The Circus Elephant

I once read, and I am no longer sure where I read it, that circus elephants are brain washed to believe that they are not stronger than the rope that holds them down. As baby elephants they are tied down with heavy chains and as they try and free themselves, they are unable to. As time passes and the elephant grows in size and has the power to break away from this bond, it no longer believes it can.

This type of conditioning happens a lot in our own lives and yet most of us are not aware of it. We go through life having certain beliefs but without us challenging these beliefs , are we no different from the circus elephant?

For instance, when I was younger ( back up a few decades) I would constantly be bombarded by people telling me how skinny and weak I am. I had always wanted to join the volleyball team but was not able to serve the ball over the net. That was a major requirement at that time and probably today as well to be able to get on the team. So year after year ( okay two years of junior high) I would try out for the team and year after year I would get cut. My first year in high school, I did not even bother to try out as I believed it was pointless. I was a circus elephant but I wasn't even working for the circus. If it weren't for a substitute teacher coming in for physical education class that I had, I would have continue to be my own circus elephant.

The fact is in two years my body had gotten stronger and with a minor technique adjustment in my serving suggested by my substitute phys ed teacher, I was suddenly getting the ball over 99% of the time. In another years time, the under hand serve was history and I was serving over head.

How many of us still carry or hold the same belief system we had as a child? How many of us are not consciously aware that things that may have been "impossible" or "improbable" in the past may now be a "possible" ? There are many factors that changes in our lives yet for some reason we sometimes stay stagnant in the "impossible" sphere.

Try creating a list of all the "impossible" things in your life. These can be anything from relationships, phobias, trauma, physical ability etc. We may not discover everything on the list of "impossible" as it has been buried deep within us for so long. Start scratching the surface and you may find yourself surprised that all this time when you had the strength of an elephant to roam freely yet you chose to stand still with a frayed rope tied loosely around your leg and attached to a wooden peg. Circus Elephants they are every where.