I’m a big believer in the power of story to cut through some of the complexities of life and living. In particular, I think the story of the Wizard of Oz has a relatively simple answer to these and many other issues concerning getting comfortable in our own skins.
What I get from the story is that the Wizard represents Dorothy’s ego, he is a relatively powerless old gentleman making a lot of noise with whistles, bells, smoke, and mirrors. In the book (but not in the movie) he has a law that dictates everyone entering the “Emerald” City must wear green tinted glasses. This offers a hint that the city may not have been made of emeralds after all. He behaves this way because he fears that he won’t be respected and therefore removed from power if he his true self is discovered. If it looks like, smells like, and sounds like an ego, it surly must be an ego.
So the question is how does he get away with this ruse for so long? How does he manage to rule over everything in his domain in this way?
Enter the Wicked Witch of the West. The Wicked Witch represents Dorothy’s shadow — all of Dorothy’s shame, guilt, unworthiness, etc. These are of course the things that Dorothy hates about herself as well as the part of her that is angry with Dorothy because she has seemingly taken its power away (ruby red slippers) and doesn’t want it to come out and play. Dorothy will not give up the slippers however because Glenda the good witch (Dorothy’s spiritual higher self) instructed her to “keep tight inside them my dear and she [the wicked witch] can’t harm you.” So here’s the setup, Dorothy’s being fiercely tugged at from two extreme polarities (spiritual light vs. dark sin = lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!) Right in the middle of all this sits her ego and he is a dedicated control freak! This is a pretty tough dilemma for Dorothy as it is for virtually all of us humanoids. So, how do we resolve it? We take a very close look at the middleman, the ego wizard.
The Wizard knows the power of the shadow and uses it to control Dorothy and the rest of the component parts of her personality as he screams, “You are not worthy! You do not deserve the things you want!” If Dorothy presents an opposing argument, her ego will just reach back into the shadow world and pull something ugly out, “Oh, so you think you are worthy, what about the time you did this? Look at where you failed in that. How about all the people that have rejected you, they couldn’t all be wrong, could they?” On it goes as he pulls up one past failure after another and berates her with them. It doesn’t take long before he wears her down and she buys in to the propaganda.
In a quest for even more power the ego wizard makes his fatal mistake, he sends Dorothy and company into the dark underworld to capture the broomstick of the Wicked Witch. The broomstick represents the wicked witch’s power because it is her mobility, and the wizard would dearly love to have her power. Dorothy then gathers all of the wisdom, heart, soul, and courage she can muster and sets out to attempt the impossible. After she finally arrives, she finds herself trapped in the dungeon with her four companions. The Wicked Witch (shadow self) knows that it cannot harm Dorothy as long she wearing the ruby red slippers (spiritual protection), so she figures she will resort to extortion. “The last to die will see the others go before her!” screams the witch as she sets fire to the straw man. Her reasoning is that Dorothy will give up the slippers in order to save her friends, after all that’s the kind of gal she is. But as we know the wicked witch’s plan backfires when she decides to first try and take out Dorothy’s intellect, her ability to reason and think (straw man) – what better way to take out our ability to reason than with the passion of fire? (Read – firewater, fiery passions of anger, bigotry, addictions, compulsions, etc.) When Dorothy attempts to extinguish the fire by throwing on water (holy water?) some splashes over onto the wicked witch and she simply melts down (a baptism?) taking all of Dorothy’s guilt, shame, unworthiness, sin, etc. with her. (Integration of her shadow)
Dorothy then takes the broomstick to the ego wizard and demands that he honor his promise and give her and the other parts of her personality the gift that they so richly deserve. He does not comply of course because he simply doesn’t have the power. In fact, the persona of Dorothy now has ALL the power because she is still wearing the ruby red slippers and has the broomstick of the Wicked Witch as well because she hasn’t yet turned it over to the Wizard. This is truly one powerful woman!
With his power gone the Wizard can no longer maintain his bluff, resulting in being exposed and forced fully into the light. Once we can see this ego wizard for what it really is we find that it does in fact have valuable gifts for us. The now “enlightened” ego explains that we are worthy and can have what we desire as long as we understand these things are only temporary possessions that do not define WHO we are. He then proceeds to award a certificate of benevolence to the tin man, a diploma to the straw man, and a badge of courage to the lion. (How many of you have diplomas, awards, trophies, certificates, etc. you are proud of? They are good things to have as long as we remember that they only define what we have accomplished rather than who we are.) The Wizard then fumbles an opportunity to get Dorothy back to Kansas but she manages on her own after Glenda reminds her that she is always in possession of everything she needs to achieve her dreams.
“What did you learn Dorothy?” Ask straw man, “I learned that if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again I won’t look any further than my own backyard.” Hummmmm, inside herself?
The power is with in you, the power is within me, the power is within everybody if they only choose to believe it and bring it out into the open. So were back to the question now, what do we do about our ego? We transform it, accept it, and bring it out into the open. I believe our ego is a very important and powerful part of our persona that motivates us to do amazing things in the world. It can motivate us to destroy or to create and it is our choice as to which we way we go. So how do we tame down that powerful beast? We disarm its arsenal of weapons, by accepting ourselves for who we are, all of us including our past sins, shame, guilt, anger etc. We all have a pair of Ruby red slippers, and they can be summed up in two words, love yourself. If you can’t go so far as to love yourself the next best thing is to accept yourself just the way you are and just the way you are not, right here and right now, scars, blemishes, warts and all.
You may be thinking it is not quite as simple as flipping a switch, and in most cases that is true. Since the transformation of the ego depends upon the “baptism” (acceptance) of our shadow, work is required to clean out the bilges where it resides. There are many ways to do this, therapies, counseling, recovery programs, self-help, and more. What matters most is that you believe that you are incredible human being who can accomplish lots of good in the world, the journey starts with belief and trust.
One final word on my theory about the value of the “enlightened ego”— I believe that most people that have accomplished great good in the world did it through enlightened egos consider the following short list: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Oprah Winfrey, Deepak Chopra, John Lennon, Bono. I could go on for many pages of this list but you get the picture.
