So What’s So Bad about Veruca Salt?
Do you remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? That was one of my favorite books as a kid. As I’m sure you remember, there’s a little girl in the story named Veruca Salt who is supposed to be a cautionary character, illustrating a terrible character trait for a child to have which is this: she knows what she wants and she demands that she get it. As soon she discovers that she wants something, she demands that it be hers. In our culture, as the book illustrates very clearly, we call a child who does this a “spoiled brat.”
What I Realized
But, I had a powerful insight last night. I went to bed, feeling a deep feisty determination to achieve an important goal that I have. I thought: I want it now! Universe, give it to me now!
And then, I realized I sounded just like Veruca Salt. I realized that in our lives and in our culture overall, we have been taught not be like Veruca. That being like her is BAD. As a result, many of us feel like our strength of will is not as strong as we would like it to be. For myself, I am capable of getting very inspired and I am absolutely open to my heart showing me new wonderful ideas that I would like to experience and master. However, at times, I find myself losing steam, even on ideas that truly inspire me. Particularly before I learned EFT and meditation, I would let those horrible negative beliefs take over and drown out the inspiration and the will to achieve whatever my heart had been calling me to do.
Which brings us back to Veruca Salt. That girl knew how to get what she wanted.
“Don’t care how, I want it NOW!”
Imagine having that kind of strength of will. I’m telling you, when that girl grows up, she is going to get what she wants in life.
Seriously?
Oh I know, on the down side, there’s that part of her that epitomizes the potentially never-ending feeling of need and dissatisfaction, the seeking outside of ourselves for happiness and well-being. Okay, if that’s part of what she was feeling, then she needs to deal with that in order to be truly, unconditionally happy. (And I can help her with that with a little tapping. 🙂 )
But you know what? I remember that Veruca Salt really enjoyed herself in that chocolate factory. She ran through the Chocolate Room, eating and playing with the rest of them. It’s just that when she wanted something, she expected to get it.
And I know that the book and movie show her wanting lots of material things, which of course we all do. That’s a whole other can of worms… our negative beliefs about whether it’s okay to want lots of “stuff.” What I say is that we are physical beings and it’s wonderful and fun to have things that are beautiful and enjoyable in our lives.
She Shows Us the First Step to Get What We Want
I imagine that Veruca’s also got a strong sense of herself and what she wants to do with her time and her life. I doubt that she would compromise on her vision for her life and she would never take no for an answer. Imagine what she’d say to someone who told her she couldn’t do what she dreamed of with her life. And could you see Veruca Salt spending 30 years at a job that bored her when she grew up? Not likely.
So, what negative beliefs come up when you think about Veruca Salt?
How about some of these to start:
- She’s a spoiled brat.
- She’s mean to the other kids because she pushes to get in first.
- She’s always asking for what she wants and it annoys other people.
- She can’t just be happy with what she has.
- She keeps asking her father for what she wants and she knows he will give her anything if she is persistent enough. And she usually doesn’t even have to be very persistent to get it.
- She is willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants.
- Willy Wonka and the others don’t like her because of this.
Icky. Those are some icky beliefs. If you take a step back, can you see what effect beliefs like these have on us collectively and on each of us personally?
Here’s what I say: knowing what you want and being determined to do whatever it takes to get it is GOOD.
It’s not a bad thing.
We have to be willing to be Veruca Salt! I’m serious. We have to learn to demand what we want, expect it to come to us, and not give up until we get it.
If you feel a lot of resistance to that idea, it’s is time to use EFT to get rid of your limiting beliefs. If you’re not familiar with EFT, I encourage you to sign up for my free eCourse where I’ll teach you how to use EFT and the five steps to living an inspiring life. You can sign up in the upper right corner of this page.
Give yourself permission to demand that the Universe give you everything you want out of life, just like Veruca does. You deserve it.
What’s Next…
In my next couple of posts, I’ll go over what happened to us and what we can do to strengthen our wills. You can also subscribe here to my blog to get notified of all my new posts and videos as they go up.
Thanks for reading. And please feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you think of Veruca Salt.
Live Your Dream. Your Inspiring Life
[…] I say, Veruca Salt rocks. In case you need a reminder, she’s the “spoiled brat” from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You can read my blog post about what I like about her here: So, What’s So Bad about Veruca Salt? […]