17 Jan The Rocketman: “When are you going to Hug Me?”

A great example of the Hug Your Cactus journey is found in the movie Rocketman, which tells the story of the music icon Elton John.^[i] This account of his life starts with John in his full concert regalia walking across a long hallway which appears to be opening up to a concert stage. It is here where the plot shifts as he is actually walking into a 12 Step meeting at a rehab facility. He sits down in the circle, still in full regalia and has the following exchange with the counselor.

Elton John: How long is this gonna take?
Counselor: That’s really up to you.
Elton John: Right, then. I know how this bit goes.
[pause]
Elton John: My name is Elton Hercules John. And I’m an alcoholic. And a cocaine addict. And a sex addict. And a bulimic.[pause]
Elton John: I’m also a shopaholic, who has problems with weed, prescription drugs, and anger management.
Counselor: Why are you here now?
Elton John: Well, my dealer was out of town. I thought this seemed like a good alternative.
[pause]
Elton John: I’m here because I want to get better.
Counselor: What were you like as a child, Elton?
Elton John: As a child?
[Elton sees an image of his younger self on a tricycle waving at him]

Elton’s life has reached a self-imposed crisis, and he is ready to start embracing the ugly parts of his soul and hugging his cactus. As he begins to share his story a series of flashbacks tells the story of his life, which reveals a childhood wound from a broken relationship with his father.  Throughout the story of his life the scene periodically returns to the 12 Step meeting, and as he is telling his story the parts of his very colorful and elaborate costume slowly come off. This parallels his own personal growth journey, which is super messy at times, but does show steady progress over time. Until the end, the last scene in the circle, when he is wearing just a simple track suit and the childhood version of himself appears at the meeting and asks him, “when are you going to hug me?” Here he finally embraces this wounded part of his self and ego that he was running from, truly integrating it into a more holistic sense of self. He gets up and hugs himself, loving even the ugly and wounded parts that he had been carrying all these years.

At the early stages of the cactus hugging journey, one can only hope to experience this kind of life-changing transformation and a life of new meaning. Yet as you start to accept your crisis and cactus you can start to embrace and live out the words from the theologian, poet, and songwriter from Northern Ireland, Pagraig O’ Tuama:

“I said, ‘will I ever find meaning?’ And he said, ‘you will find meaning where you give meaning.
The answer is in a story and the story is unfolding.’”[ii]

As we have said many times in the past, it in the very process of storytelling that we find healing. As my own Hug Your Cactus story and journey unfolds, I continue to realize that often the most difficult person to accept, embrace, forgive, and even love is myself. My tendency is to ignore or even run from those ugly parts of myself; instead filling myself with activities. Yet over time I have learned to slow down and truly accept, embrace, and even hug all of myself.

How can we learn from this story and learn from Elton John staying sober for over thirty years now? How do we learn from the reality that he confesses to still being a shopaholic, that we never fully remove our cactus?

What from your past needs a hug right now?

‘How can you integrate the trauma and wounds from your childhood into a more honest and wholistic self? Finally, how can you “pay it forward” by sharing your cactus hugging journey with others who have not yet had the opportunity to integrate their past with their present?

[i] Rocketman, directed by Dexter Fletcher (Paramount Pictures, 2019).

[ii] Quoted from the spoken word “Narrative Theology” from the 2010 album Hymns to Swear By.