Cheering for the heroine or hero...
Cheering for the heroine or hero...
One of the worst and best moments in my life~ I was reading about how to write a screenplay. I chewed dried mango for my upset stomach, a side effect of ptsd, while I took notes. I learned~ to push your heroine or hero to change you must create a great villain who finds new and creative ways to be terrible, terrible enough to get your heroine or hero to decide to change. If the story is to end heroically.
When the heroine or hero doesn’t change and fight, the villain triumphs. These stories are called tragedies and we describe the heroine or hero as tragic.
In screenplay books, we’re instructed to create “yes-no” moments. Your heroine or hero advances and then WHAMO! something thwarts them.
The heroine or hero is physically hurt, emotionally wounded, disrespected again, treated terribly, called names, kicked out of places of belonging, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle is presented. Now what?
What does your heroine or hero decide to do next?
When I’m sitting on the couch eating popcorn, I cheer for the heroine or hero who gets knocked down.
“Get up! Keep going!”
When I was fighting the boarding school to get rid of teachers who were sexual predators, I continuously (daily and sometimes hourly) had to overcome my own anxiety, my own sick stomach, my own sweaty palms, my own high heart rate.
I also had to accept profound disappointment in humanity, that administrators in charge of children at a boarding school would knowingly keep teachers whom they knew to be sexual predators teaching students for decades.
I wanted to give up on people. More than once. My cynicism was my own enemy. My desire to curl up in a ball and hide was my own enemy. My feelings of being insane were my own enemy. People were behaving in an insane way all around me. My feelings of trying and not making a difference were my own enemy. In my lowest moment, I wanted to take my own life.
I talked with my therapist. “Why did I want to live on a planet where people who were in charge of children were this awful?”
My therapist told me ~ If I took my life, they would win. I would give them exactly what they wanted and their attempts to silence me would triumph.
“Get up! Keep going!”
People tell me I’m strong. I was and I wasn’t. Many of my actions were. What no one knows, except my husband, is that I was sick to my stomach and writing emails and making calls. And having nightmares. And learning how to pray and ask for help. For years.
I did this enough days, over enough years, that things changed for the better in the outside world and so did I.
My anxiety didn’t go away first and then I was able to take actions in the world. It happened simultaneously. Even now, I’m not fully healed.
But in the process, I changed. I learned to ask for help when I felt beaten, alone or helpless, again and again. I learned to keep fighting to see beauty, again and again. I learned to accept kindness from people who were trying to reach me with tenderness and love, again and again.
And I learned how to believe that this is what we fight for ~ to give love and receive love, again and again. And it’s worth it.
What I learned in the screenplay books is that we cheer for the heroine or hero who gets up after being knocked down. And here’s the terrible part. In the books, the instruction to the screenplay writer is to throw everything you can at your heroine or hero— knock them down, challenge their insecurities, treat them terribly or someone they loves terribly, make evil so big that your heroine or hero is wiped out and can’t function… for awhile.
This happened to me more than once.
“Get up! Keep going!”
Grace always came. In different forms. To mend. To heal. To help. To inspire.
As the writer of screenplays, you do your job well when you make it very, very hard for your heroine or hero to take any positive steps forward.
What I realized reading these books is that we are all living in our own screenplay. We are all thrown terrible things. We also throw terrible things at ourselves, excuses for why we can stay in fear and not bring light. The tragic stories we tell ourselves.
And here’s where there’s room for enormous compassion. Yes, terrible awful things happen that take us out. And we require love and kindness. Allowing for this is essential. Not to keep pushing forward at all cost. Gentle. Tender. Kind. Loving.
And the movie continues. What do we do next?
Our heroine or hero gets knocked down. We cheer for them. We want them to triumph. We want them to overcome external threats and internal monsters. We love seeing them be courageous against the odds. We cheer when help (grace) comes in unexpected ways. And in the best stories, it always does.
Reconnect. Believe. Receive. And share your light. The world needs it and it matters. Even when you can’t see the impact. Share light anyways.
“Get up! Keep going!”
Kathleen
To watch/ hear the song “The Firefly Way” on YouTube, please click here.
To learn more about the book I wrote my experience seeking to make schools safer for children called “Get Savvy: Letters to a Teenage Girl about Sex and Love,” please click here.
