Coming across someone who has brought their life to a screeching halt can be a scary thing sometimes. As human beings I firmly believe we are meant to always be moving, growing, learning, changing, and though it sounds strange, evolving.

Personally, I don’t think we’re meant to just “hang out” here, biding time through our entire existence.

I know that when I put everything on hold and ignore the signals of movement and growth that are happening inside me I can become very depressed, almost despairing.

It’s especially keen when I know and feel that it is a higher calling stirring within me.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, it is all too easy to put off, hit the snooze button, or utterly ignore those whispers of meaning and purpose that are always beckoning the human soul to its higher purpose.

There are so many distractions available, so many ways to dull the message coming toward me.

When I continually ignore the message, this other side of me manifests. Affectionately (or not so), this entity known as “Dennis” (see Self Acceptance: Building Belief in Yourself While Going for Your Dreams) comes equipped with his own beliefs, habits, imagination, and will. And subsequently, he rules as if there is no other reality.

C.S. Lewis beautifully depicts a similar manifestation in his book, “The Silver Chair.” A prince is captured by an evil queen and put under an enchantment that transforms him into a conceited, self-absorbed…jerk.

He must be bound in a chair, however, during times when the enchantment is lifted and his “right mind” comes back to him.

While under the spell, he has everyone convinced that he is who he says he is and the other, true self, is the bad guy, the one to keep bound up.

“Listen while I am master of myself. When the fit is upon me, it well may be that I shall beg and implore you, with entreaties and threatenings, to loosen my bonds…I shall call upon you by all that is most dear and most dreadful. But do not listen to me…For while I am bound you are safe. But if once I were up and out of this chair, then first would come my fury, and after that” - he shuddered - “the change into a loathsome serpent.”

(The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis, p. 170)

One of my favorite quotes is by Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

I believe this to be both a very profound and very accurate statement.

But for the “spells” that I and many others put themselves under, there is so much that we could probably accomplish. Instead, many of us find ourselves like Ulysses in Homer’s Odyssey, in danger of crashing against the rocks by the enticing song of the Sirens that attempts to pull us away from the journey and our destiny.

Thankfully the spell lifts, the danger passes, and the right mind is returned to once again call the sojourner forward.

“Have they told you that if I am released from this chair I shall kill you and become a serpent? I see by your faces that they have. It is a lie. It is at this hour that I am in my right mind.”

(The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis, p. 172)

I am fully capable of convincing myself and the world around me that I am someone else when I am in the “Dennis” mindset. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he ain’t a very attractive guy. In fact, he’s a counterfeit to all that is good, true, and noble within me.

And as they say, like attracts like.

And for those who either love or hate the book and/or movie “The Secret,” this is what I’m talking about. The kids in C.S. Lewis’ book couldn’t stand the prince when he was under the spell.

There is a lot to be said for being grounded in one’s true self.

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