Forest Gump Meets the Prodigal Son
- Kay Urlich
How often do people feel lost from themselves, unable to reconnect to their deep and most innocent self?
Most of us can remember how we felt as a child, innocent, open, and curious. Somewhere along the line, as we grow into gender roles and adulthood, we forget the wholeness of who we were: we forget some of our parts.
Angela’s children grew up and left home and she felt bereft. Angela and her husband had imparted their common sense values to their children as they had been taught by their parents - get an education, a good job, and have a family. Their children were doing well; they had succeeded, so why was she feeling so sad?
Few of us are taught to consider the cost we pay as we define our lives through our education, career, or parents and we lose sight of the inner-child that is part of us. One thing we can be sure of, and that is that no matter our culture or country we are imprinted with a view of the world through other people's eyes: those of our parents, teachers, and coaches plus their political and spiritual beliefs.
From eyes that see not from purity and faultlessness but the perspective of cultural patterns.
This means reframing our innocence in the name of belief systems and dogma and in so doing diminish the heart of the child within.
And it is the fading heart-space within that drives people to an unsatisfactory or troublesome life.
It is why living through successful action, thoughts, and feelings alone cannot be taken at face value because not every thought or feeling deserves our attention no matter how logical or sensible it is or how much it aligns with the status quo. Whether we have a physics degree or are homeless it doesn’t necessarily follow that we can see past the experiential view. Like the prodigal son who became a veteran of the world, Angela paid the price by disconnecting from the playfulness and joy of the space she once inhabited.
Image Rembrandt
Her slow decline into living through others' eyes divided her from her deepest heart's perspective and, like previous generations, she settled unhappily into the collective mindset and what was expected of her.
Healing the past is like the Prodigal son returning home and merging his experiences with the innocence of Forest Gump.
In The Structure of Energy Fields, innocence doesn’t mean gullibility or artlessness it is about activating the nurturing the whole self by nourishing all of our parts, where openness is the key that leads to alchemy and wisdom. It means we can trust our words and express from our core with the gentleness of Forest Gump merging with the life experience of the wandering Prodigal Son.
Opening and nourishing these aspects in Angela is about expressing authentic knowledge for her to celebrate who she is while engaging with the underlying comprehension that all parts are one in consciousness. In so doing, Angela is finding a deeper truth available: that there is no limit to the depth of our being, that only fixed thoughts and feelings can stop us from gaining a lifetime of knowledge while we blossom through the spirit of a child.
