Soulshine

“Come on. Why don’t you release those brakes?” Mae West , Goin’ to Town I’ve had the brakes-on in terms of concealing who I am for most of my life. Even if I'd let-up on the foot-pedal just enough to allow some of my real self out, I could still rely on the emergency brake to keep people at arms-length—and to keep me safe from them, supposedly. Anyone who has seen the film Goin’ to Town knows that it primarily involves Mae West’s pursuit of a British gentleman who is too well-groomed, and maybe too afraid, to be vulnerable. She’s hot after him and he’s as cool, or rather as frigid, as ice. He isn’t about to let his guard down, reveal any of his true self or allow his honest bubbling-to-the-surface feelings for her to be expressed in any way. He plays it completely safe to the point of losing her to another man—for a time. Too often we are afraid of expressing how we honestly feel about someone. Likewise, we are too often afraid of loosening-up and allowing ours...

“What’s the sense of trying to be something that you’re not?” Mae West , Night After Night In the 1932 film Night After Night , George Raft plays the role of a “mug” named Joe, who runs a speakeasy and who’s decided that he’s not good enough being who he is. Every night his establishment is filled with “swells” or rich people of “proper breeding.” And Joe decides he wants to be a “swell.” So Joe hires a tutor, a professor, to come in everyday and teach him how to be a classy gentleman. We then learn Joe’s real motivation for wanting to remake himself into something that he’s not: Turns out he’s head over heels for a high class “dame” named Jerry Healy. As the movie progresses, Joe learns that his high class “dame” isn’t any classier inside than he is—or for that matter—any of the other “dames” that he’s ever dated, including Mae West’s character, Maudie. This realization brings him back to understanding that he is—and always has been—good enough just the way he is. ...

“I’m sick of people worryin’ about what I do.” Mae West, I’m No Angel It’s easy to say “Amen!” to this superb quote from Mae West. We all know what it feels like to have people watching, worrying and judging our every move. It gets tiresome when others are always overstepping their boundaries by focusing their attention on our lives and our behavior. And it doesn’t take long for us to build-up tremendous resentments over having people constantly taking our inventory. Now here’s the catch: Most of us spend just as much time focusing on other people’s lives and on taking their inventories as well. We are every bit as guilty—if not more so—of the same crime. Think about it. While we’re resenting the fact that a certain coworker keeps count of every second we’re away from our desk on a break, we are equally guilty of keeping a mental log of how often this same coworker is late for work in the morning. We do unto others what we despise having done to us, and yet we often are...

As a film buff, I’ve come to really love Mae West. She was someone who really knew how to own her personal power and no one—absolutely no one—could take it away from her. In her 1935 film Goin’ to Town , West exclaims “ Yeah, for a long time I was ashamed of the way I lived.” When questioned about whether she changed herself to please others she says “No, I got over being ashamed.” Seems many of us could take a good lesson or two from Mae West in learning how to get over being ashamed of who we are. No one can shame us unless we allow them to do so. No one can make us feel worthless unless we believe deep down inside that we are worthless. And no one can make a doormat out of us unless we voluntarily lay down for them. It’s time we all learned to get over being ashamed. We can start by realizing that we’re good enough just the way we are. Let’s focus on the inside instead of the outside: Affirm our own goodness. Let’s also care only about what we think of ourselves, an...