Life Lessons from Wakanda

Be sure to add “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” to your holiday movie list if you have (somehow) not seen it yet! Rarely is a sequel better than the first movie, but the second “Black Panther” does a lap or two around its predecessor. That said, one need not have seen "The Black Panther” to thoroughly enjoy “Wakanda Forever.”

The film is rich! “Wakanda Forever” embraces you as royalty, charges up all the emotions (in a good way), and is full of compelling themes that make great fodder for lush postviewing contemplation and debate. If you are a thinker, get ready to be pleasured. Go alone. Go with friends. Just do yourself a favor and go!

There are no spoilers here, only perspective about one of the many powerful healing themes embedded in the movie: “Beware of stories we've chosen and don’t want to share.”

“Wakanda Forever” creatively reminds us that we choose our stories, often without knowing it. And Shuri’s dance with Erik Killmonger does a very nice job nudging us to scrutinize the thoughts and images rolling around in our heads — especially the ones that we don’t want to share with people who care deeply for us! We are reminded that it is essential that we subject our ruminations to critique (a.k.a. light) to ensure our thinking is in our (global) best interest.

Our lives are collections of physical experiences, and the memories and stories we tell ourselves about those experiences. Experiences end. Regardless of whether an experience is good or bad, events, situations and circumstances change for as long as we live. The stories we tell ourselves, however, have no designated expiration dates. They roll on, shaping our emotions, our lives, and the lives of our families and communities, potentially for generations.?

“Beware of stories we've chosen and don’t want to share.”

When bad things happen — and they will if we live long enough — it is the story we tell ourselves about the occurrences, the way the experiences are framed in our mind, that radically impacts our future. Whether we retell ourselves, and thus hold on to, a story that frames the positive aspects (and there are always positive aspects) of a circumstance or situation or we retell ourselves the low, dark, vengeful or frightening parts of a past experience or circumstance, has everything to do with whether we and ours thrive, or stagnate.

The thing about our stories is that they exist inside of us, in our minds — unless, of course, we make the bold move of sharing them with another. And some stories we just don’t want to tell. Even when prompted to share by friends and loved ones, sometimes our reflex is to be silent, to recoil or to pull away. And that is precisely when we are best served by spilling it!

Have we not all been in Shuri’s shoes? She reflexively withdraws and withholds information each time she is invited to share about her experience with Erik Killmonger. A younger version of me certainly has — guarding to avoid the discouragement of haters is what I almost always thought I was doing (and, sadly, sometimes I was correct). But more often than I care to admit, my unconscious mind simply did not want to subject my ruminations to critique.

Learning that truth most often prevails when given the opportunity, released me from the need to hold tightly to whatever version of a story I held. Over the years, I’ve come to equate the closed mind with death and the open mind with abundant life. But I digress. More on that at another time.

Sharing our thoughts with others allows us to hear ourselves, examine our thinking and weigh it against truth.

Do you have a negative thought in your head that you don’t want to unpack or constructively expose? Yeah, that one! Where that thought leads is more likely toward harming you and others more than you may realize. The key words though are “negative” and “constructively.” There are reasons and seasons when it is wise to keep some thoughts to ourselves.

I love Bible stories because they teach through personification that the enemy of our existence is a deceiver who wants to exist in the shadows without being subjected to the “light” of truth. It is the hiding — our unwillingness to share the thoughts that plague us with someone who cares for us — that does us in. During difficult times, there is a reluctance to recognize that we choose what we decide is true, perhaps too often, without a fair, healthy, objective critique.

Shuri, in all her genius, cannot recognize that she is playing right into the hands of her lower self — a deceptive subconscious that feeds her the story she needs to hear to do its bidding. When Shuri is prompted on three different occasions to share what is on her mind, she declines.

We come to know the truth by surrendering our attachment to our stories — throwing them out there for consideration. When we pull away and say, “I'm not sharing what I believe or how I've come to said conclusion,” we are protecting our (potentially faulty) beliefs. Our lower selves don't want examination and critique because our divine presence knows and sees the flaw, the error, the beliefs that fall short of perfection.??Our highest self is always there and always knows what’s best.

Sharing our thoughts with others allows us to hear ourselves, examine our thinking and weigh it against truth. Hearing our thoughts as we share them, or as another shares them back to us, creates room for perspective, perspective that allows us to examine whether our thoughts are loving toward ourselves and others.?

We remain closed and rigid, attached to our lower selves and lower thoughts (in darkness) and then the resulting counterproductive behaviors and limited lives, to protect ourselves from the discomfort of reckoning with fresh, positive and hopeful ideas (light). Like children, we just often want to do what we want to do, even when it is not in our long-term best interest.

Conversely, when we remain open and curious about the positive, hopeful or inspiring, it can be uncomfortable at first but gives way, in time, to (re)birth of our higher selves, enhanced productivity and powerful self-actualization.

Shuri thrice rejects the opportunities to shed light on her vengeful thoughts. She is prompted by her mother, Nakia and M’Baku. She turns down invitations to hear herself think or borrow wisdom from loved ones and elders because she wants to do what she wants to do. She is unable to contemplate noble action until she is emotionally ready to do what needs to be done.

As of this posting, “Wakanda Forever” has earned over $805 million worldwide and is slated to be in theaters through January. (Who’s in to help push the final earnings past $1 billion?) The movie is Marvel’s second longest, and yet the viewing time blows by!

“Wakanda Forever” offers several other worthwhile themes, so get yourself to the movie and share a comment about a theme you noted that you will keep for life.

Wakanda forever!