FIRE Transforms: Have you embraced your Inner X-Men?

Professor Charles Xavier: [to Eric] There's so much more to you than you know, not just pain and anger. There's good in you too, and you can harness all that. You have a power that no one can match, not even me. 

Professor Charles Xavier: You know, I believe that true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity. Would you mind if I... 
[Charles makes a gesture to request permission to read Erik's mind] 
Erik Lehnsherr: [Erik signals approval and while Charles reads Erik minds. We see moments of Erik's childhood with his mother] What did you just do to me? 
[Both Erik and Charles cries] 
Professor Charles Xavier: I accessed the brightest corner of your memory system. It's a very beautiful memory, Erik. Thank you. 
Erik Lehnsherr: I didn't know I still had that. 
Professor Charles Xavier: There is so much more to you than you know. Not just pain and anger. There is good, too. I felt it. When you can access all of that, you will possess a power no one can match. Not even me. 

Pulled from X-Men Movie

Anger can move us from breakdown to breakthrough when used constructively. It isn't anger that is negative, it is the stuffing down or explosion of anger that can do harm to ourselves and/or our community. It is what you do with the complex emotions underneath the anger that can promote wellness or disease.

Psychologists tell us that most anger stems from unmet human needs. Often times this unmet need stemmed from deeper childhood experiences still playing themselves out through our bodies cells again and again, through our physical actions, cognitive/ perceived experiences, and the way we relate to each other when wounded.

A great example of this was in the X men movie. During the scene where the machines that were created to kill mutants were infused with magnetos metals, they became machines used now to control human beings. That metal is similar to body memory. If when I was little, I cried, and learned that no one would hear those tears, my body has memory of responding from a place of not expecting nurturance and acting from that place when hurt. Additionally, when approached with comfort, I might push away the very love I need out of fear of being hurt again. Hence the cycle, when fear vs. love is in the drivers seat of our lives.

And yet there is hope.

There even though Magneto's metal controlled the machines much like anger is a surface emotion that controls many's visceral experiences without realizing it, Professor X was able to get into the mind of Magneto to stop him from destroying humans, and really hence destroying what he saw as the weaker part of him. In drama therapy we call it aesthetic distance. In spirituality we call this a God moment. Drama therapy gives tools to re train our bodies to relate to our body memories differently in order that we may learn to respond differently to what we have come to know as instinct. So if I was being abused, and hence told to stop crying, you are fine "let me give you something to cry for," I can use theater and movement to re train my body to slow down and and re-imagine a different possibility. I can, for example, invite into my heart space a Professor X response, that will nurture me, because now you can invite re-imagine being protected, especially for those who experienced early childhood trauma. Like a tree with rings, our cells store information imprinted by emotions, feelings, and experiences. Our sympathetic nervous system, which sends information through out our body, is learning how to respond to threats of danger. We are hence, teaching our bodies to boldly live dangerously. Here, in therapeutic drama we re-train our cells self-love, holy, wholeness, and then health.

What I loved about the X men movie was the fear and anger as well that Professor X had in fully accepting who he was. How many of us hear voices, real or imagined, that speak negatively into our being? For Professor X, he heard the pain of others in addition to his own. But it wasn't until he learned to face his own pain, that his stepping into his calling became pure and real. It was there that he went from being Charles to Professor X, founder of the X-mens.

The X men movie, is a symbol of deeper expieriences of people who have unique and special gifts. In theological settings I would say "special gifts." In theological settings, Professor X is an intercesary to God. A voice that creates that aesthetic distance so that you can hear his affirming voice long enough, to counter act any negative one. Hence the term mind over matter. Professor X hence becomes the spiritual conduit for you to hear the voice of God within. An opportunity to honor your representation of the Divine.

So what is on the other side of this re imagining. Once Drama therapy and movement give space to hear your representation of an affirming higher self, Professor X, you can go from feeling like a outcast to a gifted soul, where to from there?

This is the question I leave you with. What part of you is still moving from that cellular memory of an unmet need in your life today? If you would retrain your cells to respond from a place of love vs fear, what visions would you birth? What places would you visit? Who would you ask to marry you? Who would you ask to leave your life? What long over due words would you express?

Teach your body to relate from love. Invite in aesthetic distance into your inner play space today, and re-imagine your world anew!

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