"A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." -- Christopher Reeve
I was recently asked my advice about how someone who lost their job and a significant amount of money could feel like the "star of their life movie" when they were feeling despair. They asked me this because in my last blog "Manifesting Your Life Movie," I wrote about how we are the star of our life movie and are in control of how we want to play it out. I did also say that there are things that can happen that feel out of our control, but in spite of the difficulties or challenges we may experience, we can decide not to be the "victim" in our movie.
If you can think of yourself as the star of your life movie, you're more likely to put yourself in the role of the hero or heroine as opposed to the victim, and when something difficult or challenging happens, you will view it as the character you embody. A victim will most likely accept what happens to them, whereas a hero would not.
And if we can take it one step further and be the "mindful hero," we will face difficulty or a challenge with the awareness that it's temporary, and not something we need to project into the future of our life movie. When we're feeling something like despair, it might not be so easy to see ourselves as the hero, but if you can try and speak to yourself as a true hero would, you would probably say something like "I will get through this," as opposed to a victim who would most likely tell themselves they "can't."
Here are some things to do to support the mindful hero when your life movie starts to look more like World War Z as opposed to Midnight in Paris:
1. Observe the change in your life as a transition.
2. View your situation as temporary.
3. Don't give into self-defeating mind chatter like, "This is never going to get better," or "My life is over." Those are victim thoughts.
4. Speak "hero talk" like, "I'm going to get what I want," or "Try and stop me."
5. Be in proactive mode. Think of what you can do to change or improve your situation and act on it.
6. Do something each day that supports the hero and defeats the victim.
7. Be out in the world as someone who matters and can make a difference, as opposed to someone who feels sorry for themselves and is ineffective.
8. See yourself as strong and resilient.
9. Think heroic.
10. Stay in the present.
We are the stars of our life movie, so why not choose the role of the mindful hero or heroine over the victim? We may not be able to physically leap over tall buildings like Superman, or traverse great distances in a second like Wonder Woman, but if our mind stays in the present with total awareness, there's no telling what obstacle or difficulty we can overcome.