I recently watched “After Earth” and I thought it had some deeper recovery-related gems. For those that don’t know much about this movie here is a summary from Wikipedia:
In the future, an environmental cataclysm forces the human race to abandon Earth and settle on a new world, Nova Prime.
One thousand years later, the United Ranger Corps, a peacekeeping military commanded by General Cypher Raige, comes into conflict with alien creatures who intend to conquer Nova Prime. Their primary weapons are the Ursas: large, blind predatory multi-limbed creatures that hunt by sensing pheromones the human body secretes when scared (they literally smell fear). The Rangers struggle against the Ursas until the impassive Cypher learns how to completely suppress his fear, in effect becoming invisible to the Ursa—a technique called “ghosting.” After teaching this to the other Rangers, he leads the Ranger Corps to eventual victory.
In watching this movie, I picked up on the recovery-related themes. The subtheme I saw in this movie is that of fighting through and conquering our fears. This resonates with me in recovery in that I tend to medicate my fear of the unknown with unhealthy activities, even compulsively watching television or sports. There are a number of fears in my life but one of the things that I have become present to over the last few years is that fear is not real and this is stated clearly in one of the scenes of this movie. For me, I have to understand that fear is simply Future Events Appearing Real, which means I am afraid of something that has not occurred or may never occur! I hope this movie helps you with any fears you may have.
