metric for those more nebulous goals. Someone to emulate. Someone who best embodies who I want to become. For me, that person is Jesus. Yours might be Mother Theresa or Steve Jobs or Maya Angelou or Oprah Winfrey or Michelle Obama or Mahatma Gandhi or Buddha or Muhammad or Warren Buffett or your grandmother. Who you pick depends on your goals.
The point is to have a clear mental picture of someone who has lived the way you want to live. Get to know as much about them as you can. How they acted. How they thought. How they spent their time. Their habits. What they said. What they believed. Then look in the mirror. How does your life compare to theirs?
That’s a dangerous question to ask. If your chosen “person metric” is a global icon with incredible success in their field, you’ll inevitably feel crushed by comparison. That’s why it’s important to not measure outward success, but inner alignment. You will probably not found a culture-shifting company or inspire millions around the world or spend a lifetime serving the poor. But you can still measure your traits and actions against your model. While recognizing that you are a different person in a different situation, do you work like them, speak like them, think like them, give like them, serve like them, love like them, all within your particular context?
Even with focusing only on inner alignment, traits, and actions, I still often fall far short of my particular model, Jesus. Sometimes it feels defeating, leaving me wondering if I’ll ever “get there.” When those feelings hit, a concept I learned from author and teacher Richard Rohr has been incredibly helpful to me. He makes the important distinction between image and likeness. As a follower of God, he believes that humans bear the image, the stamp, the essence of God in our very DNA, and that is unshakeable. He goes on to say that our likeness, how closely our actions, words, attitudes, and behaviors match those of God, varies widely. But lack of likeness does not diminish the inherent value or worth of every human being. Nothing can change the image.
I believe holding on to that distinction between image and likeness is so encouraging, regardless of your role model or where you place yourself on the spiritual spectrum. No matter how closely your likeness matches your “person metric,” your image, your value, your worth is not up for debate. It is not “to be determined.” It is not dependent on how well you succeed in emulating your model. You are good. You are valued. You are wanted. You are needed. You are loved. You are enough. Just as you are.
So as you chase greater likeness to your model, remember that your image is secure. Let that comforting thought give you the courage to take yet another step toward Becoming Yourself.
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