“As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.”
He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller, we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.
Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?
Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.”
I chanced upon this story while I was browsing the Internet and wanted to share this revealing thought that each of us has tied ourselves voluntarily to our fears, low confidence levels and self esteem as well as to others. Do you know that these emotions of “feeling tied up” actually manifest in our body? Under hypnosis, many of my clients have actually described the ropes around their feet and ankles and have tried to break free of them during the session. It is the perception of their inability to move on in life due to their inability to let go of the past episodes and feelings that arose from them.
Just like the elephant in the story, these ropes are tied to us during our formative years, sometimes through conditioning and being dictated to, sometimes through intimidation or a demand for subjugation to an elder and sometimes just from our own lack of energy or incentive to break away. At the core of all this is our ignorance which makes us believe we are powerless to break free.
When people have come and told me they are very contented and have none of the fears similar to what I am talking about here, their body language, their facial expressions have often betrayed their false bravado. It is not easy to let go of attachments, either to people or to places. We even get attached to events, especially those that are unsavory. We hold on to them, relive them, feel the emotions again and again, deepening the effects of those emotions rather than letting them go as meaningless and detrimental to us. Later, these emotions convert into envy or dislike and even hatred which can manifest even in crime in extreme cases. All this starts within us due to our inability to let go of the past and break free from the bondage perceived by our mind and emotions, thus “nipping in the bud” what can be a threat to our well being.
It seems unpalatable that despite the higher intelligence we humans are gifted with, our free will and choices don’t conform to this intelligence because the mind seems to be ego driven. Somewhere along the way, the ego dominates the intelligence and reduces or bypasses all knowledge that, I believe, we all have within us but don’t choose to illuminate ourselves with, at the best of times or the worst of times.
Surekha Kothari
surekhakothari.wordpress.com
Speakingtree Blog: www.speakingtree.in/public/surekhakothari
