Friday, March 20, 2015

How Cinderella Internalized Other People's Negative Beliefs


Yesterday, I watched the new, live-action movie, Cinderella. The film was very true to the fairy-tale I had grown up hearing. After her father dies, a young girl named Ella virtually becomes an indentured servant to her step-mother and step-sisters as she must rush around trying to fulfill their every need and whim. Fortunately, her Fairy Godmother appears at just the right moment to offer some much-needed reassurance and practical help so she can get to a magical ball in time to meet and win the heart of her Prince Charming.
Unfortunately, she never gets a chance to tell the prince her name when she must flee the ball before the magic that transformed her into a beautiful “princess” in her own right disappears and she must resume her original identity. As the story goes, Ella loses one of her glass slippers on the palace steps as she runs out of the castle. With only the shoe as evidence that his beloved truly exists, the prince sets out to search his kingdom to find the woman who wore it and stole his heart at the ball. It isn’t until the handsome prince (now, king) finally tracks her down that she finally reveals her identity.
After enduring years of degradation and insults from her step-mother and step-sisters, Ella has come to see herself as “only” a lowly servant in her step-mother’s home. After her father died his widow and her daughters stopped recognizing Ella as a legitimate member of the household and family. They relegated her living quarters to a dusty, drafty attic and did not allow her to eat meals with them in the dining room. Indeed, Ella spent most of her days so hard at work in the house and enduring her step-family’s snide comments and degradations that even she started to think of herself the same way they did: a mere servant with no status or worth. So when the king asks her name, she gives him the moniker by which she is known and has come to see herself: Cinderella.
According to John Kappas, Ph.D., the subconscious mind works on expectation and imagination. Over time, we learn to expect others to respond to and interact with us in a particular way based on our previous experience with those individuals. We also learn to internalize the message or emotion we perceive in those interactions, which can affect self-confidence and self-esteem, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder explained. No matter what the “message” is, as you hear and repeat it to yourself your subconscious mind starts to believe and even own that message. When everyone around you constantly bombard you with criticism and negativity, as Cinderella’s step-mother and step-sisters did, it’s no surprise that your self-confidence and self-esteem take a dive when even you start to believe in the negative hype.
Fortunately, (Cinder)Ella’s ability to remain true to her core beliefs to stay brave and be kind in spite of the abominable treatment she received enabled her to prevail and find true love and happiness at the end of the story. Even better, this version of the fairy-tale emphasized that these qualities (not just her beauty) are the characteristics that charmed and even inspired her prince to behave in a similarly noble and compassionate way.

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

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