How to Face the Sphinx - Fear is Your Friend, Part 1

Why don't they make challenging movies for kids anymore? This one is a classic. It is stuffed to the brim with spiritual goodies. It's precious.

In this scene, Atreyu sees fallen soldiers at the foot of the Sphinx, who can see right into their souls. If they succumb to doubt of their mission, a force that can destroy their souls, the Sphinx promptly puts them out of their misery and makes an example of them.

Atreyu is a boy on a mission to save Fantasia from the Nothing. I will share more details about what this means in a later post, but Im sure you feel the weight of the epithet, "The Nothing." If you are here on this page, chances are you have either sensed or faced The Nothing in your life. If you were ever a kid, then you know how important Fantasia, the world of imagination is, and you understand the stakes of Atreyu's mission. Our imaginations aren't just fun, they help us forge paths in life. If The Nothing can destroy your Fantasia, then it is a serious threat, you know this.

So, here is our hero, Atreyu, standing at the foot of the Sphinx, about to be seen. The movie suggests that the Sphinx sees fear. I think it's more complicated. If it destroyed people with fear, Atreyu would have never survived.

THIS IS IMPORTANT. If it destroyed those with fear, Atreyu would never have survived.

Our hero is obviously afraid. You've been afraid, too. To face all sorts of Nothing: no plans, uncertainty, rejection, not getting any response at all, feeling numb, so many faces of Nothing. And facing those is terrifying. Especially when you are forced to trust only yourself and your higher power. Why? Because you doubt yourself. You've made bad choices. You feel weak. And you may believe in a higher power, but you will never understand how it operates and you've never seen it. So, basically, this is a moment of pure terror, pure UNCERTAINTY. You cannot even control the next 3 seconds of your life.

So, how does our hero get through, and why do his friends have so much faith in him.

It's not him.

It's his mission. In times when we can't believe in ourselves, we have to ask how we got here, and why we started this journey. In this moment, it becomes a mission with crushing stakes.

And we decide to let the Sphinx see our heart, our hope, our mission, and our determination.

And that, my friends, is how Atreyu gets through the gate alive.

And with each terrifying challenge, it gets easier to believe.

He's lucky, in some ways.

Fantasia is literally crumbling, so the stakes are really obvious. He literally has nothing to lose.

You, on the other hand, stand to lose something if you havent already destroyed your life fighting your own intuition and purity. So, its harder for you to take the plunge.

Why would you go through a gate without knowing what is on the other side? Why would you do it if you will have no control over what manifests on the other side?

Why? Because the notion that you have control or that your control is good is an obvious fallacy. Something in life, if not everything, is out of control.

You've set out on a mission. And that is pretty much all you've got, except that you and your loved ones may be counting on you.

Atreyu goes out on this mission with no understanding of what The Nothing even is. He doesn't even know what Fantasia is, and he lives there!

But he has conviction. And that is what saves him.

Remember why you started.