Let's Get Into the Castle!

The Wizard of Oz was and still is a favorite movie. As a child, each time I saw it, I feared Dorothy’s nasty neighbor, Ms. Gulch, who rode off with Toto trapped in a wooden basket on the back of her bicycle. I loved the energy of the Munchkins and wondered why the Good Witch waited until the end of the movie to tell Dorothy she had the power to go home at any time.

At 30, I experienced a major shift. I discovered the characters I liked were reflections of the parts of my personality I like. The ones I didn’t like reflected parts of myself I denied, avoided, disliked, suppressed, and/or didn’t know-the shadows. Lack of self-awareness contributed to blaming others for my “grey and dismal experience” of life. This arrested my personal development and sparked my spiritual growth. The movie introduced me to the idea of “reflections.”…