Groundhog Day is Feb. 2, a day founded in legend. According to the stories, when a groundhog comes out of its burrow when it’s cloudy, spring will come early. If the groundhog emerges from its burrow when it is sunny, then there will be six more weeks of winter. This idea of the groundhog prolonging winter is featured in Bill Murray’s 1993 film Groundhog Day, when a caustic weatherman finds himself in a repeating day for six weeks. The only way for him to break the spell is for him to change his responses to other people and to himself, and to live with more honesty.

STUCK IN A DAY

In the movie Phil (Bill Murray) visits Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to televise the Groundhog Day festival. Along with producer Rita (Andie MacDowell), Phil finds himself and his tv crew stranded by a freak blizzard. For the next six weeks, Phil finds himself reliving February 2 – Groundhog Day.  He’s put through many hilarious and heartbreaking scenarios, ranging from suicide and murder to finding the love of his life. Not until Phil is able to learn to stop repeating his mistakes is he able to move on from Groundhog Day.

OUR PERSONAL GROUNDHOG DAY

For some of us, that might sound like a pretty familiar scenario. Ok, maybe the groundhog itself and the time loop are a bit of a stretch, but by using self improvement techniques like Ho’oponopono and other methods we can stop the patterns in our lives that may seem like Phil’s repeating day in Groundhog Day.  It’s so easy to get used to our patterns that we start to believe that there’s just no other way of life. Until, like Phil, we finally get it that if we don’t do anything different, nothing is going to change and we’re just going to be stuck in a time loop of our own making.

BREAKING OUT OF THE LOOP

One way to destroy our own patterns is by slow, focused, concentrated change over time.  This often starts with changing our thoughts. Through gradual change and thinking new thoughts, we can set ourselves free from trapping ourselves in the same exact mistakes.

Photo by StephenZacharias