Fantastic Gems

Yes, your spiritual awakening process is about integrating your light and your shadow side. But it is ultimately about learning to love all parts and pieces of you in totality. Ultimately, love is the key. It will always be the answer. (Spirit Guide Michele)

I saw a really good movie with the boys the other day, "Middle School - The Worst Years of my Life", which made me reconsider my views about having fantasies quite a bit. In it, a struggling teenager compensated his anger and depression over his younger brother he lost to cancer by finding escape in a world of action figure drawings and his vivid imagination. He was still hanging out with his brother in his fantasies and together they fought bullies, an evil principal and an obnoxious guy who was scheming to become his step father.

I had always considered fantasies as an escape, and they are. Yet, because of these action figures the boy developed an amazing artistic talent, and his artistic nature got him a girlfriend who also felt misunderstood as an artist by the school establishment. Fantasies are distorted thinking and have to be outgrown along a spiritual path but they can also be a beautiful part of the healing process as this movie showed. At the end of the movie the boy let the memory of his brother, together with all the action figures he created, depart in a spaceship, while he kissed the girl of his dream for real.

Fantasies are what they are. Something is hurt and feels broken inside and simply wants a little acknowledgement and nurturing.
In these distorted and twisted realities there can also be beauty, but the trick is to find it and express it, just as an artist does. In our "irrational" longings there are always authentic needs. Let's find those hidden gems rather than beat ourselves up over being wounded inside. Let's find a way to love ourselves - the complete us - the damaged and broken pieces as well as the proper and impressive parts. Love is the WAY. Integration and wholeness will happen naturally when we love ourselves unconditionally.