Our recent experience at the VA America’s Mustang Extreme Mustang Makeover has left me so humbled. The three days of the expo were so seamless, easy and smooth. It was as if someone had purposefully designed the entire event so that we would have just the time we needed to prepare for each new task.
We are taught that the things we want should take hard work, they should take blood, sweat and tears. We should lose many times before we deserve to win. We should try and try again and try harder when trying was not enough the first time. Harder, faster, stronger. That is who comes out on top. And you should want to come out on top, because life is a race and your opponents are the other humans in life that want what you want. Beat them. Outrun them. Be better than them and you will find happiness.
But the more happiness that I discover, the more I succeed, the more I live out my dreams, the more I realize the above paragraph is as far from the truth as it could possibly be. I think the concepts stem from good intentions. The idea to never give up is a good one. But the idea that ‘never giving up’ means trying harder.
That, I just do not agree with.
Most of the time when we ‘try harder’ we simply dive deeper into the very rut that is holding us back in the first place. We must learn how to try ‘differently’ rather than harder and THAT is the hardest thing of all to do. The simple fact is, we cannot see our own roadblocks when they are our ‘own’ – meaning when we have decided to ‘own’ them. And it IS a decision, a choice, to own or not to own them.
I think this little story explains it best …
I bought a visor last weekend. It has those little torn places (that are supposed to be there, I guess it is ‘in style’) At first it drove me crazy, I saw the little frayed edges out of the corner of my eye constantly and was so distracted by them. I planned to trim them off as soon as I found some scissors. .. the day went on and gradually – I forgot. Gradually I forgot that I had wanted to trim the little threads, because my mind watched them for long enough that it decided I did not need to ‘notice’ them anymore and I just stopped seeing them.
For real, I did not even notice they were there unless I purposely LOOKED for them! As I laid the hat on the table and saw the threads once again, it dawned on me that I had wanted to trim them away. It also dawned on me that I was no longer bothered by them when wearing the visor! Now, this bothered me – I quickly found scissors and trimmed them away, determined to re-convince my mind that it was NOT ok with me for our view of life to always have dangly threads in the way, to NOT just IGNORE those dangly threads, to help me SEE them so I would know they were there so I could get RID of them. … I was a bit frustrated at my mind in that moment and I cut off those threads hastily! …. and then it dawned on me….
My mind HAD told me this was not right, at first the dangly threads had bothered me. It was my decision to IGNORE the ‘bother’ that caused my brain to move onto others things.
My mind was just acting as the tool that it is. A mere tool to enable me to see life in whatever way I choose to SEE it.
How many times are we blind to our dangly things in front of our very own eyes?? How many times do we have some pattern that has been planted within us for SO long that we can no longer see it? How many times does that very pattern prevent us from achieving what we desire and how many times do we just dig deeper and try harder and thus further secure our same old blinders, so that we remain stuck in our own view of this world? I know I have!
When I look at the Mustangs and what they accomplish so easily, I am reminded of how to find my way out of my own bottomless pits.
The clue is in the EASE of it all.
This does not mean that life is easy. One of the hardest things in life is to find your little dangly things that are right in front of your very own face. Those things blocking you from who you truly are. But the way to find them is through EASE, through peace and through release.
It is through setting free everything that we think we must have to find happiness that happiness bubbles up from within and then infinite experiences show up to reflect that happiness inside.
I know this is not a clear ‘how to’ guide and may leave you feeling a little lost as to what to do yourself to get rid of your ‘own’ dangly threads. It is much easier to say just ‘try harder’ at least then you know what to do, because you have done it before. But that is why it will never work, if it was going to work, it would have worked before.
Find the EASE that these Mustangs innately create. That is where we will all be free of our dangly threads and from there we can see whatever our heart desires. A trillion landscapes are waiting for us. Pick out your’s on purpose ….
Thank you Becki Crowder Wells for this image.