You are the Lion
Hello ♡,
Back when Instagram was a new thing, my husband took a picture of a lion that was so stunning it looked like he’d been face to face with it. I still remember the lion’s eyes. There was a story in his face. Power. Worth. Regality.
“Where did you take this picture?” I asked him
He had taken one of our toddlers to the zoo while I stayed home with the new baby. There, he’d met the lion.
When I finally made it to the zoo myself, I scanned the exhibit, looking for this lion.
When I found him, he looked awful - exhausted, unwell, and anything but regal.
There he was, the same lion that I had admired in the stunning and chilling photo my husband had taken. And it looked like he’d had been stripped of his power and his dignity. And I felt a little sick about it if I’m honest. The contrast between the captured essence and his current circumstances was heart wrenching. Where was the lion I saw in the photo? And why was the lion I saw in the photo made to live like this?
My little toddler son, pressed his face up to the glass, so close he could almost touch the lion. And the juxtaposition of that tiny toddler, and the potentially powerful lion sleeping in front of him was confronting. Paradoxically, the lion was no danger to him in that moment, another sad reality of the contrast between who this lion actually was and how he was living.
I think that is one reason why photography is so powerful. When we see a photo of someone we love that captures their true essence we pause, taking them in. When we see a photo of ourselves that captures our essence, we pause, and we may think, oh there I am.
We can see the truth of our beauty, power, worth, or even our regality in a brief moment. In a snapshot of sorts that is often more than a photograph. We can see it in a moment of connection with ourselves, with the Divine, with a loved one. We see it! There indeed we are. This. This is who we have always been, and who we were created to be.
But then we lose it.
The distance between the snapshot of who we actually are and how we feel about ourselves can feel very far. I have found that what often causes us to lose the truth is our self doubt, our fears, our anxieties, our unnamed pain, or our unresolved trauma.
When my son was learning to swim a few years later in cold morning water, his little body would tense up with fear and dread. And we would whisper to him, “Buddy, it’s ok to be scared, but you have the brave heart of a lion.” And he would take that truth, that snapshot given to him by two people who loved him, and he would jump into the cold water.
Later, that same lion hearted boy saved two kids in dangerous water related situations, by jumping in towards the fear and the water, before a grownup could react as fast. His lion heart was always in there.
What about you?
When we forget who we are, we must return to ourselves.
Now I know the lion at the zoo can’t choose and doesn’t have the power to. And I know that in life there are many things or advantages we also do not get to pick or choose.
And yet, the truth of our essence, I believe, is who we actually are. Pain may try to divert you from that truth, but it cannot change your essence.
I visited the zoo frequently when our kids were young. And a few times, alone with my two toddlers in the early evening as the zoo was beginning to close up for the evening, the light would begin to change. And across the park in the early dusk, I would hear it - the lion roaring loud across the whole zoo. It was chilling in power. Deep and commanding, it would cut through any other sound. I can still hear it as I write. The lion was still the lion, and the sound he made thundered through that park.
What if we were to listen to you? What would we hear? What is the sound of your voice across the dusk of your life? What does it sound like, and what is it saying?
Let’s listen for a moment…
With you,
Monica
Book News!
I am working with the marketing team, and some wonderful friends in Atlanta, for some upcoming fun things! Please stay tuned! In the meantime here are the links to a fun podcast conversation about the book and so much therapy! I am trained in a type of therapy called Restoration Therapy. This podcast dives specifically into that model. In this conversation we do what therapists usually do, we dive in and out of very deep waters, back up to humor, then back to the depths again. I love hanging out with therapists, take a listen here (also available on Spotify):
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I like the concept of sounding and even looking as powerful as a lion.
Despite that poor caged animal's life, he still could shine in his essence. I am not sure exactly how to do that - and I am not in a cage any more than anybody else is in this weird rough time in our country. Thank you for your thought-provoking newsletters.
Beautiful... and roaringly so :) !! I (we?) may not always be or feel like a lion, but I (we) know it is there when it is needed