Superheroes win battles with Self Forgiveness

Recently I started watching super hero movies from a different perspective. And instead of seeing them as entertaining action movies, I looked for the subtle lessons the movies were trying to teach us.

Did you notice that every hero has a tragic event in their background story that leads them to a greater purpose.In short, super heroes are emotionally damaged individuals who have the power to do great things and hopefully the "doing good'' will keep their ghosts at bay.

Yes heroes run away from their past traumas too and the crux of superhero movies centres around the inner battle the hero must face in order to save the world.

Why is the hero's inner battle important to the rest of the movie?

Here is why...

Our hero proves that without making peace with our pasts, we are vulnerable to emotional triggers that render us helpless and affect our judgment at critical moments in our lives . You can say these traumas are our hero's kryptonite and the villains exploit this weakness to incapacitate the hero and leaving the world's fate at stake. 

It sucks right?

What is interesting to note is that the key to winning the inner battle lies in the hero's flashbacks of the traumatic event. When we take the journey into the root of the trauma we not only see the event but we experience the emotions which hit us and the hero the most.The emotions the hero struggles with mostly are shame, guilt , regret and remorse.These emotions hold the hero in an emotional prison.

In reality we are all like those super heroes. We work hard to become"certain'' type of people and put a lot of effort in distancing ourselves emotionally from past traumas through reckless behaviours, suppression and substance abuse. Our efforts at times work temporarily and we survive another day.

There does come a time when we can no longer run away and are forced to face our traumas to save not only us but relationships with loved ones. We are guaranteed to stumble and fall in our attempts to win the greatest battle of our lives.

The true is always finally revealed like a rainbow at the end of a thunderstorm. Like our heroes we must learn to control and make peace with the emotional storm that arises every time we are transported back to that traumatic moment. The battle is won the moment we realize that the past cannot be changed but it doesn't have to define us. We get to decide how the next chapter of our story unfolds. We have the power to forgive ourselves.

And once this secret has been discovered , we can all rise for the debris of our pasts and win the greatest battle -finding peace.