Life lessons learnt from Barbie
Over the weekend I watched the new barbie film and to be quite honest, I had no real expectations when I booked to see the film! As a lover of film and the arts, I’ve always believed and felt that films are never just films and quite frankly there is always a hidden message conveyed in the visual arts.
As you watch Barbie you begin to realise how distorted and twisted the real world is and the things that have been normalised in society are quite disturbing. Perhaps living in the “real” world has desensitised us or maybe it hasn’t…But seeing the contrast between Barbie-land where almost nothing goes wrong & everything is perfect it’s quite worrying that we exist in a world where these “wrong” are brushed aside. What strikes me first is the spiritual message which is conveyed, thoughts are never just thoughts. Our thoughts and the things we think of ourselves transcend time and location and impact different versions of ourselves in different realms. I do believe that as we manifest in our subconscious mind albeit negative or positive thoughts, we sometimes forget how potent and powerful these thoughts are. As we see in Barbie, these thoughts transcend different dimensions and ultimately take a physical toll on Barbie.
I and a close friend of mine always say how everything in this world is spiritual and almost most things manifest in the spiritual world before the physical! But it can be said all of this was necessary for Barbie who needed to experience everything she did to find her own sense of truth, from the journey of self-discovery to wanting to be more than just perfection and a routine that no longer served her. What really touched the cords in my heart was the scene barbie was at the bus-stop and used her intuition to call in memories from a different lifetime and the past.
How she grounded herself, and how she was able to follow these thoughts and attune her inner spirit. To me, this spoke to my soul as someone who is often conflicted with many thoughts and feelings all at once an internal chatter you can say this scene really resonated with me and reminded me that there is so much beauty in grounding oneself. In the midst of the chaos and in the midst of the flesh wanting answers, sometimes we just need to sit still and allow the memories to pour back in. We all have a gut and we all have what people may call a sixth sense, it’s a case of rediscovering how to connect to this and silence out the inner clutter and confusion to hear the messages of the heart. Quite often in a world which does not teach us how to lead with our intuition it can be hard to do so as we have been trained to follow rationale over the unseen, but Barbie in that moment revived that inner spark within me and spoke to me in many ways.
Walking away from our comfort zone especially when our comfort zone feels familiar and “safe, can be a challenge. However, choosing ourselves over and over again is a common theme in adulthood that over the years I’ve had to learn and also come to terms with. Choosing ourselves also means having to make decisions which may conflict with our hearts and as painful as it is, we see how Barbie stayed true to her authentic path of self-discovery. It may have been easier for barbie to stay where she’s most comfortable. But, we never truly will realise our potential if we don’t go outside our comfort zone to the other side.
I like to think of myself as a student of life, sometimes it is hard to conceptualise that there is so much more is out there when we are in a routine and geographically tied to a location. But barbie bet on herself as the hoodhealer would say, she chose discomfort and growth over her comfort zone and most importantly she stayed true to her inner feelings and her intuition that led her on this journey.
Barbie reminded me of the power of reconnecting to our inner guide and how when you silence out the chaos and confusion the answers are waiting for you. Barbie reminded me that fine tuning our spiritual gifts is part of this journey called life and to tell you the truth we are all spiritually inclined beings who have gifts dormant within us ready for us to invoke and use for a greater purpose. If you are like me and often get caught in an existential crisis more often than not it’s okay to take down time, it’s okay not to want to do anything. But what we can’t afford to do is let our current circumstances define our path and where we are headed and even in the face of challenges, we must lean into our gifts to lead the way.
