Great Morning Beloved!

The Wizard of Oz – Bring me the broomstick of the wicked witch of the west

We’re back at Oz, checking out what’s been happening to Dorothy and her friends. We’ve come a long way from drab Kansas. But we also have learned that things aren’t always as they seem. Sometimes asking for adventure doesn’t turn out as the adventure we were thinking about, does it?

This week our leading question is: Have you been, unconsciously, letting others steal your energy?
We all unconsciously compete for energy with each other.

Did you know that?

But we do not need to surrender our energy. And you do not need to rob energy from others either.
The need to give control to others and the addictive need to dominate are both obstacles to spiritual enlightenment.

The true energy we all seek flows abundantly from the creative source of the universe.

When Dorothy and her trio ask the Wizard for help, after he bullies them, he gives them “a very small task.” But it’s not small at all…to bring him the Wicked Witch’s broomstick.

The Wizard is attempting to shatter their confidence in the process of attempting to prove their worthiness. He’s making promises but attaching conditions thus creating dependency. But this is false dependency since we know the Wizard is not all-knowing as he claims. Otherwise, why not do this small task himself or even trade the ruby slippers for our three friends’ requests.

It seems that he is fearful of the Wicked Witch himself and so bullies Dorothy & crew do his dirty work. Dorothy & friends allow themselves to be denigrated and controlled by the Wizard, letting the Wizard steal energy from the Wicked Witch by gaining her broom and therefore, control the energy flow in Oz.

Meanwhile, the Wicked Witch plans to win all the energy by robbing Dorothy.

This is almost like a daytime soap opera!

The only way our friends can circumvent these pathetic control dramas is by consciously recognizing these destructive energy dynamics. “Becoming aware of a power struggle allows you to consciously choose whether to continue it, transform it, or rise above it.’

Of course, the Wicked Witch may feel justified going after Dorothy; after all, the ruby slippers were her sisters. But, like Miss Gulch, the Wicked Witch is a deeply disturbed individual. She uses black-magic to control others and acquire more power – all to compensate for her deep-seated neuroses.

Greene tells us, “Inner peace is the harmony between conflicting forces. It is the balance between decency and indecency, between morality and immorality, between spiritual consciousness and base animal needs. When you are wicked, you disrupt this balance.”

The more you embrace evil, the bigger this chasm becomes, making it easier for your wickedness to continue which is why Glinda said, “Only bad witches are ugly.”

To feel in control, the Wicked Witch is obsessed with controlling others – the Winged Monkeys, the Winkie Guards, Dorothy, and ultimately Emerald City.

In Zen, monkeys symbolize the madness of an unbalanced mind, maybe why the witch surrounds herself with the Winged Monkeys.

The witch, like Miss Gulch, is a heartless coward, unconsciously convinced that controlling all of Oz and subjugating all its inhabitants will compensate for her inability to overcome her unresolved subconscious conflicts, like her inability to overcome her lack of self-worth, perhaps created from sibling rivalry with her sister.

Like Miss Gulch, the Wicked Witch does not accept herself as she is, craving recognition and acquisition as substitutes for love. Thus, her need for control, but what she really needs is control of herself.
Of course, that control only comes about when you discover your True Self and awaken the inner spark within you. This unlocks your rich creative potential.

Here’s a story…see if you can figure out who has the low self-esteem?

A man went to the local barber. He mentioned that he was taking a trip to Rome.

“I hear that Rome is overrated,” said the barber. “The hotels are substandard and over-priced. The streets are a nightmare. Italians are rude to Americans. You really won’t like it.”

The man protested, “But I’ve been saving for years to make this trip. Besides, there is a good chance that I will be able to get an audience with the Pope.”

The barber gave him a skeptical look. “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you,” he said. “The Pope only gives audiences to really important people.”

A couple of weeks later the man returned to the barber shop.
“How was your trip?” the barber asked.

Oh, it was great!” the man answered. “The city was beautiful, the hotel was fantastic, Italian people were so friendly, and I got to see the Pope.”

The barber couldn’t believe it. “You saw the Pope?”

“That’s right, “said the man. “I bent down and kissed his ring.”
“Wow!” Said the barber, “Did he say anything?”

“Yes, he did,” replied the man. “He looked down at my head while I was kneeling and said, “What a lousy haircut!”

According to William Bausch in “The Yellow Brick Road – A Storyteller’s Approach to the Spiritual Journey,” low self-esteem presents itself in 10 possible ways:
1. All-or-nothing thinking: pg.126

2. Overgeneralization: see a single event as a never-ending pattern of defeat; using words like ‘always’ and ‘never’ when they speak.

3. Mental filtering: will pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively

4. Discounting the positive: reject positive experiences insisting they do not count. Pg. 128-129

5. Jumping to conclusions: interprets things negatively when there are no facts to support their conclusions.
6. Magnification: exaggerate the importance of their problems and shortcomings.

7. Emotional reasoning: assuming their negative emotions reflect the way things really are – “I feel guilty, I must be a rotten person”

8. ‘Should’ statements: things SHOULD be the way they hoped or expected them to be

9. Labeling: the extreme of all-or-nothing thinking – instead of saying “I made a mistake” they say, “I’m a loser”.
10. Personalization and blame: hold themselves personally responsible for events that aren’t under their control.

Having lost her inner connection with the source of all energy, the Wicked Witch resorts to manipulation to steal energy from others. She fails to grasp the basic Zen principle by Lao-tzu, “For every force there is a counterforce. Violence, even well-intentioned, always rebounds upon itself.”

The Wizard of Oz and the Wicked Witch of the West both need to clear away their past programming for controlling the flow of energy. They use intimidation to create an aura of power, when in fact they are most isolated from universal energy.

Dorothy and her friends need to clear away their past programming to prevent others from controlling them and take control of their own lives. Instead they reacted to the control drama by being meek and small to elicit sympathy to regain the flow of energy.

We can break free from a pattern of control by discovering our true Self, by tapping into the universal source of all energy, become aware of the controlling dramas. Instead of trying to elicit sympathy, use our compassion to help others like the three friends did for Dorothy.

Instead of intimidation, drop the illusion of power and use your leadership skills to help others get in touch with their true power.

If you refuse to give up your control like the Wicked Witch, you will eventually self-destruct. “Good always prevails over evil because evil ultimately dissolves itself.”

Just look at the demise of the Wicked Witch, melting from the water splashed on her as Dorothy threw it on the Scare Crow’s burning arm: “Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?”

From the Tao Te Ching:
Nothing in the world
Is as soft and yielding as water
Yet, for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
Nothing can surpass it.

So, we can see from this weeks’ Lesson that: Self-knowledge + self-acceptance = self-esteem