To my surprise, I found my inspiration for this MetaMoment article about mindfulness in The Barbie Movie! However, I’m not going to write about the movie from the perspective of many articles I’ve read, about the way the movie addresses the political and cultural issues of our time (although it does that powerfully.) Instead, I’m struck by another of the many thought-provoking ideas in the film – how beautifully it illustrates the idea of waking up to all of life.
In the movie, we first meet Stereotypical Barbie and her fellow Barbies living an idyllic existence in Barbieland, where the shower is always the perfect temperature, the milk is always fresh, and everyone (with the possible exception of the Kens) is always smiling and happy to be alive. Then slowly, to her horror, Barbie begins to experience CHANGE. Her lovely feet that have always effortlessly retained the shape of her high-heeled shoes become flat! The shower is cold, the milk is expired, and to her dismay, she begins to have thoughts about dying – thoughts that no one else in Barbieland has ever had. So she visits Weird Barbie – the archetypal wise woman – and is sent on a journey to the real world to resolve these issues. And (spoiler alert) in typical Heroine’s Journey fashion, Barbie finds her way to wholeness. Not by making everything go back to the way it was before. Not by banishing unhappy thoughts and experiences and feelings. But by making room for it all.
This is the ultimate gift of mindful awareness. Making room for sadness, fear, envy, anger, joy, comfort, pleasure. Practicing mindfulness will not take us to some sort of nirvana or Barbieland. What it will do is help us create space, skill, and resilience. Space to hold all our emotions and experiences, containing, savoring, and letting go as needed. Mindfulness gives us the skills to move from reactivity to creative responding – the ability to pause in the midst of difficulty and choose our response. Perhaps the greatest gift of mindfulness is resilience: the ability to withstand even the most challenging of circumstances. And because we are paying attention, when faced with future challenges, we remember that we CAN get through and bounce back. I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön:
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. I'ts just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
May we, like Barbie and all who choose the spiritual path of waking up, discover the ability within ourselves to make room for all of life.