Normally, when she would feel herself being drawn into her
rage, it was impossible to take this conscious internal step
back. Now, with the support of the distancing effect of the
movie, plus her effort to become more aware of her emotional
responses, Nancy suddenly saw how she had been caught in a
very familiar pattern. She was surprised how absurd her previ-
ous reaction looked to her now and clearly recognized the
process in which she tended to fall into blind rages over and
over in her life.
Being “blinded” in this way, at first Nancy had not been
able to understand Rob’s perspective when he made the com-
ment on the movie character’s behavior. But after her break-
through, she told me, “I really get it now. When I’m angry I do
not hear what he really says.” With more conscious awareness
her perspective opened up to a more objective view of what he
said. Now she understood what Rob really meant and that he
was including both characters’ perspective. From this new
angle she thought that his comments just reflected his way of
seeing things in general, which now seemed acceptable to her.
Nancy told me she felt as if she had awakened from a bad
dream. For the first time, she understood on a deep level how
this blinding mechanismhad completely distorted her perspec-
tive of reality and how it robbed her of her capacity to see
things objectively. After they talked, she and Rob finished
watching the rest of the movie. Nancy said she had a much
clearer perspective during this part of the film and enjoyed it
much more than before.
Nancy also mentioned another benefit of this process. The
movie provided a voice for her to communicate something she
was unable to explain before. Previously, Rob never took seri-
ously her efforts to work on her rage in therapy. Now, during
their discussion, he saw Nancy struggling and conquering her
“demon” right in front of him. Afterwards she had even been
able to explain the process she had just gone through. It helped
that both of them witnessed the movie characters acting out
their anger so destructively for a big part of the movie. Rob“Much human suffering
stems from destructive
emotions, as hatred breeds
violence or craving breeds
addiction.”
The Dalai Lama40 E-Motion Picture Magic