PATRICK RYAN: I love the movies because at their simplest level they are telling us the stories about our culture and what is on our minds and in our hearts. A good movie for me is one that reveals the characters in a way that I can find aspects of myself in them.

This applies as much to the villains and antagonists as it does to the hero.

Each of us has the capacity to be and to do good or to be and to do destructive things. It is simply a matter of our day-to-day choices as we navigate our way through this complex world. The measure of what is good or bad has everything to do with the character, the values, the heart of the person asking themselves the question.

In my book, Awakened Wisdom , I present a distinction between the wise one within each of us, Divine Essence, and the fearful or judgmental one within us, Distorted Self.

When we are operating from our Distorted Self we may or may not know that we are caught in an energy that is created from a distorted state of imagined fears or a false bravado that shuts us off from the wisdom of our Divine Essence. In these moments if our movie character gets caught in the energy of their Distorted Self they may resort to leveraging themselves up in the world by putting others down or they betray themselves or a loved one in a moment of weakness.

The challenge for us all is to be able to recognize when this is happening. Once we recognize that we have been betraying our wisdom then we arrive to that moment of choosing. That is the moment when the audience is holding their breath wanting the character to choose well, to move across to the Divine Essence side of his or her character and to live into the hopes and wishes that the audience holds for the breakthrough.

In that moment what is our hero thinking or feeling? If we went into slow motion mode and could hear the hero's thoughts we would likely witness the hero getting connected to their Divine Essence, the wise One within them, and through Divine Essence the choice of which way to turn on the path becomes more clear. There are always many choices in every situation that Divine Essence is able to open up to with more possibilities. Divine Essence does not get cornered the way our Distorted Self does. Distorted Self does get limited in the possible choices and according to Distorted none of the choices are good ones.

What are the criteria that Divine Essence uses to draw wisdom from? In the book Awakened Wisdom I present what I call the Eight States of an Awakened Life. I have been blessed to receive many amazing teachings from a variety of traditions as well as from life itself. I created the eight states from Buddhist philosophy, indigenous wisdoms, and years of my own trial and error and learning. The Eight States of an Awakened Life present a guide for us to align with according to our own highest wisdom. The eight states guide us into creating our own way of walking according to each of our individual and collective wisdoms.

The more clear we become about what honours our wisdom versus what betrays it then the choices become more obvious. Then it comes down to our willingness to live either from our Divine Essence or from our Distorted Self.
At a very high level I suggest a criteria for wisdom choices that includes the questions: Does this choice create and add beauty to the world? Does it give life energy to the situation and all those in it? Does it honour and respect all that are affected by the choice? Personally I want to find solutions to my challenges and opportunities that enable me to say yes to all of those questions.

So back to our hero. Now he or she is in this moment of truth. We in the audience know that this is the moment that will set the course of the hero's life from here on. We see the hero caught in the dilemma. Which way will they turn?

Will they follow the path of Divine Essence or fall into the pit of their Distorted Self?

What happens here is the difference between a happy ending or a sadly tragic one. Which ending do you most often create in your own life?