What is your favorite movie that comes to mind right now? Surely something you’ve watched recently? Or maybe a long time ago? This is the scenario you are living right now. The psychologist explains.
Do you want to know how everything will end in your story and how your heart will calm down? Look at the end of your favorite movie and what happens to its characters. Just don’t be enamored: face the facts. After all, when we watch a movie, we involuntarily fall under the spell of its characters. But if the same scenario plays out in real life, we don’t like it and we suffer.
For example, we sympathize with the heroine of the painting “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” and rejoice when she finally reunites with Gosha. However, the girl, who considers this film to be her favorite and has long been disassembled into quotes, lives in real life with about the same “Gosha”. Sharply reacting to any injustice, not being at home for two weeks and about once every six months going into a binge. She calls hospitals, police and morgues. He says “My strength is gone”, but in fact — “How long I have been waiting for you …”
Every time you really like a movie, try to fit it into your life. And you will see that this script can hurt you
The founder of transactional analysis, Eric Berne, wrote a lot about life scenarios in his time. Later — his followers, who said that if we do not live the parental scenario, then we are looking for examples in socially approved scenarios outside — including in cinema.
Do all films influence our path? Of course not. Only the ones we like. Only those that we review several times. Or those that are firmly entrenched in memory, even though they did not like it.
Let’s look at a few examples. A woman a little over forty dreams of getting married, but nothing happens. Behind — the experience of traumatic relationships, when she was robbed by her beloved men. When I ask her about her favorite movie about relationships, she almost proudly says: «Titanic, of course!» In which we find the script of all her relationships.
In the movie Titanic, the protagonist is a gambler, without a fixed residence, a manipulator, a deceiver and a thief. He does all this in the film in front of our eyes, but most women find it cute, because he does it for the sake of his beloved: “So what? Just think, he stole a coat while running past. Good. What if it’s your coat? Or your friend’s coat? And the neighbor boy did it — just casually and with a wonderful internal motive, such as the return of his beloved? Would you care if your valuables were stolen? In real life, for such actions, you can go to jail or worse.
Let’s say you don’t mind your partner being great at bluffing, stealing, and lying. But try to imagine what a joint future would await our heroes? Except, of course, great sex. Would he take care of the family? Would you buy a house and become an exemplary family man? Or would you still be losing all your money, bluffing and lying? “God, this scenario is exactly how it works! exclaims my client. All my men were players. And one of them, a stock market player, ended up robbing me of several million.”
And we live these scenarios without thinking. We watch our favorite films, we are fascinated by the characters
However, once we get inside them, we stop liking them. And even so, we strive again and again to get into the same scenario — because we like it in the form of a film.
When my clients hear about this, the first reaction they have is resistance. We love heroes so much! And many, so that I do not guess about their script, are trying to consciously come up with a different film.
But whatever they come up with, their neural connections have already begun to look for their favorite roles of characters from real life. The psyche still reflects the personality and path of a person. Sometimes a client calls me three films in a row — but they are all about the same thing.
Films that are not about us, we do not even notice. They leave no trace in the psyche. For example, the film «Dune» will be missed by some, but others may like it. Those who go through a period of growing up, initiation or separation — both on the part of the child and on the part of the mother. Or those who live in total submission.
Of course, a favorite movie is not a sentence. This is just a diagnosis of where you are going on a subconscious level.
On the conscious level, you can be the director of the plant and know what you want from life, and on the subconscious level, you can look for «Gosh» who would come to your house without asking.
“What should the film be like in order for the life scenario to be normal?” they ask me. I thought long and hard about the answer. Perhaps so: boring, boring, who wants to stop watching from the first second. In which there would be no drama, tragedy and super-charming liars. But on the other hand, there would be quite ordinary heroes — decent and loving people who make a good career without meanness and without making enemies. Have you met these?