The Notebook

Your Inner Movie...

(you wanted deep? this is as deep as I go)

I have a lot of wishes; a bunch of wants. I'm fairly in tune with many of them. Others linger below the surface to pop up due to any given circumstance or emotion; for example, when personal demands are high, or resources are low, or when a relationship stings. But wishes and wants don't drive us. They don't propel us to anything meaningful, long-lasting or impactful. Only a compelling vision can do that. A compelling vision is a picture or better, a movie played deep in the mind, in the heart, in the soul. A compelling vision gives us, as Stephen Covey puts it, "... capacity to live out of our imagination instead of our memory." (Let that one sink in - it's powerful).

However, the theater is already dark and another film is showing. This internal movie defines how we view ourselves, how we act and react, who we are and who we are becoming. It has been in production deep within for a long time. And frankly, it can be as bad as From Justin to Kelly (IMDB rated the 21st worst movie of all time).  Good news: It can (and must) be changed. Bad news: We really like to watch reruns. A fresh example: I recently read a post on a site where a woman shared a struggle. This woman, who has lost a staggering amount of weight, begun a healthy lifestyle and changed her life for the better, closed with, "... I am a chronic emotional over-eater..." NO SHE'S NOT! I normally don't do it, but I responded to her: "You have rewritten the script of your life, you've changed the movie, you've altered the ending..." Some things had come up, difficulties; life smacked her in the face and she began reading from the old script. The other projector fired up with the old film reels still queued up.

The Apostle Paul put it this way, "If a person is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. The old things have passed away, and all things are new" (my paraphrase). TRANSFORMATION! This is speaking of spiritual transformation, but the principle applies to all of life. We can be transformed little by little in every area of our lives daily. Religious or not, we can rewrite our inner movie.

These concepts are especially pertinent for me... right now! I am in the midst of rewriting my movie - I have been for a while. I refuse to live by the script that others or circumstances are trying to write for me. But there are those damn reruns that keep popping up like old Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island episodes. I'm not talking about PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) alone. I don't want to be Stuart Smalley staring into a mirror, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and, doggonit, people like me!" Daily affirmations alone won't rewrite the script. I'm going to come back to this with something POWERFUL I saw from Tony Robbins in a later post. And I'm going to return to this concept of rewriting our movie, but for now my typing fingers are getting tired. (Those who heard hundreds of my sermons know I don't get tired in voice!) For now I'm going to leave it hanging there...

So why the title? Back to what Covey said, "... to live out of our imagination instead of our memory." Until very recently, I'd never seen The Notebook. If we were talking - instead of me writing right now - I would have air-quoted the word seen. The Notebook was on TV the other day, and it was fantastic! But it was better the first time. The first time I listened to the movie while it played on the car DVD system; so I didn't see it with my eyes. I saw it with my imagination - and I was Ryan Gosling/James Garner! (For the testosterone-filled reader, make no mistake, I am also William Wallace and Maximus Decimus Meridius). And though watching moved me - and yes I teared-up - it was more powerful when it was internal... in my imagination.

"...to live out of our imagination instead of our memory..."

For now...

D