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What I Learned About Life from the Movie 'Ray' |
| Jeanine Byers |
"Seeing death ain't natural"
While sitting on a bus traveling toward their next performance, a band member talks to Ray about his experience in the military. Ray agrees with him that it isn't natural to see death and then, mentally re-lives his own experience with his brother's death.
The movie, "Ray", a powerful chronicle of the life of Ray Charles, is filled with his determination, his strength and his amazing talent. But it is also filled with his pain, with the loss that took decades to overcome.
When he was 7 years old, Ray witnessed the death of his younger brother, George. They frequently played in the wash bucket his mother used, but got into trouble for doing so. When Ray "saw" his brother fall in and then, saw his legs kicking and splashing, he thought George was just playing and urged him to get out so that they wouldn't get into trouble. By the time he realized that George couldn't get out, it was too late!
Horrified by what he is seeing, as his mother weeps over the lifeless body of his younger brother, he is speechless when she asks him, "Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you call me?"
Barely able to survive her own grief, his mother was unable to help Ray come to terms with that traumatic experience or with the guilt he felt for not saving his brother.
Within months, he began to go blind!
The stress connected to this unhealed picture/memory/trauma damaged him in other ways, as well. As an adult, he experienced frequent flashbacks, wherein something triggered that picture and he reacted as if he were re-living it, often actually hallucinating (thinking that he felt water when there was none).
His first use of heroin occurred after one of these flashbacks, and it was not until after he was completely sober (many years later) that he was able to heal that picture. He did so by seeing himself reach into the bucket to save his brother, by finally receiving his mother's comfort and acceptance, and by hearing his brother say, "It wasn't your fault, Ray".
In this loving, healing visualization, he was finally able to see again, having let go of his blinding guilt. Having replaced the lie (of blame and guilt) with the truth (that it wasn't his fault and that both his mother and brother absolved him).
After that healing experience, he never used heroin again.
This movie, which I found both heartbreaking and encouraging, affirmed and cemented three things I know for sure!
(1) Without healing intervention, we carry our early experiences around with us for the rest of our lives. This stress we never heal wreaks havoc on our hearts, minds, souls and bodies in ways we can't even imagine!
(2) It's the lies that kill us! Even more damaging than the painful things we experience is what we tell ourselves about them, and thus, what we come to believe about ourselves, and about life, in general.
(3) If we can heal those pictures we are carrying around, buried alive in our bodies, and remove the lies we've told ourselves about them, we will then be capable of healing our lives and miracles will occur!
For help in healing your own pictures, visit Core Healing
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| About the Author |
©2005 All rights reserved
Jeanine Byers, Savannah, GA, USA
Jeanine Byers is a certified healing coach who helps women create sacred space in their homes and in their lives. Visit her websites at http://www.corehealing.ws and http://www.creatingsanctuary.com
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| Quotes | Have you seen a tall, lanky dufus with a bird face and hair like the bride of Frankenstein?-Elaine, describing Kramer
Having major planets disappear is always a bad sign.- Jim Blinn
Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.- Washington Irving
Great spirits often meet violent opposition with mediocre minds - Albert Einstein
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