Within each of us there is an expansive world of thoughts and feelings whose movements determine how we perceive and experience the world outside of us. While this inner-world of thoughts and feelings may not directly bring us what we see, it does profoundly influence how we see our world of relationships and events. In other words, we are seeing the exterior but experiencing the interior. One simple example of how this works is experienced when our heart is heavy or troubled. Whenever we happen to feel this way, everything else around us tends to appear equally dark. But there are far deeper implications to this important insight. With patient self-study we can turn it into a personal breakthrough of the most freeing kind that can lift us to a brand new world.
All of us have felt, at one time or another, trapped in our own life. During these periods of heightened unhappiness we sit convinced that were it not for this unpleasant person or that unfavorable condition, we would be well on our way to realizing our greater potential, instead of being stuck where we are. Over and over again we plan our escapes, and over and over again we seem to return to the same sad state of feeling caged in or confined. For all of our efforts, nothing really changes. New loves, new jobs, even new homes change only the walls that surround us -- not our feelings of being imprisoned. We sense that all we have done is changed cells! And that's right. But listen to me. We mustn't fight with or in any way fear this shocking conclusion. Why? Because this temporarily disturbing discovery about our actual condition contains a crucial insight. It was never that person or circumstance that was blocking our moment in the sun. No! In spite of how things may appear to us, we are never trapped by where we are. The trap is always who we are. Here is a short summary of this new and unusual self-discovery:
When you run into a personal obstacle, you have not run into an outer condition that is denying you happiness. You have run into your own present life-level.
Persistence is everything in your personal work. You must persist even if it is only with your wish to be persistent. You must persist in spite of all forces that seem to be against your wish to break through to a New You. Believe me, there are no real obstacles to keep you from making it all the way to a Brand New World. Remember this. With any true inner-growth, the hardest step is always the one you have never taken before. The greater the doubt you will step across, the greater the possibility for walking beyond yourself, because doubt and fear form the perimeter of all self-limiting barriers. Risk only comes into account in the self-limited view of seeing life as a win/lose scenario.
When self-discovery becomes more important than winning, then every situation in life presents you with an opportunity to win in a new way because every time you step past yourself, you win a little more freedom .... freedom to take another and yet another step into the great unknown where eventually, with persistence, fear turns into fearlessness.