Movies can entertain us in lockdown, but they can also inspire or strengthen our personal qualities that will help to brighten our lives.
May The Source Be With You: A Filmic Guide to Change Your Life
Resilience: Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru (2016), a feel-good documentary about one of Tony Robbins’ yearly seminars called “Date with Destiny”.
We need resilience in lockdown in order not just to survive but also to overcome additional struggles that come our way as a result. Watch this documentary and be inspired by how several of the people in this six-day ‘lockdown’ break through limiting beliefs and old habits to become their better, stronger selves.
Self-discipline: Gravity (2013), an empowering science-fiction space thriller in which Sandra Bullock plays Dr Ryan Stone, an Astronautical Engineer who becomes stranded alone inside her debris-damaged Space Shuttle and attempts to return to Earth alive.
The ability to be emotionally intelligent in difficult circumstances such as lockdown, including experiencing possible feelings of isolation and loneliness, is important for our mental-emotional and physical wellbeing, and Dr Stone’s self-control when distressed demonstrates how we can do the same.
Bravery: Close (2019), a powerful and credible biographical thriller in which Sam Carlson (Noomi Rapace), a counter-terrorism expert and the Bodyguard of spoiled heiress Zoe Tanner (Sophie Nelisse), fights tooth and nail to protect her client from some dangerous people out for her fortune.
Courage is something that Sam shows us throughout the movie and is something that will empower us to face our own struggles in lockdown head on if only we can muster this quality that is already within us.
Gratitude: The Intouchables a.k.a. Untouchable (2011), not to be confused with the 1987 gangster film The Untouchables, is a moving French dramedy about an unusual friendship that develops when a streetwise immigrant, Driss (Omar Sy) is hired to look after a disabled French nobleman (Philippe François Cluzet)
Seeing Driss and Philippe’s respective struggles may well make us count our blessings, despite our collective and individual situation, and we may well feel more optimistic and hopeful come rain or shine, lockdown or whatever.
Mindfulness: Peaceful Warrior (2006), a biographical drama in which college student and a world-champion gymnast, Dan Millan (Scott Echoic) is disturbed and wants to find meaning to his life. A chance encounter leads him to discover an enlightened way ahead.
Mindfulness is important in lockdown and, I would suggest, at any time because, as Dan illustrates in the film and the real-life Dan teaches us in his book the film is based on, it is a practice that makes us feel more love, joy and peace, thereby making a real, positive and potentially lasting qualitative difference to our lives.
All five films promote five important qualities and therefore can brighten your life, so get comfortable and get ready to be inspired, motivated and empowered to become your better self.
Article by Dawud Gurevitch, life coach and author of May the Source Be with You: A Filmic Guide to Change Your Life, out November 30th, available on Amazon.
RELATED: How I spent my lockdown by author Anne Youngson
I am lucky. I live in the middle of beautiful countryside, surrounded by a large garden. If I look back over the year since March, I would appear to have been doing exactly what I would always be doing. Working in the garden. Walking the dog. Reading books. Writing books. Normal life, but with gaps, and the gaps have been significant ones. Social contact. Travelling. And even though I am not given to worrying about things I cannot change, it has been impossible to feel as if what has stayed the same, is still the same. It has been hard to ignore the uncertainty. I have an idea for a new novel and had already done much of the research and planning, so I have been able to escape into a created world, just as unreal as the situation we find ourselves in, but within my control. I am lucky in that respect, too... to read more click HERE
