Stake in the Ground

Have you heard about how elephants were trained in the past? I personally love elephants and all the traits that they embody. Strength, stability, intelligence, long memory, love of family and community – the list could go on. Elephants are also an extremely important contributor to their environment. And where elephants are indigenous, humans have for a long time also trained them to help with those tasks that are too physically strenuous for us. We have elephants carry or pull heavy items or use them for transportation. And don’t get me started about the circus..

But how is training an elephant even possible, since they are so much larger than us, and are indeed incredibly intelligent? The old way was a lot of negative reinforcement and stress. I want to point out one method that has particular meaning for us, and the reason I bring it up today. WARNING: this isn’t pretty. When the elephant is young, they tie it to a stake in the ground or something similar. The baby elephant is unable to break free from it. That baby elephant struggles and struggles with it for hours, days, weeks, until they finally give up. They give up, and become accustomed to the fact that when they are tied, they cannot get free.

Fast forward to the time when that baby elephant grows up. When they are tied, they STILL BELIEVE that they cannot break free. That silly rope or stake in the ground wouldn’t be able to hold an adult elephant – but they don’t even TRY. They are unaware that circumstances have changed, their conditioning has them in a FIXED MINDSET.

We too are very easily stuck in fixed mindsets. We are somehow convinced that life is fixed. That there are some things that never change, some things that we can never change. It was our upbringing, or “the system”, or just how life turned out. Well guess what? Your life is NOT OVER, so however it has turned out so far, it always has further potentials. If we take the example of our elephant friends, we see that circumstances DO change. Life is in evolution ALL THE TIME and the deeper truth is that NOTHING is ever the same forever.

Now thinking this way might make you feel a little uneasy, “so that means I can’t count on anything”, you might say. No, I would counter that you can count on the very fact that you have the power to do ANYTHING, because there is NOTHING holding you back. When it is all in flux, you get to choose the direction in which you flow.

So lift that stake out of the ground that has held you back – UNLEASH yourself, because it is time. You ARE strong enough, you ARE powerful, you ARE a part of the divine!

 

P.S. If you’d like to contribute in some way toward the future of our beloved elephants, https://www.savetheelephants.org/ is a trusted and effective charity!