Actor or director?

When I worked in PR and marketing I used to see what I did in terms of ‘me’ and ‘them’ where ‘them’ could be the client or the public or the media. I was a character in the world interacting with other characters and depending on the effectiveness of my communications I either caused a reaction or not. I had no more influence than that.

But how about if I completely change the perspective from which I view my reality and my role. If I truly see myself as the creator of my reality then I change from being a character interacting with others, to a director responsible for the entire set - the actors, the script, the camera angles, everything. The question I ask myself is not ‘how can I get X to change their opinion’ but instead ‘how am I creating this person in my life’. The difference is enormous.

It creates an huge perspective shift and with it, responsibility for every aspect of our lives. I experienced it very clearly last Saturday. We were going out. I had made an effort and my husband didn’t compliment me or even comment on what I was wearing. My thought chain went from - ‘he didn’t compliment me’ to ‘he doesn’t really notice me’ to ‘he doesn’t care’. And of course with each thought my emotions followed suit until I had thought myself into a real mood.

Then I stopped the train for a moment with another thought. If I am the director of my life, what is really happening in this production? I stopped looking at things from the point of view of the actor in the scene - the small, slighted actor and instead looked at it from the director's chair. When I looked at it from every angle, I saw the many many ways the man showed his love, I saw his humaness, his strength and vulnerability, a man doing his best, often succeeding, not always. I saw how little it mattered, in this enormous and infinitesimal panorama of a man and a woman’s life, whether I had a compliment or not.

It is also the indication of what to change. The questions that our culture keeps imposing on us, ‘how can I be more beautiful?’ or ‘how can I be more successful?’ simply cease to exist. If I am the director of my reality, then I create beauty and success. The real question is ‘How can I be creating a world in which people don’t think they are beautiful or successful?' and the answer for me is to no longer allow that to happen, to ensure that everyone in my life knows they are beautiful and enough exactly as they are, which is a big reason for writing this blog.

Can you see how big the change in thinking is. It startles me every day how it changes the conversation.  I think the reason we are able to do this is that we are all one being. There is no differentiation between myself and others. I am creating others as I create myself. To create something that will destroy others is to destroy yourself.

It is the change from being the character to being the writer, from being the leaf floating on the water to being the river itself, from being the chess piece battling and cooperating with other pieces to being the board on which the game is played.