Movies, really good ones, have messages that just keep on giving. The Sessions is one that I just had to write about. After talking with my colleague about it with my husband for two days and a colleague for more than an hour, I decided that I needed to put some thoughts to paper.

At the end of the movie I sat with this sense of total silence that I don't recall ever experiencing after watching a movie. It was as if everything that needed to be said was said, with and without words. The movie was framed around a man who wanted to experience this thing called life--fully, without restriction, without limitation, which is ironic when one considers his physicality. But, what was taught very well is that it is not physical limitations of any sort that stops anyone from living an authentic life. It is our thoughts about who we think we are or the guilt of something we think we did or some level of unforgiveness. And that those things, once they are lifted, by one's decision to live and experience this thing called life as a feeling, loving, human being can find the freedom that was there all along. The man knew what he was looking for and the therapist was there to help him find it; but the same thing that he needed, she also needed--to be authentically themselves. He achieved it; she didn't. It is about how one thinks and what one thinks s/he has to do eventhough there is no authenticity to it that creates disease, depression and an unfulfilled life.

The power of public opinion and the dogmatic teachings of the Church that are antithetical to human experience and denies what human beings are at their core--seekers of love and bliss are challenged in this film respectfully, but directly. There are many lessons in this film, too many to enumerate but one that is loud and clear. The only limits that we have are the ones that we impose on ourselves. But, you first must know who you are and love that person.

I read last night in The Irrational Man, a book on Existentialism, that many will live their whole lives not knowing who they are until they wake up dead. Now, that is a tragic life! I asked my husband of 30 years today--Who are You? His answer: I don't know, I'm going to have to think about it...