Inspired to Reality

The most liberating lesson I can offer to find happiness is that the only chains that ever bind us are only in our mind. They usually take the forms of habits. There are useful habits that bring us health and joy, such as diet and exercise. As well there are detrimental habits that bring pain and sorrow, such as self-doubt and addictions. You only need identify the ones you want to change and put the energy and time to make it happen.

To illustrate the powers of habits, I like to use the example of how trainers use to break circus elephants. When a baby elephant was born it was chained to a heavy steel stake with enough chain to move in a small radius. The young elephants would struggle to break the chain, but eventual accept their fate and stops pulling on the chains. As they grow, they are actually given thinner and thinner chains and eventually it is simply a rope with a 2 ft wooden stake in the ground. See at first they struggle, but finally they give up and just think it is worthless to try to escape. This result in a mighty 6 ton elephant being held back by something a small child could pull out of the ground. There is also a story of how a fire ravaged a building holding a number of elephants tied with these ropes. All the elephants were found dead, with the ropes completely burned up. Each one possessed the strength to pull that stake up and tear through any of the walls. They thought they couldn’t…so they didn’t.

So I ask to look at your life and see what chains do you think bind you and hold you back from true happiness. Are these chains as strong as you think or are you more powerful than you have imagined? Either way, I know you would be able to break them with a snap if you only tried.

Share This