It's nice to truly begin this new blog, and though I stated in my first blog here that I would begin with Billy Elliot, I saw a movie last night that inspired me to start out with it instead. The name of the film is The Answer Man, starring Jeff Daniels, Lauren Graham, and Lou Taylor Pucci (a Johnny Depp look-a-like who was excellent in the film).
I believe that what inspired me to want to share about this film is how much I was able to relate my own life to it, which is – after all – the whole point of this blog…how to use different films to assist you in your transformative explorations. I am a life coach, specializing in transformation, spiritual mentoring, relationships reinvention, and life transitions. In addition, I also do Counseling with people. While I have not yet achieved the profile of someone like Neale Donald Walsch, the author of all the Conversations With God books (and the person that Jeff Daniels' character, Arlen Faber, seems to be modeled after), I am nevertheless paid to both provide answers to my clients and, more importantly, assist them in finding their own answers that they all have inside them. When one is in that kind of position, and actually emphasizes the coaching/counseling experience as a deliberate and deliberative spiritual pathway, as I do, it's pretty interesting the kinds of projections that get put onto the coach.
Much like therapy, there is transference that happens that, in one way, makes the person who's doing the coaching or counseling invisible, or "disappeared." Now, in my opinion, that's supposed to happen and aids the effectiveness of the work. But, what happens when the provider, or healer, loses themself in the process as well. What happens when you're seen as some sort of spiritual teacher that then is projected upon to be an infallible person that wouldn't, couldn't and even shouldn't make mistakes or be human? Even worse, what if you're teaching or coaching someone in the midst of your own crisis of faith? How does one navigate the subtle (and not-so-subtle) minefields of the dance between ego and Spirit while being a public "authority?" This is exactly what The Answer Man deals with and brought up for me.
In the film, Arlen Faber, in 1988, publishes an enormous best-seller, "Me and God." Much as with Neale Donald Walsch, Faber becomes world-renowned, wealthy, spin-off books abound, and he is relegated by the masses to the role of Spiritual Guru. Because his book purported to be conversations between him and God, the public believes that he has all the answers they need to their questions. Twenty years later, when the film starts, he has become an isolated, JD Salinger-type misanthrope, desperately trying to re-connect with God…and himself. In addition, those who finally figure out who he really is come unglued when they discover that he is every bit as flawed as they are.
Taking it out of the realm, for a minute, of my particular profession, isn't this an issue we're always dealing with and have been dealing with since our childhoods? The disparity between who we naturally are, and the gyrations we end up going through to try and fit in (and deal) with others' pictures and expectations of who we are or should be? When we were children, it was natural to be natural! Most of us have grown into adults now trying to transcend all the adaptive, distorted, reactive behavior patterns that dealing with our families of origin required us to take on to be able to get our needs met. When we have had to do that long enough, we often forget who the "Real Us" really is and how that "us" really feels. The film beautifully showcases the cost of that amnesia, aggravated by the projected expectations that come part and parcel with being a teacher or healer.
If we're not present and as conscious as can be, it gets so easy to get lost in the hall of mirrors of our ego-mind that constantly supports the belief in the illusions, and delusions, of our ego-mind's grandiosity and the drive to unconsciously believe that our "truth" is really defined by others' reactions,feedback, and/or love. This is one of the most insidious forms of separation that afflicts us as humans, and from that place, we look for people – therapists, gurus, coaches, teachers, authors, Oprah – to give us the answers on how to circumvent that and get back to being happy (often mistaken for non-stop feeling good, rather than living our Spirit). When the Answer Man/Woman doesn't have the answers, or – in my trade – offers answers and reflections that we want to be heard, the messenger (and the message itself) often get killed off one way or the other, and then the search continues for the next Answer Man/Woman.
When you're the one looked to to be that Answer Man/Woman, it can get easy to forget that your strength as a teacher/healer/coach is to bring your human-ness to the party. The minute you forget, as a healer/teacher, that you're just as human and fallible as everyone else, and forget to bring loving compassion to that reality and how you work it out for yourself, you're trapped in that hall of mirrors (as the Arlen Faber character in the film is) looking for a way out. I often find myself in this position, due to the wounds I still carry that I continually work on, of getting to learn this lesson over and over. Every time, as in the movie, one of the key "solutions" or paths out of the trap always comes back to one common denominator: connection, to oneSelf, our Spirit, and to the Divine.
To see this played out in a way that is well-written and more realistic than most films, see The Answer Man. See how it reflects YOUR process of dealing with image, expectations, desires, fear, love, separation, and ego/Spirit dualities. Notice if it shows you anything about what you do, or where you go inside, when you don't have The Answers. Then, please come back to this Post and add your comments. The film is in theaters now (in some cities) and available On Demand for Comcast subscribers.
