“All that we are arises with our thoughts.”—Buddha

It’s been hailed by business gurus, professors, psychologists, marriage counselors, and even scientists for the lessons it contains.

While, at first glance, it may appear to be just another Bill Murray comedy, the movie “Groundhog Day” is filled with some surprisingly deep messages—so much so that it has inspired philosophical discussions, and even college courses, on the meaning of life. Written by Danny Rubin and directed by Harold Ramis, this 1993 movie also sparked the interest of religious circles with its universal themes.

That’s exactly the predicament Phil Connors, an egotistical, self-centered weatherman, with a desire to get ahead at any cost, finds himself in.

Phil begrudgingly heads to the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where, along with his producer Rita and cameraman Larry, he goes to cover the Feb. 2 event of Groundhog Day. Phil believes the people of Punxsutawney to be simple-minded and pathetic, and the event to be ridiculous and beneath him. After half-heartedly covering the event, he’s eager to escape the small town, but finds himself trapped by a snowstorm.

The next morning, Phil awakens to the sound of his clock radio playing the same program, and to the same people walking to Gobbler’s Knob. Confused, Phil heads down the stairs of his bed-and-breakfast only to discover that everyone he encounters is saying and doing the exact same thing as yesterday.

As the day, and, ultimately, days, wear on, Phil discovers that he’s trapped, reliving the same despised day endlessly, in a sort of supernatural time loop.

Phil goes through a range of emotions, attitudes, and understandings. It’s as if he’s going through mini reincarnations of himself, only he can remember each one clearly.

Initially, he’s rude, cynical, and arrogant. He thinks only of himself, and takes advantage of others without giving it a second thought. Then, as he realizes there are no consequences for his actions, he happily indulges himself. From stealing money, to seducing women, to gorging on junk food, he attempts to satisfy his every desire.

But these desires eventually lose their appeal. Phil grows bored, and begins to fear that he may never escape his fate.

With no hope in sight, he becomes angry, depressed, and frustrated. Despondent, he then tries to kill himself—in every way he can think of. But no matter what he does, Phil awakens to the same radio host saying the same thing every morning. “OK, campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ‘cause it’s cold out there.” For Phil, it’s cold every single day. Phil has been trapped for years, possibly decades. Through it all, he tries to win over his producer Rita, a sweet, kind, and generous person. She is everything Phil is not. At first, Phil uses manipulation and deceit to try to seduce her, but she sees his true intentions, and he never succeeds.

Finally, in desperation, he confesses his plight to her. After spending the day with him, Rita has her own take on things, “Sometimes I wish I had a thousand lifetimes. I don’t know, Phil. Maybe it’s not a curse. Just depends on how you look at it.”

And suddenly, a lightbulb goes off.

This shadow symbolizes the hidden part of ourselves, the part that we don’t want others to see, the part that we may try to ignore or may even be hidden from us. It’s the thing we may flee by watching television, drinking, or keeping ourselves so busy we are never left alone with our thoughts. But seeing our shadow offers a chance to do something about it, and therein lies our hope. It is only by uncovering and acknowledging our shadow that we start to change the undesirable parts of ourselves.

When we look inside ourselves and examine our underlying motivation, we may find that we are full of things that don’t align with who we truly want to be.

For example, is our motive for helping another person genuine and pure? Or are we doing it because we want to be viewed in a positive light, or perhaps be rewarded in some way? Or maybe our motivation is to ultimately make things easier and more comfortable for ourselves.

While we all have the ability to make some changes in our lives, our external realities are also fixed in many ways. Though the details vary, most of us have a job or school we must go to, a family to tend to, we must sleep, and we must eat, among other things.

How we choose to conduct ourselves, and respond to what’s around us, is often the only thing we really have control over. And our thinking and our actions can have a powerful impact.

I once had a job where a co-worker and I sometimes butted heads. We both wanted to control certain aspects of things, and we would vie and compete to have things go our way. Eventually, I began to dislike going to work. I felt stuck and powerless as the same issues happened over and over again. Then, one day I thought, “I have to go to work either way, so I can go to work and be happy, or I can go to work and be miserable. It’s all up to me.”

With that thought, the situation changed. As I let go of my competitiveness and combativeness with her, and my concern for how others saw me in the office, and replaced it with a cooperative and pleasant demeanor, I was amazed at how quickly my surroundings changed.

It’s a matter of where we place our attention, something known as mindfulness.

What we choose to focus on says a lot about who we are. In dealing with my co-worker, I realized that the things that annoyed me about her were actually reflections of things within myself—the shadow things that I didn’t like to look at, and that I really wasn’t aware of on the surface. It was an opportunity for me to examine and improve myself. Had I kept focusing on the need for her to change, rather than myself, I would have missed this opportunity for improvement.

By default, we usually take the perspective of wanting to have our difficulties end as soon as possible. We view them as bad things, in which case, we might ignore them, run away from them, respond unkindly toward others, harbor resentment, feel angry, or a host of other unhelpful responses.

As Phil comes to realize that he cannot do anything to help himself, he becomes interested in seeing if he can help others. His thoughts, values, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors all shift. With this pivotal change in his thinking, he chooses a path of redemption, and ultimately, frees himself from his own prison.

As Rubin says, “The absolute worst day of Phil’s life took place under the exact same conditions as the absolute best day of Phil’s life.” It’s not the town that changed, not the people, circumstances, or events. The only thing that changed is Phil, himself.

But to arrive there wasn’t easy. Phil had to learn that life is not something to be fought against or controlled, but yielded to, like a willow tree in a storm. Phil’s story is a process of change, but it took a certain type of change—the change of becoming a person who helps others without selfish pursuit.

The brilliance of the time loop is it proves that when all external factors are accounted for, and made null by remaining the same, the only factor that can truly bring about change is to change ourselves.

I read that when Harold Ramis was making the film, he originally imagined that it would take Phil 10,000 years of reliving the same day to get it right. Ultimately, Ramis settled on somewhere around 40 years.

None of us knows how many years we have to work on getting right. Perhaps there’s a theme or difficulty in your own life that keeps repeating, in its own never-ending time loop. And maybe, just maybe, it’s trying to get your attention, to give you an opportunity to look at yourself so you can get past what limits you today so you can become someone better tomorrow.

Don’t let it go to waste.