Viewing Your Life as a Drama

What wounds did life afflict you with? Did these wounds interfere with your ego plans for your life?

“. . . Jung spoke of God as whatever interferes with or obstructs the ego’s desires and intentions” (The Alchemy of Healing: Psyche and Soma by Edward C. Whitmont, M.D., p.91).

Did your wound appear in your life like an antagonist in a play?  In his life story, Ignatius of Loyola meets with a seriously disabling accident (the antagonist).

“An ever-merry ‘man about town’ meets with a seriously disabling accident that, in the course of enforced inactivity, opens him to his spiritual calling. This was the case with Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order” (ibid. p.87).

Wounds Contain Meaning

Certainly, physical and/or emotional wounds must be taken seriously and approached realistically as well. Proper medical and/or psychotherapeutic treatment may be warranted. However, paradoxically, these treatments are a part of the story, a part of the play. What new characters may enter your life dressed as doctors and therapists? Viewing your life as a drama may result in renewed meaning in your life. Your life can be viewed as intertwined with the world’s story and given its proper place and significance. And theologically, “God needs us because we are God’s way to make new kinds of stories” (The World is Made of Stories by David R. Loy, p.93).

Your Life as a Diamond

“What happens when I realize that my story is a story” (ibid. p.33)? Since your psyche creates stories through dreams, fantasies and even visions, you can now see the world and your life through your psyche’s eyes. Everything becomes less black and white. Your creativity will be stimulated. And if you choose to transform your wounds into words, your words will sparkle like diamonds revealing a multi-faceted view of life.

Photo Credit: Photo by Steven Depolo at Flickr Creative Commons.