Hello Friends,
Beauty and the Beast has a place in my heart as one of my most beloved fairy tales.
My five-year-old daughter recently went through a phase of fascination with the opening “legend” of the prince’s transformation into a beast, where she asked me to re-tell it over and over again.
She could feel the deep magic in it.
Once upon a time, there lived a very handsome, but very haughty prince. One cold winter night, a lonely beggar woman appeared at the door of his castle, asking if he would kindly allow her a place to spend the night. The proud prince refused. Once again the old woman asked, offering, in return for his generous hospitality, a single rose. Again, the prince scorned her request. He laughed at her ugliness, and turned her away into the cold, winter wind.
Suddenly the old beggar woman transformed herself into a beautiful and powerful fairy. She laid a curse upon him, that he should live his life as a beast, so that his appearance on the outside would match the ugliness within his own heart.
The prince fell to his knees and begged forgiveness, but it was too late. The curse could only be broken if the prince could find true love before his twenty-first birthday. If he could not find true love, he would be condemned to live as a beast, forever.
And so it begins.
Lately, I’ve been meditating on the plight of the beast.
Suffering under the curse that he had brought upon himself, he destroyed every mirror in the castle, unable to face the ugliness of his own being, and utterly ashamed of the behaviors that had led to his curse, which were now completely and agonizingly present to his awareness.
We all face a time in our lives when we come face to face with our own failings, our own ugliness. And like the beast, we have a choice: to live, unrelentingly, in our old patterns of hatefulness and pride, choosing to be right. We can choose to lock ourselves away, alone with our self-loathing and hardness of heart.
Or we can choose to allow love into our lives.
Others show up as mirrors for the self-love we deny ourselves. As Belle showed up for the beast. And through their presence, through their teachings, we have an opportunity to regain our humanity, to be humble, to experience love.
It’s a rare treasure to find someone who will sit with us in our own ugliness, and help us process and find our way back to wholeness. To find someone who sees the beast, and also the beauty inside the beast.
Ultimately, its a journey we have to take alone. To make that commitment to ourselves even in the midst of our painful unraveling takes courage and humility, and trust that things can and must improve.
As Brene Brown discovers in the Gifts of Imperfection, taking such a journey is messy, time-consuming, and just plain hard work! There is no guarantee of who we will look like, and how our lives will unfold, on the other side of that transformation.
But it’s still worth it!
The ancient fairy tale holds a special key: the things that we despise are there to offer us a way back to the wholeness of our hearts. But it’s up to us to make that journey.
Namaste,
Erin