To Name Is To Know

This year is the 50th anniversary of The Exorcist. When it was released the day after Christmas in 1973, film critic, Roger Ebert called it a film about “the weather of the human soul.”

The film focuses on a young girl who is possessed by a demon. The demon takes away her ability to choose or act, using her life as its own. The work of the Catholic priest who is brought in to perform the exorcism can be boiled down to one critical task: he must get the demon to name itself. Once the demon gives up its name, it can be seen, and known, and driven out.

The miller’s daughter in the German fairytale, Rumpelstiltskin finds herself at the mercy of a mysterious man who demands her first child as payment for his “help” keeping her alive. It’s not until she discovers the mysterious man’s name that he relinquishes his power over her and vanishes from her life.

Naming implies knowing and knowing-- looking directly at something and calling it what it is-- gives us power.

This power doesn’t just exist in scary movies and fairy tales. It’s always at our fingertips, hidden in plain sight in the folds of our everyday life.  

When I forget my access to this power, Perfectionism is one of the things that takes possession of me. I struggle against the restraints but it keeps my movements small and pained. I bargain and beg, make all kinds of deals with it and it promises to “help” me make something shiny for a high price.

Before Perfectionism takes hold of me, creative work is an enlivening warmth between my ribs. Under its terms, creative work feels more like heartburn.

Then, somehow, I remember. I look directly at the anxiety, the fear of not getting it right, and call Perfectionism by its name.

I feel the synthetic presence that had threatened to turn my insides to mass produced plastic leave my body. I feel relief like explant surgery.  I can move around freely inside my inner world again, infused with curiosity and wonder, delighted to see what oddly shaped idea might emerge next.  

What holds power over you? What behaviors or beliefs hold you captive in a way of doing things that you don’t remember choosing?

The beliefs, habits, patterns, and relationships that grab our ankles as we attempt to pass, silence our voice when we try to speak, or turn us to stone when we try to change, have power over us.

Like some malicious presence, they want to keep us stagnant in an uncomfortable place whispering in our ear that it’s easier to stay stuck than to shake ourselves free.

Whatever it is that you try to numb, ignore, run away from, it will not call the shots, make your choices, or use your life as its own forever.

Name what is keeping you from feeling fully alive. Looking it directly in the eye gives you power.

Name it and you’ll know what to do next.