Moving Toward the Darkness

Posted 2016-10-01

R E V U E

Below you’ll find a double dose of Recent Posts because I didn’t write a Revue post last week. That was in part due to my whole family’s immersion in a community theater production of The Addams Family musical, which opened last night. (I’m doing sound tech; the other three Noelles have acting roles.)

The show itself is full of laughs and gags based upon the concept of a family whose members all come from the central casting office of the horror film genre. What most people deem evil, wrong, painful, and disgusting, the Addams family find wonderful, appropriate, pleasant, and delightful! Joke after joke highlights the arbitrary way we judge which conditions and behaviors are appropriate and which are not.

The story-line revolves around a culture clash between the Addams family and a “normal” family, and how the fear of judgment leads to inauthenticity, secrets, lies, and unintended betrayal. If Morticia and Gomez Addams called me for a life coaching session, I’d encourage them to begin tapping into the power of acceptance. The deliberate practice of acceptance puts you on a fast track to inner peace.

In the musical, the Addams family and friends eventually find peace and acceptance through the power of their abiding love for each other, which runs deep enough to overcome the divisive dynamics of judgment. They could have gone straight to acceptance and avoided all that drama, but then the audience would miss out on all those delightful songs!

With Halloween approaching, this is the best time of year to practice accepting any behaviors (others’ and your own) that you might normally judge to be wrong, bad, or gross. As the Addams family implores us: “Move toward the darkness... and love.”