Have fun. You belong.

We just completed a wonderfully (and appropriately emotional) Cinema Therapy session featuring the Pixar classic, Inside Out. Participants who have been through other Cinema Therapy classes several times had beautiful things to say about their hero's journey:

• I learned through the power of failure - and now I'm using it to keep moving.

• I thought I just had a bunch of pieces - but now I see they all fit together thanks to the hero's journey and this class.

• I wouldn't be here without you (click for more on Terri's journey) or watch the video.

It was awesome to see these students work through so many challenges. I've run Cinema Therapy classes for over four years now, beginning with the pilot program created during my PhD studies in the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences program at UNLV. The curriculum is set for us to meet once a week over the course of 16 weeks via zoom for 90 minutes per session. Each 16-week course is themed around one movie and each class is themed around one scene from that movie, with songs, inspirational quotes and a stage of the 12-step hero's journey, as defined by Christopher Vogler's interpretation of Joseph Campbell's work. We also mix in movement, meditation, improvisation, and discussion about the experience in real time. Every week participants write one page about their journeys, share them with each other and comment on each others' writing. The class is a living breathing entity. As carefully as I plan, I have to be ready to adapt and meet the needs of the class and where their hero's journeys are taking them in real time.

In our final meeting today, we began the class with Tom Petty's Wildflowers. The song opens up with these two powerful words: You belong.

You belong among the wildflowers

You belong in a boat out at sea

He repeats these words to great effect in the chorus and adds two more lines:

You belong among the wildflowers

You belong in a boat out at sea

You belong with your love on your arm

You belong somewhere you feel free

The class was moved by this invocation. All too often, life has a way of making us feel like fish out of water - as if we didn't belong. We found, in each other, and the fantastic hero's journeys everyone shared with each other, that we all belonged. We also found that through play, deep listening and support of one another, we were having fun.

It sounds strange to say, but, it's important to remember that it's not only okay but important to have fun. Many of us get busy to the point where we think fun is a luxury only allowed to others - those who are more accomplished, younger, more worthy, or whatever judgment we choose. But it's only true if we make it so. The truth is we all belong in a space where fun is valued, created and proliferated. That's what we do in our Cinema Therapy and Jam for Joy classes. I hope you'll join us so we can show (or remind) you that you, too, belong and can have fun.

-- Robert Cochrane, PhD