I couldn't stand this character from the Wizard of Oz! She scared the mess out of me a young viewer and in my adult years, she was downright nasty, cruel, angry, vindictive, and manipulative.
I know it's a story, a made for the big screen movie but the Wicked Witch of the West was my least favorite character-until...! In the late 90's I'd begun looking at my life and the results I was creating that were less than ideal. It was during a transformational workshop that someone pointed out how judgmental I was being. Who me? I'm not judgmental at all! Judgmental people are old and ugly-if you don't know, in the movie when Glenda the Good Witch meets Dorothy for the first time, she asks, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" The young protagonist responds, "I'm not a witch at all-witches are old and ugly!" The workshop facilitator brought to my awareness an aspect of my behavior that I denied because i didn't want to believe it could apply to me AND i hadn't seen it. In psychology there's something called the Johari Window which provides four views of the self. One of the views is the Blind Self and references all of the information about us that others know/see that we don't know/can't see. The facilitator introduced me to my blind self-my Wicked Witch. He concluded with, "If you want to reduce how often you unlovingly judge others put 'just like me' at the end. So, let's go back to the top of this post about the witch-"she was downright nasty, cruel, angry, vindictive, and manipulative-JUST LIKE ME! OH SNAP!!! Now, add to this that I can only talk about what I know. So, perhaps there was a part of me that recognized the behavior of the witch as a reflection of my own. Let's add the Law of Reflection that offers the universe will provide us with mirror reflections of ourselves in the people and even animals in our lives. This reflection, when embraced, provides insight that makes possible the opportunity to shift how we see ourselves and others. This shift melts away the old unloving, harsh, fear-based judgments and makes room for acceptance and growth. This wicked aspect can be called a shadow aspect (something we don't like, don't know, deny about ourselves). The beauty of the shadow self holds information that nurtures our divine growth. One way to be gentle with ourselves is to embrace the shadow and the light-the wicked and the good witch without attaching judgment to either! Check out the next Our Wicked Witch Experience and I'm happy to show you how I embrace both. Be gentle!
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