I watched Our Season by Yook Sang-hyo on a plane ride yesterday and enjoyed it a lot.
In the movie, a daughter and mother have a strained relationship, the mother dies, returns in spirit form to see how her daughter is doing, sees that she is filled with regret and is making bad life choices because of it, and wants to help her. She finds a way to spend an evening with her daughter and they find resolution. The daughter is able to move on with her life and make use of her opportunities.
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS FOR HEALING
It reminds me of one of my favorite ways to explore healing.
Imagine the other person as whole, healed, wise, and kind, and wishing the best for everyone. (When we are whole and healed, we are able to tap into our wisdom and kindness, and we naturally wish the best for everyone.)
Have a conversation with that person. Have the conversation you really wanted to have with them, from receptivity, understanding, and wishing the best for each other.
Talk about what was difficult, ask questions, learn how that person experienced it and how they see it differently now from a healed place, share your experience, apologize, share what you wish for each other.
A FEW MORE DETAILS
I have used this with issues from childhood, especially with schoolmates from that time. It led me to understand them better and where they came from, and they understood me better. It shifted something in me and I see that situation quite differently now. (I understand that they may have felt threatened by my passion for learning and being a good student. I see how I used it to feel better about myself, and sometimes even better than them which gave them fuel for resentment.)
It is an imaginary conversation but it’s still real enough. It’s the type of conversation we would have if we were both whole and healed and came from our wisdom and kindness. It is a way to access the different parts of me represented by these people – me and the others. It is a way to change how I perceive them, me, and the situation. It is a way to find healing.
As with everything else, it’s all happening within and as what I am. The consciousness I am forms itself into all of it.
Of course, what’s missing is the unique perspectives and knowledge that the actual people would have, and actually having the conversation with them. Sometimes, it’s not possible to have that actual conversation since the other is no longer in our life. Sometimes, we or they may not be ready. Sometimes, doing this in imagination can lead to doing it in real life.
Sometimes, doing it this way has to be enough and can lead to resolution. We get to live and experience one way it would play out if we both were healed and came from a place of understanding, kindness, and well-wishing.
A FEW QUICK EXPLORATIONS
I mostly do this without writing it down, but thought I would include a few brief explorations. There is just about no limit to how thorough and finely grained it can be, of course, so this is just a brief intro.
THE GUY WHO TOLD ME TO SHUT UP
Situation: In my late teens, I was in the waiting room of a healer and mentioned to an older man that how we experience a situation has to do with our perception – how we see and relate to it – more than the situation itself. He told me to shut up until I was dry behind the ears. It fed into a pattern in me of wanting to hide to stay safe, so I write here and otherwise rarely talk about these kinds of things.
He: I am sorry for what I said. It came from my own fear. I felt overwhelmed by my own illness and life and didn’t want to be lectured by a kid. It felt easier to shut you down than to have a conversation about it. I wish I could have had a conversation about it since I could have learned something back then. I also really do not want you to shut up. Please share if it can help someone and they are receptive.
Me: Thank you. What you said went quite deep in me and I have followed your advice, even if I know it came from reactivity in you. I also know that in my youthful enthusiasm, I shared what I had discovered without considering if you wanted to hear it. You never asked for advice so it would have made more sense for me just to listen. Maybe I could have shared my own experience with it instead of making it into a general principle.
He: Thank you. Yes, it would have been easier for me if you had framed it as sharing your own experience. Then it would have been less about me and easier for me to listen to it. Still, feel free to share when you feel like it. Don’t shut up. If we all did, there would be far less we can learn from each other. We are all exploring this together.
MY MOTHER
She: I am sorry for all the traumas and difficult dynamics I brought into your life and the family. It’s all from my own family and has been passed on through the generations. I have struggled with it as much if not more than you, but I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was taught to never talk about it. I was taught it was terrible – and beyond dangerous – to mention or admit to any of it. All I could do was distract myself from it by talking, blaming your father, and so on. I am sorry you had to deal with it all. I am sorry for how it has impacted your life.
Me: I am sorry too, that I wasn’t able to get out of it enough to have a better and more free relationship with you. I have felt burdened by it all, and I wanted to create distance – by moving to another continent and not sharing too much of my own life and what’s going on with me. I knew what was going on, and still found it easier to keep some distance. I am sorry for how that has impacted you.
She: I am happy you have found a life in the Andes at your place there, doing what you love. I am happy you are able to work with all of this – what I brought into the family – and find a way to relate to it all in a more conscious way than I could.
Me: Thank you and thank you for all of it. For the challenging material that’s a big part of what I explore, and for your love that’s always been there although sometimes covered up by the challenges.
INITIAL NOTES
Our season – Korean movie
If my life was a story, how would I like it to content and end?
Conversations with everyone in my life, as whole, wise, healed, kind
What they want for me
A daughter and mother with challenges in their relationship, mother returns in spirit after death to see how her daughter is doing, the daughter is full of guilt, they have a conversation and clear things up,
One approach to healing I have used for myself, imagine a dialog with another where we both are clear, whole, healed, wise, kind, wish the best for each other