I read something recently that has stuck in my head. One of those great analogies that you chew on for days. I read that baby elephants are tied to a stake, so that they cannot leave. Try as they might, they struggle to break free, but the stake is too strong. When they have grown, they are strong enough to break free of the restraint, but they don't believe that they can. They have been conditioned to think that they are stuck, yet they have the means to move on. It made me think of how many ways I am tied at the stake believing that I cannot move. As a survivor of abuse as a child and as a young woman, I have had a lot of stakes planted on me.
As a child, I was made to believe that I was powerless. I had to have permission, instruction and guidance from a man to do just about anything. I know that it is a ridiculous thought, and I moved past it for the most part, but it paralyzes me sometimes. There are tons of silly things that I think I could not possibly do. It is strange. It is automatic, knee jerk reactions to things, yet when I think them through it is ridiculous. Car maintenance for example. When I need to have simple things done for my car like an oil change, my mind thinks that I have to have a man go do this for me. The mechanics at the oil change place will look at me like I am a stupid woman, and wonder why I did not have my husband take the car in. I know it sounds stupid, but I have been conditioned to think this will be their reaction. I think it through, take the car in and regardless what they think, they still change the oil. It takes freeing myself of those stakes repeatedly to condition myself into believing that I have truly been strong and free all along.
As a survivor, I am sure that I have more imagined restraints than most. I have been conditioned my whole life to believe that I am powerless. Now that there is no one to "tie me down", I work to pull up the stakes and realize my strength and freedom. I remind myself to be that baby elephant and fight the constraints and truly believe that I can be free.
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Comments: 31
Though I felt the freedoms you spoke of in another way, it was gratifying to read such a pertinent analogy that defined those lessons in a comprehensible context of normality, as to why I, too, ever let myself "go there." I can't thank you enough for sharing this.
PAY IT FORWARD
My eye opening experience was when I waited over an hour, tired and afraid because my car broke down in the desert. When my husband finally got there, it took five minutes for him to say, "Call the Auto Club." I felt a shot go through my dim brain that said, "I could have done that an hour ago." and now I do without coaching.
Donna ~ I was so LOL at your comment! Sounds like you were a little moneky : ).
PAY IT FORWARD
I search each day for "happy".I was never able to give that word definition;never having lived within a world that encompassed "normal".
To have a parent,guardian, or role model instill the notion that we live and motivate just for them,squashes growth of self esteem,maturity,or self worth.
To struggle at such a late stage in life produces many regrets.Regrets that cannot be corrected.What we could have become,given the freedom to develop our God given talents.
Please continue to share,Sue.You have said what many cannot.
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but, i can see you are very strong woman today...
God bless you...
There was a similar message in one section of a textbook I read recently, about dogs... but I didn't really relate to it... you've made it fit in a way that I will remember. Well done.