Rip the band-aid off

So I was over at my new found friend, Valerie's page today and she posted this analogy I've heard before but is so very good.

"If you have ever been to a circus, perhaps you have seen six-ton elephants tethered by rope to little wooden stakes. Have you ever wondered why one of these powerful animals doesn't yank that stake out of the ground and stampede off? When the elephants are young and powerless, they are attached by heavy chains to immovable steel stakes. The baby elephants tug and pull, but no matter how hard they try, the chains will not come out of the ground. As the elephants grow and get stronger, they come to believe that they cannot move anywhere as long as there is a stake in the ground nearby, no matter how tiny or weak the stake. They don't try to break loose because they think they can't. So it is with people. If you are like those circus elephants, you've allowed your thoughts and actions to limit you, and like those elephants, you may not have been aware that you had choices. Well, you may not have been aware before, but I'm telling you now that you do have choices, you do have power, now you know. You don't have to stay mindlessly tied to stakes of wrong thinking and self-destructive behavior. You can pull up the stakes of wrong thinking and self-destructive behavior. You can "pull up the stakes," transcend your conditioning, and reprogram yourself for success rather than failure."
--The Ultimate Weight Solution by Dr. Phil McGraw

This mindset is so parrallel to anything that keeps us bound in life - for the sake of this blog, namely weight loss. After so many failed attempts its easy to start taking mental note of all your failed attempts and the pain associated with failing and each time the fear grows a little bit stronger. You hate failure. You hate defeat. You hate the shame. The guilt. The pain associated with struggling.

So you simply give up...

That's accepting defeat and choosing bondage over freedom. All the while you can be free but you are allowing the past to keep you from succeeding. This isn't just with weight loss folks, this is ANYTHING that has us bound. Seriously - the first time I heart this analogy shared, it was by my pastor during a church prayer meeting. I remember it hit my like stakes through the heart because I related to it SO WELL. I actually responded during the service by saying, "You know - the thing about that analogy is in the physical, there most likely WILL be some pain associated with getting free. Having to glimpse at the past, irritate some old wounds, possible emotion stress of numerous time of failing - HOWEVER - it's made out to be a mountain when it's really a mole hill." The more we dwell on that "stake," that thing we are tied to, the greater the issue seems to be and the harder it appears to receive the freedom. It's seems "easier" to stay tied up, not going anywhere, no joy - yet no extreme pain! Fair trade, right? NOT!

There is SO much more for us in life - sometimes you just have to flat out rip the bandage off a wound for it to be fully healed.

If there is ANYTHING keeping you bound today - anything you are tied down to and feel as though you can't be freed. I promise you, there is freedom, there is hope. The process may be a bit uncomfortable, you may have to revisit some issues you'd rather hide away - but the end result is breaking lose and being FREE!

Verse of the Day:

Galatians 5:1 (NIV)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.