What can a 200 year old tale teach you about reclaiming your own power?
Quite a bit it seems…
Discovering that she was no longer the fairest in the land, the evil Step-Mother wanted to ‘right’ this ‘wrong’. Making a poisonous brew she dipped a red apple in it, and set out to deliver her plan.
Disguising herself as an old lady, she tracked down Snow White, who was hiding from her in cottage deep in the forest.
Going against her first instincts not to let the old woman in her cottage, Snow White did, and accepted the gift of the bright, shiny apple.
Once she took a bite of the apple, Snow White collapsed to the floor, falling into a deep sleep.
When the seven dwarfs returned home, they were so distressed at seeing Snow White laying on the floor that they built her a glass coffin, and laid her in front of their cottage.
Most people are familiar with the tale of Sleeping Beauty. The beautiful, and innocent maiden, who fell prey to the jealousy of another.
You might not be living in exile in a cottage in the woods with 7 dwarfs… but is there an aspect of yourself, or your life, that that you’re running away from or avoiding?
The part of your life that you’re avoiding, suppressing or are in conflict with is your symbolic poisoned apple.
Often people don’t realise just how much effort it takes to hide or supress their feelings.
Or how energetically draining it is to hold onto the hurt after somebody has wronged them.
It can be exhausting!
20 years ago I attended a training course and the facilitator told me that I was choosing to feel hurt by the actions of another.
I still remember feeling soooooo enraged by this comment!
This person I was angry at had hurt me deeply. Violated me and my trust.
I remember thinking that there was NO WAY that I was choosing this!
Who in their right mind would choose to hold onto this much pain?
I left the workshop, knowing that the facilitator was wrong.
I mean, obviously if they knew the full story, then they would understand why I felt this way.
But… something about what they had said stayed with me.
And I found myself wondering:
Was it a choice?
What if I chose not to feel the pain?
What was I gaining by not letting it go?
What was I denying myself by holding on to it?
I started to wonder why I wanted to hold this pain, and uncomfortably I began to realise that by holding this pain, it made me ‘right’ and their actions ‘wrong’.
Absolutely their actions had been appalling, but by me holding onto the pain wasn’t benefiting me at all, and I doubt they even knew how I was feeling towards them.
Like Sleeping Beauty, my response to another person’s behaviour was keeping me locked in a coffin of glass.
In this glass coffin, I was on show, looking and behaving in the way I was ‘supposed’ to, but in reality, I was withdrawn from the world and numb inside.
Although I came out of my slumber, it wasn’t from a kiss from Prince Charming, it was by someone just posing that simple question, someone who could hold the space for me to realise my truth without judgement or agenda.
This is probably one of the most profound, and difficult, and most liberating truths that I have ever encountered in my life.
I get to choose what I feel.
I realised that I could take back my power and choose to respond to the situation and memories differently.
This didn’t mean that it made the other person right, or what they did was any less wrong, it just meant that I was no longer prepared to hold onto the poisoned apple.
I could take back my power, and begin to truly heal from the experience.
I was no longer perpetuating the wound, or buying in to my own story of being the victim (not that I would’ve even seen myself as that!).
Is there a poisoned apple in your life, and are you ready to let it go?
If you are ready to let the poison go, so that you can be free of the pain of the past, then I invite you start here so that you can Break the SPELL, and get ready to reclaim and celebrate your true nature, and no longer live within a ‘glass coffin’.