This week, I was inundated with zombie-mania. World War Z released in the theaters, The Walking Dead is always on AMC, Warm Bodies was on AppleTV and Zombieland was the movie of the week.
It got me thinking about what we, as a society, are working out. I happen to believe in Carl Jung’s preposition that the world shares a collective consciousness. It explains why we find the same story lines in myths throughout time and around the world. It also explains why, with all the potential creative ideas out there, there can be wave of similar ideas being produced.
A few years ago, we had the wave of vampire-mania, with Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and Van Helsing. Vampires are bloodthirsty creatures who suck the blood of others to keep themselves alive, and vampirism means to feed on the life essence of another person. Caroline Myss, in her famous work on archetypes, describes it as the power struggle in many relationships, where one person “drains the power of [another] for his own psychic survival, and, once bitten, the bitten person submits even though this will eventually take all of their power.”
In other words, it’s all about co-dependent relationships and establishing boundaries. I know that when I look back at my own life, I was definitely working on that in some of my own personal relationships. I was evaluating the people who were “draining” me and letting some of those relationships go or establishing firm boundaries.
So now, here we are, in the middle of zombie-mania. Zombie’s are the walking dead, soulless corpses walking through life but not really living. They engage in monotonously numbing routines and have no sense of personal identity. They don’t even walk really, they stumble in a slow, tired sort of way. Hmmm, sounds like a lot of people I know.
The other day, I was watching Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday (my favorite show on TV, you MUST watch!) and she said, “People who have not yet woken up to their true life’s purpose are like the walking dead.”
Bingo!
Luckily, I’m on top of this one — it is what the past 2 years have been about for me. Starting Soul School and moving more fully in to leadership development. And I know so many other people who are getting more clear and more powerful in their life purpose.
How about you? Have you discovered your life’s purpose? And more importantly, are you living it? We are all put on this planet to do something that is unique to us. We have a deeply, meaningful purpose. And when we don’t do it, our soul dies a little every day.
And then we become zombies, stumbling through our lives, numbing ourselves out with media, food, alcohol and other drugs.
Personally, I find it comforting to realize that the collective unconscious is wrestling with its life purpose. I feel like society is moving toward this great tipping point and the more people who “wake up”, the faster we will get there.
If you are living your purpose, awesome! Then my question to you is how can you help someone else wake up?
Maybe it’s a gentle nudge to a friend who is on the edge of waking up. Maybe you have a friend who is ready to leap full into their purpose but needs a little support.
Or perhaps it’s about supporting the work and businesses of those who are living their purpose. I’d much rather buy my vegetables from the farmer whose life passion is growing healthy food than a chain store that is part of huge agri-business conglomerate. Wouldn’t you?
If you need a little inspiration, watch the movie Warm Bodies. The premise is that all the zombies need is a little love and their souls can come back to life. It starts with just one human connection and then changes the world.
Well put!! It’s what I’ve been thinking too- the ‘conscious grid’. After my own experience of a drain, I’m now thinking there is an abundance of energy, and learning to get and give it keeps us from folding. I’ve had very intense and interesting spiritual experiences this past year and would love to reach out and help others. It would be a Spiritual movement and there would need to be enough level headed spiritual people to lead through it. So feel free to reply to me and to keep my email handy. I would be happy to exchange notes with you, thanks!