Rewriting the Script

"8 of Swords" by Catrin Welz-Stein

Dream Journal Entry: November 29, 2019 I dreamed of having some job working for a Chinese woman but the paychecks were all very small. It seemed I often just saved these little payouts until I accumulated enough to cash them in. Some guy finds one I had taped somewhere and I stated, "I forgot all about that one." I found other checks with small amounts elsewhere as well and put them all together to cash them in.  

Later, I am with my former employer, K, and and his grown son in a room. I think my current employer, the Chinese woman, is with me. I am talking about beers with the woman for some reason and stated that K knew much more about all of the varying flavors than I did. K heard us talking and came in to chime in. I notice he is bald now. I am slightly nervous about him being near. I am remembering we have had an affair and I am trying to remember if it was just here in the dream or if we had actually had an affair. It feels like just in here but I struggled to remember. It feels like it has been a long time since we have been intimate. K mentions Portrait of a Lady and I am wondering why he has mentioned this and I start to come out of the dream, at which point, I looked up the cliff notes. 

Oh yeah, I also heard something about "making him anatomically correct".

After having this dream, I searched "Portrait of a Lady" online. My eyes hadn't yet focused enough to read, so I opted instead to see if the movie was available on Amazon Prime. Sure enough, it was there as a free option to watch.

After having watched the film to refresh my memory, I felt annoyed by the ending. It wasn't clear what Isabel ended up doing, so I had to look up the cliff notes to find out.

Spoiler alert!

She goes back to Rome to be with her abusive husband and loveless marriage.

Okay, so Isabel made a terrible choice in a partner, but that shouldn't mean she should have to suffer it for the duration of her life or until he dies.

Why does she stay in her miserable situation?

Pride and fear of what others will think is her cage.

"Eight of Swords" from the Ostara Tarot by Krista Gibbard

There is no honor in sacrificing happiness for either of those reasons. Isabel would rather live a life of misery than admit her own mistakes publicly. In doing so, she puts herself in an "Eight of Swords" situation. She feels trapped like there is no escape and yet the only thing standing in her way is her own flawed perspective and beliefs. She holds the key and yet she chooses her cage rather than to fly free.

She had choice after choice and she chose badly.

When I was a child and would read book or watched a movie with an ending I didn't like, it would upset me tremendously and then I would set out to rewrite the script in my mind.

One of my favorite past times was to "make movies in my head" where I would imagine various scenarios with me as the lead character. When it came to unhappy endings, I would imagine a completely different, happy ending. Bambi's parents are still alive in my ending.

My parents took me to see an old Disney movie called "The Littlest Horse Thieves". Flash, the mine pony, saves the day but perishes due to ingrained conditioning and training. Instead of leaving the mine to experience freedom, he goes back to the stall he habitually went back to due to programming and he dies.

Freedom was possible but his slavery conditioned him and caused him to choose badly at the worst possible moment. After I watched that movie, I was inconsolable. I cried and cried and cried even though my family kept telling me it wasn't real and it was just a movie. It didn't matter. It hurt my heart so much that I imagined for months after Flash breaking free from his conditioning and making his way out of the mine safe and sound.

"Speechless" by Catrin Welz-Stein

So if I were to imagine a different ending for Isabel, I would imagine her taking back her own power. The best way to take back our power when there is information we are embarrassed might become public and subject to public scrutiny is to simply own it and reveal it ourselves. In my ending, she enlists her reporter friend to tell her story before anyone else can. When we open our closets, shine a light in the corners and share it before others do, we remove the negative charge and power that anyone might have to try to use it against us. Transparency and openness makes it impossible for anyone to ever have power over us. It is like in the movie, Labyrinth, when Sarah suddenly realizes that the only power Jareth ever had over her was her own fear, it freed her.

The public's problem with our personal choices is their problem if it doesn't actually impact them personally in anyway.

My brother used to say, "If you have a problem with that, then that's your fucking problem." And while it seems harsh, it is absolutely true. Your opinion of me is more of a reflection of you than it is of me. To base our decisions on what everyone else thinks means to always give our power away to someone else to decide for us how we live our lives.

In my ending, Isabel would step into who she she was meant to be had she not been derailed by scheming and dishonest people who only cared for her money. She would be more like Miss Elizabeth Bentley from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and choose her own happiness over public opinion. Isabel would joyfully ruffle feathers and shock her peers by divorcing her abusive husband. She would face her fears head on like she was a battering ram and public opinion simply a wall waiting to be dismantled by her. It is what she was made for...to travel paths others have not in order to make it easier for others to also choose happiness over conditioning and tradition.

"10 of Cups" by Catrin Welz-Stein

She would follow her heart and take risks if there was one she truly loved and felt a connection to on every level. She would answer the door to love when opportunity knocks. She would run to unconditional love instead of away from it and back into her stall to wait for certain death. Flash died a physical death in his movie, but there is a kind of death that is much worse than physical death. It is the internal death we sometimes experience when, bit by bit, we die inside until we become the walking dead. I was once a walking dead person and it is very unpleasant, indeed.

If our lives are headed in a direction of slowly dying inside, the most self loving thing we can do is to break away from the programming, the conditioning, the fear of what others think and choose to step out of our cages that have never actually been locked. We simply have to make heart centered choices based in love rather than out of fear and obligation.

Art by Catrin Welz-Stein

If you don't like the storyline currently playing out, rewrite your script. You hold the pen and get to decide.