I’ve just watched the remade version of Aladdin. I really loved the film, but the part that resonated with me was where Princess Jasmine was speaking out about not being silenced. She breaks into a song ‘Speechless’ (click to hear about the song – https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mw5VIEIvuMI For lyrics see below). She chooses to reject the approval she has lived by. She has a voice and she is passionate about using it to speak out about injustice. She says, “Our greatest challenge isn’t speaking up against our enemies, but defying those whose approval we seek the most.”
This scene spoke to me and reminded me of how so often we learn to stay silent in order to get our needs met and to gain approval from others.
Princess Jasmine had been trapped in the palace since her Mum died. She had learnt to live a life hiding away and staying quiet about what mattered to her. And this is the story for so many of us. We learn to please other people – not intentionally, but to make life work for us.
It starts small but over time we get so used to staying quiet about what we want and what matters to us that we gradually lose touch with our own desires and our inner voice. We lose ourselves until we don’t even know who we are anymore or what we want.
Now, I’m definitely no genie. Sometimes I wish I had the magic to make things immediately better for people, but the reality is that it is so often going through the journey of change that is significant. The genie in Aladdin knows that he can’t magic lives better. He wants to encourage Aladdin to live a more authentic life rather than making wishes for material possessions or power to try to improve things.
Counselling can be hard work at times, but change happens during the journey, and often people reconnect with their lost voice. To magic things better would be doing people a disservice, because they can do it for themselves.
What do you wish could be better in your life? If you’d like to make it happen then get in touch as I’d love to help you make it happen.
What would be your three wishes?
Speechless Song Lyrics
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Alan Mencken/ Benj Pasek/ Justin Paul
Here comes a wave
Meant to wash me away
A tide that is taking me under
Swallowing sand
Left with nothing to say
My voice drowned out in the thunder
But I won’t cry
And I won’t start to crumble
Whenever they try
To shut me or cut me down
I won’t be silenced
You can’t keep me quiet
Won’t tremble when you try it
All I know is I won’t go speechless
‘Cause I’ll breathe
When they try to suffocate me
Don’t you underestimate me
‘Cause I know that I won’t go speechless
Written in stone
Every rule, every word
Centuries old and unbending
Stay in your place
Better seen and not heard
But now that story is ending
‘Cause I
I cannot start to crumble
So come on and try
Try to shut me and cut me down
I won’t be silenced
You can’t keep me quiet
Won’t tremble when you try it
All I know is I won’t go speechless
Speechless
Let the storm in
I cannot be broken
No, I won’t live unspoken
‘Cause I know that I won’t go speechless
Try to lock me in this cage
I won’t just lay me down and die
I will take these broken wings
And watch me burn across the sky
Hear the echoes saying I
Won’t be silenced
Though you want to see me tremble when you try it
All I know is I won’t go speechless
Speechless
‘Cause I’ll breathe
When they try to suffocate me
Don’t you underestimate me
‘Cause I know that I won’t go speechless
All I know is I won’t go speechless
Speechless