I continued on my journey with a sense of hope and enthusiasm lifting my spirit and my heart. Throughout the day I played with the idea of ‘could’ imagining a myriad of possibilities. I felt a sense of lightness, which I had not previously experienced.
The light was fading when I reached a place to rest. Here, a small stream flowed into the river. I felt drawn to follow the stream to its source, rather than continue along the river. As I followed a winding path, I began to climb a gentle slope.
Soon, I found myself in an eerie setting with overhanging branches and gnarled undergrowth. Strange shadows fell in front of me. Disturbing sounds echoed behind me. Familiar tense feelings began to take hold.
Then I stopped and cast my mind back to the wall. I looked up at the trees and then higher to the setting sun. “It is just fear,” I said aloud. “I ‘COULD’ decide to give a new meaning to this situation. I felt the fear release a little. Then I thought about the word and started playing with the letters.
F.E.A.R,…… I ‘COULD’ rename it.
I thought of Claire and her advice.
F.E.A.R………. Face Everything And Recover.
Then I remembered my fear of the shadows from the night before at the Expectations Wall.
It was just F.E.A.R …….False Evidence Appearing Real.
All my fear instantly evaporated!
I sat and relaxed for a moment. I now had a new meaning for the word ‘FEAR’.
Then I thought about the headstones and all of the ‘shoulds’……….False Expectations Appearing Real.
I felt empowered…. I ‘COULD’ achieve my dreams!
With this new view and my spirits lifted I continued to climb. However, my present route following the stream was impeded, so I followed another path, taking me away from the stream. Finding the source proved to be more difficult than I had envisaged. I decided to find somewhere to rest and reflect for the night.
For hours I pondered finding the source of the stream until I finally realised that discovering the source wasn’t important. The stream was really a metaphor. I was searching for the source of something else, the essence of something, but it was elusive at this time.
So I set my intention and trusted that I would find what I was looking for at the right time. Then I fell asleep.
The next day I rejoined the stream and made my way back to the river. It was an overcast, dreary day with the strong possibility of rain. It reminded me of my time with Bec and I realised how much I had changed.
I pondered the changes and spent the day deep in thought, until I decided to break for a while to enjoy the sights and sounds and beauty of the river. I did not expect to discover a fish that had obviously jumped and become stranded on the bank. I headed straight for it. I could see it flipping and flopping, turning in circles, moving nowhere. Then it came to a complete standstill. I hopped down the bank and eased the fish back into the water and watched it swim away.
In that instant I thought of my own mind going round and round in circles. I recalled suddenly the saying that I had heard…..
‘Analysis leads to paralysis’.
I realised that if you have thought your way into a problem, you can’t think your way out of the problem.
Doing something helped the fish. Doing something different and taking action always helped my mind. I dwelled on this insight for the rest of the day.
I awoke to sunlight and the promise of a beautiful day. As I carried on, my mind kept flitting back to earlier parts of my journey. Maybe it was this flitting about that reminded me of Vinny or maybe it was just that I was feeling so positive.
I thought about how far I had progressed and how positive I felt, and I knew that Vin would have been proud. Yet I also knew that I did not owe the change in my thinking to the dragonfly’s notions of ‘positive thinking’. I could not quite ascertain exactly why Vinny’s technique had not worked.
Mulling it over, I was on the point of passing by some compost when a large, fluorescent butterfly landed. I stopped for a moment to enjoy the exquisite colours of the insect’s wings as they fanned lazily in the sunlight. Suddenly, a thought popped into my head, ‘Positive thinking is like sprinkling sweet-smelling scent on manure’.
Vinny was only concerned with the sweet smelling scent. He totally forgot about the manure. Flowers grow better with manure in the soil. All our parts contribute to who we are. They create our experience. They cannot be just buried and overlooked and covered with sweet-smelling positive thinking. We must use all our parts to help us create a wonderful experience.
Gazing at the contrast between the butterfly’s vibrant colours and the dull compost, colourless yet so full of potential life, I understood why the dragonfly’s method fell short of initiating a real change. Vinny had exhorted me to be positive, confident, and joyful but had not given me the way to change.