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It’s a matter of perspective

Remember when I wrote about the Drama Wheel? The short play where one person is the villain, the victim and the hero?

Well, there are other examples, as I’m finding, of stories in which two opposing parties are forced to see from the other’s viewpoint.

Here are two movies my kids have been watching lately. Check out the general theme of…

Seeing a situation from multiple perspectives

Tessa likes Freaky Friday. Mom thinks her teenage daughter is self-centered and incapable of thinking about the people around her. Daughter thinks mom has no idea how difficult it is to be a teenager because the Mom is so wrapped up in her own life. They argue with and rage at each other, missing each other’s point of view because they are so stuck in their own.

Through a magical fortune cookie, one freaky day they trade places. The daughter inhabits the mom’s life and the mom lives the daughter’s. Finally, in walking in the other’s shoes, they each can more fully love, respect, and appreciate the other.

Reed is into Brother Bear. Kenai is mad at a bear he thinks was responsible for the death of his brother, Sitka, so he hunts it down and kills it. But Sitka’s spirit has arranged for Kenai to learn about the connectedness of all life. So through the bear’s death, Kenai becomes a bear.

A third brother, Denahi, now hunts the bear for revenge, thinking the bear killed his two brothers. He doesn’t realize that he’s hunting his own brother!

What’s most fascinating is that when we see the bear through Denahi’s eyes, he looks like a National Geographic bear — all fierce and ready-to-kill. When we see bears through Kenai’s eyes, they look like Disney bears — cuddly and ready to have good-natured fun.

Kenai has to face something horrible he did because of his limited perspective, and both he and Denahi become wiser for their experience.

Whenever I see conflict in Adoption World (or in my own world), I wonder what would happen if the parties in conflict could trade places. Oh wait. Maybe in this lifetime we ARE trading places.

Could I have been a first mother in another reality? Might I have experienced what it’s like to have been adopted? How compassionate was I with the others in my constellation? How compassionate am I now?

 

5 Responses

  1. I liked Freaky Friday. Poor Lindsay. She’s really a pretty good actress. I am interested in the idea of reincarnating in groups. I’ve read of this idea before. Your mother in this life may have been your husband in another. You, your children, and their firstmothers may have been involved in other ways in the past, and you keep finding eachother over and over again.

  2. Furrow and KarenO, your comments have caused me to think more about my views on carnating (re- or otherwise).I’ll have to figure out what I think and blog about it sometime.

  3. You ask difficult questions! But they sure make my think. I don’t believe in reincarnation, but I do believe we’re all connected in more ways then one through the ages.

  4. I don’t believe in reincarnations either, but I do believe it is important to be able to see things from different perspective. I never thought these movies could teach such a lesson.

  5. I wonder what Tessa would think of the Jodie Foster version of Freaky Friday. The book is great too.

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