The Reality Check- when The Beauty Awakens

Throughout the 2024 season of MAFS Australia I have been blogging about the deficit impact of the construction of a Beauty and the Beast story by the producers and experts: Click here

One of the most important tools in the healing and recovery space after women have experienced coercive relationships or domestic violence is the allegorical tale that offers clarity and direction for women who are walking a path of recovery and reclaiming the Self.

The following allegorical tale is a composite from my earlier life of the experience of leaving a relationship of coercive control intertwined with the stories of many of the women I meet in Conversation Circles behind the wall of shelters and community healing in recovery groups.

Although Belinda is a fictional character, she will be very familiar to any of us who have spent sometimes years of our life pouring love and belief and validation into a relationship that replicates the myth of Beauty and the Beast whereby if she just is patient and loves him long enough and in the right way, he will transform into the potential that she just knows is waiting to manifest from within him.

The Reality Check
In a bustling city filled with the hum of everyday life and the glow of digital screens, there lived a woman named Belinda. 
Belinda was known for her big heart and her belief in the power of love to change people. She identified as an Empath, that particularly fragile, steely, iron willed and insecure  breed of human who came in to this complex world with heightened sensitivity and insight woven into the sinews  and tissues of their heart,  mind body and spirit. 

Belinda spent her days working a demanding job in marketing, but her nights were often filled with scrolling through social media, where she posted about her life and drew inspiration from the countless stories and quotes she encountered. She counted her blessings, she knew she had a good life but what she really wanted was to find her Beloved to create a wonderful life together.

Belinda had always been captivated by the idea of transformative love, the kind that could turn even the most troubled soul into a better person. So when she met Matthew, a moody and withdrawn artist who lived in a loft on the edge of town, she saw her opportunity. Matthew was talented but seemed burdened by his past and his own insecurities. Despite his rough edges, Belinda saw glimpses of kindness and vulnerability in him that made her believe she could help him.

Belinda started visiting Matthew’s loft regularly. 
She brought him homemade meals, helped tidy his cluttered space, and even promoted his art on her social media accounts. 
She believed that her support and encouragement could activate some kind of transformation in Matthew. Each time he liked one of her posts, commented on her stories, or shared a small moment of appreciation, (and they were always very small moments indeed ) she saw it as a sign that he was changing, becoming the man she knew he could be, a small step closer to their inevitable union.

Belinda’s friends and followers saw the highlights of her efforts on Instagram and Facebook, filled with hopeful quotes and snapshots of their moments together that she curated to send the message  that  they were close and connected.  She also posted links  to his art and a small handful of mediocre reviews.
But behind the scenes, the transformation she hoped for wasn’t happening. 
Matthew remained distant, his moments of warmth were rare and often followed by long stretches of silence and moodiness. He was sarcastic but it made Belinda laugh,  even when it was at the expense of others who she ordinarily would have viewed in a much more compassionate light. To  her, Matthew’s relentless  sarcasm  was the demonstration of his sharp wit and intellectual superiority and rather than dodge it she basked in the glow of the moments when he unleashed his vitriol, convinced this was yet another sign that he felt a closeness to Belinda he felt  with no others.

Despite the lack of real progress, Belinda held onto the crumbs of connection, and scripted them into a banquet of possibilities, believing that any day now, Matthew would change. She poured more of herself into helping him, neglecting her own needs and passions in the process. 

Her social media posts became more infrequent, and her own social life dwindled as she focused almost entirely on Matthew.

One evening, after another frustrating day where Matthew had shut her out, left her messages on read and ignored her emails Belinda sat alone in her apartment, scrolling through her feeds.
She came upon a post about self-love (although later she would see it as a divinely coincidental moment) and suddenly, and very unexpectedly,  felt a pang of recognition. 

“No one can rescue me. I know because I’ve already tried to get them to do it. It doesn’t work. This is all on me.” – Michelle D’Avella

The message, this lightning bolt of soul-instruction, was able to pierce the trance Belinda didn’t know she was in  and spark a moment of clarity as she  realised  that in trying to fix Matthew, she had been  ignoring her own wounds that needed attending to  and her own  needs  that needed to be honoured. 
Belinda had been seeking validation and wholeness through someone else rather than herself.

The next day, Belinda made a tough decision. She wrote Matthew a heartfelt message explaining that she needed to step back and focus on herself. She expressed her hope that he would find his own path to healing but made it clear that she could no longer be the one to support him, believe in him and enable his moody broody ways. (she didn’t actually write that last part but she smiled when she wrote it  with invisible ink).. 

On her socials Belinda  posted a final picture of them together with a caption about the importance of self-love and growth.
She  threw herself into rediscovering her passions, reconnecting with friends, and taking care of her own well-being. She shared her new  journey on social media, being honest about the ups and downs, and found a re-newed sense of community and support among her friends and followers. Her posts became about her own achievements and joys, rather than her efforts to change someone else. 

Perhaps one of the most significant changes was that Belinda  began to become aware of  where her  attention would go throughout the day, the kind of man who caught her eye and she realised it was always the broody talented ones that were the most compelling and  enigmatic for her. After all they were just like her father, that complex, wounded  character,  the first teacher that models to a little girl what Love means, what to expect and what you deserve. Belinda realised she had been seeking to reconcile the relationship with her father with each and every broody man and there had been several over many years!

Months later, Belinda and Matthew ran into each other at a local gallery. Belinda noticed him with another woman by his side, who was looking at him with the same hopeful eyes Belinda once had. 
She recognised herself in this new woman, who was  a stranger but so familiar  to Belinda. 

This attractive,  vibrant woman was someone who believed she could rescue Matthew and transform him into the version of him that she had in her heart and mind. She saw his potential even if he couldn’t! Just like Belinda had once believed.
Despite all of the support, adoration and affirmation she had given him, Matthew gave Belinda barely the briefest acknowledgment, seemingly oblivious to her vibrant presence. He was equally dismissive of the Beauty by his side as she followed him around the gallery,  getting him drinks and pouring her Love over him.
Belinda saw the new woman on a journey similar to her own, a Sister on a path   that would eventually lead her to self-love and freeing herself from her deepest core wounds.  Hopefully! The alternate didn’t bear thinking about!

She realised  that the journey was essential for the woman to break the spell that had  been cast over her by virtue of the world she had been born into .

But now it  was her time, Belinda’s Time,  to develop the deeper insights  and a stronger relationship with her own wonderful, magnificent, re-emerging Self! Belinda’s story wasn’t about transforming a difficult man, excessively adoring and enabling the wounded familiar, that was simply one of the chapters!.

Matthew was simply a player in the mirror of her own beliefs & experiences.

She was at home with his sarcasm because she  was very used to being slightly mocked in the guise of humour just like  her moody broody father used to do  to Belinda and  her mother and her sisters.
 In fact she  was so at home with Matthew’s sarcasm it almost felt like love!

After her ah-ha moment the moody broody  man was no longer a compelling sense of Love and Connection for her once  the situation had transformed  into the catalyst for  Belinda to find her own strength and happiness.

And self love.

She was learning that true magic, the transformative power that arises when  intention meets action and vision meets belief, comes from loving and valuing yourSelf. 

In doing so, Belinda  had finally found the person she had been looking for and was  truly meant to be.

She  freed herself from the arduous,  exhausting task of trying to love broken men into wholeness.
Welcome home Belinda!