Movies that Heal: How Films Help Personal Well-being

Bettina M Brown: 0:06

Hello and welcome to In the Rising a health and wellness podcast for those going through and those supporting those going through cancer. My name is Bettina Brown and I'm board certified in physical therapy, wound care and lymphedema, and you know, for me cancer is very personal. It's affected my friends, my immediate and my not so immediate family, and therefore I created this podcast and fit after breastcancercom to address the multiple dimensions of our lives during and after recovery. Jesus loves movies. Is that the first thing that you would think about when you're going through grief, about what can help you move through things? Movies. And what about looking at how Jesus would interpret a movie, how he would have experienced it? So, obviously, from the title of this podcast and from what I've just said, if anything faith related is something that is not of interest for you, then this podcast episode is not going to be the one for you, but for everyone else. I was really excited to speak with my guest, phil Strangolagali, who used movies to help himself and decided to write about it and write a devotional of how movies can help others. So I'm really thrilled that you're here and to listen to our conversation. Phil, I am excited to speak with you today because you're the author of Jesus Loves Movies, you know a 30 day devotional for film fans. I was already at Jesus Loves Movies, I was like, yes, yes, he does, and what you're using are movies to help you out in life, and I want to go into that. But I also want to just tell you that I am excited that you're an author, because a lot of people I don't know what the statistics are, 90 some people want to write a book. 3% do less than that actually publish it. So to go out there, be vulnerable, put your name on something takes a huge risk and I just want to acknowledge that first and foremost.

Phil Strangolagalli: 2:20

Yeah, I appreciate that, and it was definitely a vulnerable process. It felt like my heart was out there for everybody to see, and that still sometimes feels like that.

Bettina M Brown: 2:30

So yes, yes, so you are a film fanatic.

Phil Strangolagalli: 2:35

Absolutely.

Bettina M Brown: 2:35

Yeah, love your films. Love your films. What made you decide to use a movie reference for a topic such as like a devotional? Where did that?

Phil Strangolagalli: 2:46

Yeah. So that really came from some deep trauma that I went through back in 2017. I had a lot taken from me in my life, a lot of plans that I had. I was engaged at the time and we're married now my wife and I, which is really awesome. But the moments leading up to that and being engaged, there were all these plans that came with that and I had a really great job, had a lot of plans. A lot of really great things are happening. It felt like nothing was stopping me and then, all of a sudden, something happened traumatic, wrong and there were a lot of those scenarios that happened and I felt like a lot was taken from me in my life. I felt like here I was. I had trained so hard to get where I wanted to be and eventually I was with this specific job, with this specific company. These guys they just wanted me to lie. They wanted me to lie on all their activity and what they were doing, because if we lied, we would keep our jobs and we would show that we needed more money in order to continue on and really keep our jobs. So I didn't want to lie, I didn't want to do any of that stuff and I got a lot of pressure and a lot of name calls, a lot of that stuff, and it was really tough Because here I am, I'm feeling bright and shiny and ready to go and ready for the world and ready this is about two years after I finished college to have all that taken from me in a really unjust way. It was really tough. I was at a really low place in 2017, a really, really low place in my life where I felt like I had no purpose and that there was no meaning and honestly, I like to think of my 2017 as a lot of what 2020 felt like for a lot of us, and that's really what 2017 felt like. It felt like I was exiled, I was away from everything. I felt isolated and I started watching movies. I started watching movies. I've always watched movies, I've always loved movies, but there was a specific movie that I watched the Count of Monte Cristo came out in 2002. But obviously there have been so many iterations of that story, so that story is a very well-known story and it really struck me. I really thought that this guy, edmund Dantes in the story. It just spoke to me. I felt like I was in his shoes. I felt like because he had everything going well in his life, he was engaged, ready to be married, he was promoted, he had all these things going on in his life and then all of a sudden, one of his friends gets really close, gets really jealous and falsely accuses him of doing something wrong, sends him to a prison island, to chateau-dief, and honestly I felt like that. So I watched that movie like no joke, no lie, three times in a row and I started writing. And I was crying and writing, realizing that movies were a safe space for me to go. And so that's where I went. I started watching movies and I started feeling like a connection between these movies and my life and, honestly, this whole journey, this whole book, it was a grief journal. It was a grief journal for one of my toughest times in my life and I never planned on it becoming a book, but it did become a book.

Bettina M Brown: 6:30

And with that I think a lot of us, if someone talks that way about music, we're like oh yeah, those are my sad songs, those are my breakup songs, these are my happy songs. And a lot of us we don't think or in our conversation, don't automatically go to movies, but they also. Movies pull you in, you identify with characters, you get mad at characters because they represent something you like or you see in yourself or see in someone else or situation. You wrote this grief journal. You're writing. You're writing, you're pulling this out. When did you think let me, what other movies can I go to after the Count of Monochrist? So how did that path kind of develop for you?

Phil Strangolagalli: 7:14

It was really a path of like honestly watching films and kind of having like different eyes to where I was, like how did Edmund feel? I felt like the way Edmund felt in this specific situation. And then I went back to a movie that I watched when I was a little kid and that was Toy Story and honestly, I felt like Woody in a toy chest that moment when Andy says I don't want to play with you anymore. A Buzz is my shiny new toy. And, without going in specifics to the specific situation that I went through, I felt rejected. I felt rejected, I felt not wanted. And how many of us have felt rejected, how many of us have felt not wanted? You know what's the relation to that, what's the relation to that spiritually? And you know I'm a faith-based guy and I believe Jesus. He was rejected and if there's anybody that knows what it's like to be rejected, it's him. And you know I started really connecting on that deep level and you know it was tough. But you know there's a lot of drawing out from those films and you know, yeah, there are a lot of films like, especially, you know, even the children's films that really shine a light on a lot of these issues like rejection and acceptance.

Bettina M Brown: 8:38

And I heard a pastor say one time if you ever feel rejected, no, you have, you're in good company. So there is that, and with that too, your faith-based guy. Have you for your own situation? Have you always been fairly strong with your faith, or was that something you pulled back up because of this low in your life?

Phil Strangolagalli: 8:58

No, yeah, when I was 16 years old I was one. I really committed my life, you know, to God. You know, and that was when I went through, you know something in which I prayed a real prayer, and I was like God, if you're real, show me that you're real. I plug myself in everywhere I tried to find, you know, any sort of information I could you know about what I was doing and you know what I was following and you know all this stuff and who I was following. It was a journey, for sure. And then I went to Nye at college, which really set the tone for the foundation of my life, honestly, and I took classes. I took this one-class personal spiritual formation. It was literally about dealing with your junk in your life and learning to walk with that and learning to move through that. And that's where this exercise of the grief journal came from, and I took a lot of those principles and kind of enacted it out in life.

Bettina M Brown: 10:02

And, yeah, and so you got to this place. A lot of us make big changes and you hear it from different people it's in the lows of their life that changes their life. That then leads them to make and help others make changes as well. Looking back from that rejection and how you felt grief we don't need to go to specifics, but we can all relate to some episodes in life like that. Yeah, what do you feel was like one trigger that really helped transition you to where you are now?

Phil Strangolagalli: 10:36

I'll be completely honest with you. I'm still doing, you know, I'm still going to counseling or you know all that stuff. I believe in counseling. I believe, you know, that people should be taking care of their mental health. In 2017, when everything was really fresh for me and the wound was really open wide, it was difficult for me to deal with. I would see cars, I would see people, I would see certain things and it would just set me off and it was a process of me forgiving forgiving these people that wronged me and realizing that I needed to move forward. And then I needed to continue to forgive and bless and love, and it was just so counter cultural and something I really I was always practicing for. And then this was game time, you know, and I needed to do it, and you know I still do it. I still do it today and you know it's gotten way easier the process and, yeah, it's definitely gotten way easier.

Bettina M Brown: 11:33

Yeah, yeah, and I like how you mentioned we all need to adjust and pay attention to our mental health, like we, we're all about fitness, but we also have this emotional well-being and, for those of us that believe in our faith, a faithful well, a faith well-being as well. So you're this author. Jesus loves movies. How did you pick these movies? Like, where did this come from? Is this part of your grief journal? You're like, well, I saw this movie.

Phil Strangolagalli: 12:04

It honestly was. It was a process in which, you know, I just I was watching movies during that period of time and I just I started realizing that there were deeper messages and there were messages that were speaking right to me right in that season. And you know, I watched and then I also rewatched some films and yeah, I just I just kept kept doing that and you know it was, it was definitely a process, you know, in terms of I guess I wouldn't say like figuring out the movies, but it was. It was definitely like this is these are the movies that I needed to add. You know, the if somebody else were to write a book, sort of like this. You know people have. You know, in certain ways, I have a friend, kathleen Falsani, she's she's wrote the Dude of Bides. Mark Pinsky, he wrote the the gospel according to Disney, and you know, I've I remember reaching out to them and you know, kind of asking about their process and what they, you know, were going for. Yeah, it was. It was sort of a different approach for me. You know, it didn't necessarily come from like this gigantic analysis approach, but like more of a philosophical. And how can I use this? How can I use this to help my life. You know how can I use, how can I use these messages to help my life? And yeah, it was definitely a process, especially, you know some people I when it was 2019, and you know, I went to Georgia. I had the amazing opportunity to go to Georgia and do like a whole bunch of book signings and it was definitely a process. When you know, people would pick up my book and they would turn the book around and then they would see the H word and that's the genre that you don't talk about, so to speak, in the church, and that's the horror genre. I put some horror films in there because I really connected with horror films. I went through horror in my life and I connected with horror films because you know, if there's anybody again, if there's anybody that understands horror you know more than us it's Jesus. I mean, he went through. He went through the worst horror that anybody's ever gone through and you know that's that's kind of where I came from and yeah, it was a lot of that process. Yeah.

Bettina M Brown: 14:27

You said here, too, that you've received emails, letters saying how you know people say this book impacted me, it changed how I feel. What kind of what does that make you feel about your experience? And writing this down? How do you, how do you process when you receive words like that?

Phil Strangolagalli: 14:46

You know it helps me feel. I remember when I wrote this and you know, when I was about to publish the book, I was like, listen, if this impacts one person's life, it's done its job. Like it's impacted me. Yeah, yeah. But when I got some of those letters, especially like letters that I never thought I would get letters from, like you know whether it's you know people that I really look up to, they sent me letters and all that there was this one letter in particular that I got from a guy in Virginia and he messaged me and he was like you helped me see why I love horror movies. And you know he was like I went through horror in my life and I think you know it was that whole reality of helping people see that they weren't alone that there was hope in the midst of their you know really terrible circumstances or really traumatic circumstances, and that there was hope in the midst of it. You know the book's not cookie cutter, it's not. It's not like a cookie cutter type of book. You know, I've had people from all walks of life read it. You know, not just a faith-based background or anything and they've taken lessons out of it and realized that they weren't alone. And if I was able to provide something like that for people to feel like they're not alone, I mean it's done its job like tenfold.

Bettina M Brown: 16:07

Yeah, yeah. So this place right now. You know you're still moving up and my podcast is called In the Rising and sometimes I like to ask people where do you see yourself still rising up to with your work or your process?

Phil Strangolagalli: 16:23

Yeah. So I am super thankful because the end of 2019, you know came and that was when I did, you know, my book signings over in Georgia, and then the year of 2020 came. I had 12 book signings for the year of 2020. We all know what happened in the year 2020. Okay, yeah, we all know what happened in the year 2020. It wasn't until about last week that I heard from a Barnes and Noble store that they are actually resuming book signings. So there could be a possibility for me to be able to go back on that and, you know, have some conversations with you know, bookstores you know all throughout the States and maybe get some of those book signings back. So there was some hope there and, you know, hopefully that works out. You know that's something that I'm trying to do just to really get the message out there. To get the message out there for people to see that there's hope. There's hope in film and people are not alone.

Bettina M Brown: 17:24

And people are not alone. That is, that's a huge message. Right there you have this book out. Tell people how they can learn more about you, learn more about the book, how they can reach out to you.

Phil Strangolagalli: 17:36

Websites jesuslovesmoviescom. You know there's a shop button on there. The book is in all different formats ebook, audio book, paperback obviously.

Bettina M Brown: 17:47

All right, thank you so much. Thanks again for your time. Yeah, for sure. Have you ever wondered why you're drawn to certain movies or certain shows? You know, it was not until I had this conversation with Phil that I realized my own affinity towards certain movies at certain points in my life and understanding that they have a therapeutic effect just as much as a counseling session or a book or a self-help meeting or a support group. There are so many ways that we can help support ourselves and those we love with things that are around us, but it may take a little change in perspective. So everything regarding Phil is down in the description below. I really appreciate your time, because that's the one thing we will not get back, and so I would love it if you left a five-star review, because it will do so much for this podcast and putting it in the hands and ears of those that need it most. Until next time, let's keep building one another up.