*****Please be aware there may be one or two spoilers. *****

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I recently went to see the new Disney movie Moana, and that I’ve fallen in love with this movie. It’s a beautiful movie that has yet another new Disney princess modeled after and telling the story of Polynesian culture. The beauty of it is that Moana, the new princess, is not your typical Disney princess. She’s actually pretty bad ass. She’s not looking to get married to the prince. She’s not looking to follow what her father and her mother have laid out for her life.

That’s pretty much the basis of the movie. Having a strong female figure like Moana in it is part of the reason that I loved the movie. It’s very well done and a great story. If you know me you know that the Polynesian culture is very near and dear to my heart, and so this is right up my alley.

The other central character is the demigod Maui. You may recognize that name as one of the Hawaiian Islands. I’ll leave it to you to look at your Hawaiian mythology to figure out that connection.

Yeah, Maui was an awesome character, a lot of fun to watch. He’s played by Dwayne the Rock Johnson which is even more amazing. It’s not amazing that Dwayne’s playing a demigod especially one that’s built like this, but the most amazing thing to me was Dwayne actually sings the part, and does an amazing job with it. Go and check it out. His mains song is called “You’re welcome.” It’s a beautiful song.

To add to it, one of the principle writers and musicians in the movie is Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is also the writer and producer of the hit Broadway show Hamilton. If you didn’t already have reason enough, there’s even more reason to go see the movie.

Disney does such a wonderful job of in telling this beautiful story. And in Moana, they weave in a number of very excellent life lessons. Moana is built on the framework of Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey.”

At one point Moana is led by her grandmother to a hidden tribal secret, a part of the tribal culture that was put away a long, long time. She leads her up the mountain and leads her to this hidden cave and points her into the cave, as the grandmother says, “Go on. You never know what you’ll find inside.”

There-in lies the lesson. The big metaphor there is not that what you’ll find inside the cave, is what she would find inside herself. The cave is a metaphor for her, her heart and her passion and direction in life. That’s really the thing about life, right? You never know what you’re going to find inside for yourself, especially if you never go looking. If all you do is sit at home in your nice comfortable air conditioned or heated home and never venture out, you are never going to find your true self. It’s only when you get outside your box, and start looking inside yourself, that your true identity starts to come out.

That’s where you really get connected up with your higher power or God or the universe or whatever it is you believe in. The connection’s through your heart. It’s not through your head. Always remember that. You’ll never know what you find inside, but what you find inside is going to be the most true identity of yourself that you’ve ever know. I encourage you to look inside and find that for yourself.