Are You Typecast?

This last week, I had the good fortune to be required to watch the movie Crash once again. Required? Yes! As part of my ongoing studies in the Counseling Psychology Program at the University of Santa Monica, watching this movie was part of our monthly home assignments, this one focusing on the experience of different cultural groups.

Living in L.A. as I do, I get to experience many differing ethnic groups. Many of the largest expatriate communities live in the Los Angeles area. The largest Indian population outside of India. And Korean, and Chinese, and so on. For me, this is all good news. I have the ability to travel around the world and immerse myself in numerous different cultural experiences—foods, movies, music, festivals, and more, without leaving the city I live in!

But that's not why I write today. As powerful exploration or race, power, morality, and personal responsibility as the movie is, it was one particular role that stood out to me as I reviewed the movie in my run this morning—the role that Sandra Bullock played as Jean Cabot.

Now, true enough, I have had a crush on Sandra Bullock for ten years or so, so perhaps it was no accident that my mind wandered to her as I ran. What stood out to me is that her role (a more serious, depthful, angry, and soulful one) was so different than what she typically plays.

Over the years, she has been typecast as the funny girl: a little dipsy, cutesy, clumsy. I've never liked her in those roles, aw lays sensing that there was more available from her, if only she, or her agent, or the director would be willing to bring it forward. In Crash we get to see it.

And it got me thinking. How do I typecast myself? What ways of being in the world have become habits in my life? And if I was to hire a new, bolder, more courageous inner "director" for my life, what role could I place myself in that would stretch me? Give me the opportunity to really step into a fuller life?

As you run today, I encourage you to ask yourself these questions. It's not a matter of finding solutions, but rather allowing yourself to run with the questions, allowing the space inside for them to bounce around inside of you. Your running creates the space for the answer to arise within in you if you let it.

For me, I came to notice that there are definitely ways that I typecast myself. one of the main ones is as an "English man." I have bought into the perceived requirements for me to be reserved, to keep a lid on my emotions, both the joy and the sadness and all points in between; to be serious, to plan, and to be suspicious of spontaneity, just to name a few!

As I showered and reviewed this slew of information, I was inspired by a new idea about my "role" in this life. Perhaps that inspiration came from the big "Director" upstairs, Spirit! So my intention going forward is to let some of those spontaneous thoughts, ideas, and feelings out of the bag, to pick and choose what I like about my english heritage, and leave behind the rest.

What new role might you be willing to stretch into?