By Satya Winkelman
I liked reading Cinderella and watching Sex in the City, but lately I’ve been in my own story, and I haven’t been happy with it. At my age, you’d think I would have given up fairytales, chosen a better romance story, and not suffer over the one I’m living. The culprit is the fantasy rerun that parallels my reality. It’s like having a split screen playing two stories at the same time. One is running Prince Charming … the other is the Disenchanting Frog.
My partner/lover/spouse SHOULD BE MORE LIKE PRINCE CHARMING!—not like the Frustrating Farting Frog in my story!
“Cinderella did NOT get to stay at the ball” and, “No romance ever lasts,” the pouting actress in me simpers. So just like in Sex in the City, she ponders about to the “next one.” With such old and familiar fiction droning on, I hardly realize my mind’s on an endless episode loop.
If I’m sad and disillusioned over my unrecognized dreams and romantic expectations, it helps to remember it’s my own mind’s movie.
I’m the protagonist, the storyteller and the script writer. I even direct how to act and respond in each scene. But it is easier to focus on the Frog. It seems everything we do has payoffs. Focusing on the relationship and disappointment with the “Prince” is a distraction from me running my own life. This attachment keeps me irresponsible and dependent, just like when I was a little kid and wishing for a Fairy Godmother. Hardly a fun payoff as it prevents me from creating my own good health, happiness and gratitude now.
When stuff happens and people don’t behave, I need to write a new story for my mind’s myths and stop the old reactions to former fixed fantasies. If my “Prince Charming” is being a “Total Toad,” I can remember everything has a shadow and that it’s my adherence to high hopes which is casting darkness. I can feel pain or loss in the moment and choose NOT TO SUFFER. I can choose how I WANT to act, and remember pain is a given in life and suffering is optional.
It’s easy to say that I need to change my thinking. It’s the doing part that’s more difficult and which creates the change. Watching my mind’s make-beliefs will help me to turn off the tape, choose my thoughts and actions and become more accepting. My Prince/Frog might then just start singing Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead.
Satya Winkelman, M.A., C.P., is a board certified psychotherapist, an international communication trainer for Fortune 500 companies, a facilitator of Wise Women Workshops, and an artist. She is the author of a self-help workbook using her own art as guideposts for personal growth in “Through The Fire: A Woman’s Guide To Transformation.” Visit the website at http://guidetotransformation.com.