Life lessons I learnt from watching the Barbie movie

This past weekend we went to the cinema and watched the new Barbie movie. I was initially very resistant to watching it. I had my own story about Barbie and I believed that it would be a complete waste of my time to watch the movie.

I was not a big fan of Barbie growing up. I had some Barbie dolls at one point. And I loved dressing the dolls. And at the same time, I felt a lot of resentment towards the stereotypes that the doll’s existence perpetuates. Barbie perpetuates an unrealistic and unattainable ideal that is very hard for most women to be confronted with. My husband was very keen though. He thought it would be funny. So, we went to see it.

I was pleasantly surprised. Apart from being hilariously funny, there was also an invitation to consider the ideas we hold onto, the societal structures we create, and to perhaps question the beliefs that shape our lives and our societies. What I took from watching the movie, is that neither patriarchy nor matriarchy is the solution to a world that requires both genders to co-create a world that works for everyone. And that each of us – regardless of whether we are male or female or neither – have a responsibility to know who we are outside the system of rules we have created for ourselves.

It’s not about the system or our gender identities. It’s really about who we truly are. And we are all HUMAN. Sometimes we are so busy either trying to fit into the system or to fight the system, that we forget who we are.

The other day, Carolyn Freyer-Jones shared a provocative email where she asked that same question: Who are you?

Carolyn shares that as coaches we mostly consider ourselves open and coachable, until we are not. We tend to stay open to feedback, except for the places where we over-identify with being a certain THING or being seen a certain way (and it could be positive or negative).

Just the other day, I was in conversation with a coach, whom I experienced as un-coachable. I was hearing him falling into judgment of his partner and wanting to “fix” her, and I tried to point it out to him in different ways. He was not open to receiving it. When I asked him whether he could accept his partner as she is right now, without needing to change her, he said no.

This coach was talking about how he does relationships differently, and that he creates calm, respect, and open conversation in his relationship, and yet he was unwilling to see that he was not allowing his partner to be who she was. He needed HER to be different for him to feel like he could be in the relationship.

And how often do we do that? How often do we look at the other person – in relationship, in partnership, in business, in work, in family – and we want THEM to be different. THEY need to change. Then, we tell ourselves, then things will work, or things will be better. And we don’t look at ourselves and question who we are being. How are we contributing to the situation that is being co-created? Any unwanted pattern or experience in your life, is co-created, whether you want to accept it or not.

And this is not an invitation to look for blame. This is an invitation to really take responsibility for your impact and allow the other person to take responsibility for theirs. This is an invitation to choose to suspend any judgment we might hold about someone else and choose to see them through the eyes of loving.

When we judge, we make someone or something “wrong”. We find what is broken about it or what doesn’t work. However, when we replace our judgment with love, we see something completely different. We see our own humanity reflected back to us.

I felt like I worked really hard during the conversation with the coach who was judging his partner. So, I had to slow down and ask myself how I was judging him? How as I not seeing through the eyes of love? How was I wanting him to be different?

And to be honest, there was a part of me that wanted to get him to see that judging his partner isn’t helpful and won’t change how he feels about the relationship. Part of me was also triggered by what I perceived as arrogance on his part. He was showing up as if he had all the answers and his partner was all wrong, and the woman in me felt angry about the judgments he was making of his partner.

And, this is where self-management as a coach comes in. Can I suspend judgment and be with him and with his worldview, even if it differs significantly from mine? Can I serve him, and meet him in is resistance?

I recently finished reading Nancy Kline’s most recent book, The Promise That Changes Everything: I Won’t Interrupt You. I will write more about what I learnt from Nancy’s book in another article. And what I want to share here, is that Nancy talks about interruption – how we interrupt others, and even ourselves, and how interruption is built into our lives and our world.

At one point, Nancy shares that assumptions are also a big interrupter. When we assume something about someone, when we make a stereotypical judgement, it takes us out of really listening to them. It stops us from truly connecting and understanding. And they can sense it. They know when we are judging them. And we rob ourselves of the opportunity to learn something new about the other person.

Nancy shares that often we are resistant to hearing a perspective that is directly opposing to our own, because we might be so deeply attached to our perspective as part of who we ARE. We might unconsciously fear that if we were to open ourselves up to hearing a perspective that was fundamentally different to our own, that we would lose our own sense of self. So, because we feel threatened at the identity level, we stop listening. We interrupt. We judge. We make someone else wrong, to reassure ourselves that our identity remains intact; that our understanding of the world still makes sense.

The opportunity is to recognise that both identities, both worldviews, both ways of being in the world can exist at the same time. And that just because we perceive someone as so different from us, doesn’t mean that we cannot find something we might have in common.

The other day, I was in conversation with a colleague, and she shared with me how she had thought that we were so different. I’m from South Africa. She is from Iran. She has physically been through war. She is slightly older than I am. Her children are older. She has been divorced. I have not. So, she assumed that we must be very different. We have different cultural backgrounds and histories, different life trajectories, we speak different languages, believe different things, and even look very different from each other.

Then she observed that when I shared more about my qualifications, history, and experiences, and as she got to know me, she started to appreciate that we actually have so much in common. We are both immigrants living in countries that are culturally very different from our home countries. We are both high achievers. We are both highly educated. We both value our education and qualifications. We both spent years attaching our self-worth to our achievements. She navigated war in her home country. I navigated a lot of violence and poverty in mine. On many levels, there were similar challenges in that.

She shared how she had struggled with loving herself more, and with recognising that her achievements are not who she is. And when I shared my struggle with the same things, she had felt a kinship with me. And there it was. My colleague was open and vulnerable enough to really slow down and listen. She stayed open to the possibility that we could find common ground. And we did. And it was all because she was willing to go there. It was all because she could hold space for both her version of reality, and someone else’s that might be different, and that in many ways was not that different after all.

And that’s what stood out for me in the Barbie movie. The differences we hold onto between men and women that stop us from seeing how we are interdependent. We need each other. As human beings we share two fundamental human needs. The need for love and belonging. And the need to feel significant or like we are of value. These two needs are gender neutral. They are culturally neutral. They are belief system neutral. They unite us in our struggle to get both these needs met in adequate ways that has us feel truly alive.

Consider the possibility that there are labels that YOU are attached to; labels you have given yourself. Labels of who you think you are. You might associate with being male or female – man or woman. You might associate with a certain race or cultural group. You might attach value to your appearance, your language, your religion, your political preferences (e.g., Conservative or Liberal), even certain personality traits – e.g., I’m a Perfectionist. I’m a loner. I’m an introvert or extrovert. You might attach value to your job title or to what you do – e.g., I’m a coach. I’m a university professor. I’m a lawyer. You might value certain roles – e.g., I’m a mother. I’m a father. I’m a sister. I’m a friend. I’m a twin. All these things are labels. They are ways we use to describe ourselves, and we think they define who we ARE.

They might describe who you are, AND when we become too attached to any specific label or overidentified with being seen a specific way, it can get you trapped in the idea of how life is supposed to be, instead of how life actually IS. When we live in how life is supposed to be, then we are not interacting with life as it actually IS.

Carolyn Freyer-Jones mentions that our labels can become a bit like quicksand – “easy to get into and tricky to get out of”. When we become too attached, we distort reality, and we actually lose a sense of who we really are. Letting go of a label, can feel like you are losing part of your identity… Because “Who are we if we aren’t this thing?”

However, a better question in a situation where you notice that you might be too attached to a specific label is, “What can I GAIN from letting this go or holding this a little more lightly?”

In my experience, we gain a different perspective on who we think we are. We gain access to expansive ways of being. In situations where we are judging someone else for being different from us, we might gain connection, understanding, appreciation, wisdom, and new insights. We gain understanding and respect. We gain freedom; especially if the thing we are over-identified with no longer serves us or is causing us pain and suffering (physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually).

In one of my favourite childhood movies, The Lion King, Rafiki urges Simba to “Remember who you are.” When we slow down to be with the part of ourselves that has no label, we remember who we are. We also recognise that we always have a choice about who we want to BE, and thus we create who we are moment to moment.

References:

Kline N. (2021). The Promise That Changes Everything: I Won’t Interrupt You.