Every month, Marine Colombel shares her advice and insights on a topic that is in the news. On this World Fairy Tale Day, the psychiatrist teaches us how to use these stories to reveal our potential.
Life is not a fairy tale”, this phrase I am sure you have already heard during your adolescence or early adulthood. And yet, fairy tales are cruelly realistic, they are reflections of the trials that we will have to go through one day or another. The fear of death, of disappearance, of the night, all are embodied through mythical figures that a hero will have to face at one time or another.
It is difficult to fight against an abstract fear or suffering. At the heart of the fairy tale is the figure of a monster: an ogre, a witch, and a stepmother, who will serve as the incarnation of a primitive fear of the human being. The monster allows us to embody an abstract power, once transformed into flesh and blood, this fear can be fought and defeated. But when faced with these monsters, we are not alone. Tales teach us not to give up, not to succumb to what Dr. Seligman called “learned helplessness” which leads to suffering and depression. In his way, each hero of a tale has known how to best use his inner resources to overcome his weaknesses and come out of it safe and sound. At the end of each story, he finds himself grown from this fight against a figure of evil. We too, let us draw inspiration from some great figures of the fairy tale to call upon our resources.
Tom Thumb and Teamwork
Little Thumb’s strength is his family. Coming from a large family abandoned in the forest, Little Thumb uses all his intelligence to save his brothers. Whether it’s by sowing a path of stones or by tricking a hungry ogre into sleeping, it’s the presence of his brothers that will help him overcome his fears and reveal his potential.
Ulysses and intelligence
During the Odyssey, Ulysses was able to escape from perilous situations many times by relying on his great intelligence. Trapped by a Cyclops, he had the idea, after having blinded the monstrous shepherd, to escape from his cave by hiding under the bellies of his sheep.
Cinderella and the meaning of sacrifice
The twelve strokes of midnight have sounded, and Cinderella knows that she will have to return to her life as a servant. To escape the humiliation of appearing in rags before the prince, she runs away, sacrificing her glass slipper, a symbol of the moment of grace experienced. Her sacrifice was not in vain, after months of searching, it is this famous slipper that will allow her to be found by her prince and to escape her servile condition.
Hansel and Gretel and combativeness
Faced with the witch who held them captive in her gingerbread house, the two young orphans never gave up. Despite their obvious inferiority to the witch, they were able to take advantage of a moment of weakness of the latter to take the advantage and lock her in her oven.
Scheherazade and creativity
Scheherazade has just married the king, but she knows that after the wedding night, he will have each of his wives executed to prevent them from being unfaithful to him. Scheherazade is not short of resources. When evening comes, she tells the sultan a thrilling story without finishing it. Her husband wants to know what happens next so much that he lets her live for one more day. Every night, she tells a new exciting story. This stratagem lasts for a thousand and one nights until her husband gives up the idea of killing her.
Fairy tales are an amplified reflection of our real life. By giving shape to our shadows, they reveal to us the resources available to face them, our inner resources. The essential thing in a tale is not the happy ending but the path it will have made us travel towards ourselves.
