It has been almost forty years that Steven Spielberg has inspired and entertained us with his movies.
On Oct. 21, 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed this iconic director as he has just finished his 27th film about Abraham Lincoln.
Steven Spielberg, now 65, shared in the interview two amazingly personal threads of information.
The first is that when he is directing, he still gets just as worried, panicked, and filled with dread as he did when he first started out. Sharing that, “It’s not really fear. It’s just much more of an anticipation of the unknown. And you know, the unknown could be food poisoning. It’s just the kind of level of anxiety not being able to write my life as well as I can write my movies.”
The second is what ties his movies together and that is his childhood.
More specifically it was the anti-Semitic attacks against he and his family along with his anger at his “work-a-holic” father for never being around. Later this anger deepened as he blamed his father for his parent’s divorce, even after learning that it was his mother who fell in love with another man and sought the divorce.
Spielberg told how the father role in his movies was always the bad guy who abandoned his kids. It was not until his reconciliation with his own father that his movies portrayed the father as a hero.
It was fifteen years of this anger which Spielberg said were “wasted” until, “My dad and I had an amazing reconciliation, which is going on almost– almost 18 years, where we have really, really been in each other’s lives. And those feelings that I expressed earlier, I no longer feel today.”
The greater part of the work I do with my clients revolves around removing the blocks that are keeping them from having a happy and fulfilling life and/or relationship.
Nine times out of ten these barriers have everything to do with unresolved issues from the person’s childhood.
These issues could stem from more sever elements such as verbal, physical, or sexual abuse, or a feeling they carry with them of being unloved.
A common theme running through the majority of adults, who had a less than perfect childhood, is that on some unconscious level they are trying to resolve those issues through either their work or relationship.
For instance, if we look at a woman who was abandoned by her father as a child. She will repetitively pick unsuitable men she believes she can trust to stay around only to be re-traumatized by their departure.
Another example would be a man who was physically abused by his parents and told he would never amount to anything. As a adult, he pushes himself to excel in his career to become an incredible success in the eyes of the world. However, he cannot keep a intimate personal relationship going due to his inability to bond and trust a partner.
The bottom line is that until these unresolved issues are addressed and healed they will play out in one’s life and relationships.
As I watched Spielberg share his story, the peace that ran across his face as he spoke of his healed relationship with his father was radiating. Clearly, this man who has given such a contribution to the film industry is also an example of how important it is to heal those childhood issues!
By Bree Maresca-Kramer, a contributing blogger for JenningsWire.
