Become a lake...
“It all depends on how we look at things, and not how
they are in themselves.”
-- C.G. Jung
Hi everyone,
Here’s a lovely story that helps explain the power of
shifting perspective to get a bigger picture that frees
us.
An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice
complaining, so one morning, he instructed the unhappy
young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water
and then to drink it.
"How does it taste?" the master asked.
"Bitter," spit the apprentice.
The master then asked the young man to take another
handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked
in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice
swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man
said, "Now drink from the lake."
As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the
master asked, "How does it taste?"
"Fresh," remarked the apprentice.
"Do you taste the salt?" asked the master.
"No," said the young man.
The master explained, "The pain of life is pure salt;
no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains
exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we
taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So
when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to
enlarge your sense of things... Stop being a glass.
Become a lake."
-- Unknown Source
How can this story support us? Let me share my own
experience.
My computer crashed recently - my own version of a
glass of salt water! As I got back on track, I
transformed the glass into the lake when I reminded
myself that...
-
This too shall pass - it is only a little blip in the
unfolding of my life
-
I had the money to buy a new computer - I could
solve this problem.
-
New computers are less expensive but more amazing
than ever before.
-
I have John beside me to help tackle the challenge.
You get the picture.
Any time we can shift perspectives
to see our pain in context in the bigger picture, we
free ourselves from that pain.
And the Re-treat Yourself questions we wrote about last
week offer super support to help you do this regularly.
At the bottom of every Growth Tools ezine, we link you
to the top 10 questions you can ask yourself each day,
week, month and quarter year so you can focus ON your
life instead of simply struggling IN your life. Last
week we offered quarterly smart questions and this week
you can zoom in and tune your goals with our monthly
retreat questions.
“
We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the
well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of
the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely
different view.
”
-- Mao Tse-tung
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