Building a Mountain

Building a Mountain.

So often we all get caught up with world events and our own busy lives, and we go on day after day with stressful encounters, either with family, friends or coworkers or with stressful activities, running from activity to activity. We lack the sleep, the appropriate amount of exercise, the correct well balanced food, and finally one day our systems just run out of gas. Too tired, too anxious or simply too fed up and frustrated, we give in. We have not had the chance to process our moment to moment stimulus that come at us in all shapes and forms and from all different directions. We carry each decision forward to the next one, sometimes processing the ideas  correctly and sometimes just flowing without truly understanding all implications of the decisions we make. We become automatons. Before you know it life has passed you by and the endless lists of things to do, places to go to visit, forgotten books to read, old friends to meet, infinite chores to be completed become just that, a thing of the past, a lost moment. You will always lose 100% of the opportunities that you do not take. 

We build barriers around ourselves to protect us from the additional strains and stresses of dealing with other life scenarios, instead of embracing them as events occurring on a stage, and realizing that we have total control of the choices we make. Every stone or rock takes time to layer up and eventually the rock pile becomes high enough to become a mountain. High enough of a mountain that eventually you cannot see the top, nor can you see over it. Trying to climb to the top then becomes an impossibility and you stay in the gorge or chasm ( depending on how big your mountain is !)  because it is less energy expenditure to climb out of it. You die without your dreams ever being fulfilled. Each painful encounter taken in fear, each tug in a non flowing direction ends up becoming the rock, no matter how small it starts of, it does add up with a cumulative effect and  the mountain is of our own creation. We make it as big as we choose to make it.

Some people recognize this concept earlier than others and devise ways of reducing the size of their mountain, reducing the stress and the tugs of mind, body and spirit. You too can live a happier life by not allowing this mountain to grow, and becoming your obstacle. Work or the amount of it, whether being at a job or at home, is not the cause of the rock formation, it is simply a conduit. It is the "reaction" to the work in its form that causes us to start the barrier placement, through apprehension, fears of what others say or will say, permutations and combinations of outcomes, and  the numerous imaginable scenarios that we come up with are the culprits. If we stay on target, on focus, and in the moment we find that all these "distractors" be they people, encounters or events, are all on the stage of life around us. We are the ones who must direct them in this grand drama, coupled with the orchestral music of our souls enabling the final show to be a standing ovation and not a dull applause. 

You have almost certainly heard the phrase "having faith that can move mountains." Well you can either use that faith and move the mountain or shrink it or you can learn to climb. Become a mountaineer and traverse the surface of this mountain. Its yours, you built it, you own it, so reshape it. Imagine the wonders that lie on the other side of the ridge tops. Amazing blue oceans of opportunities, majestic sunrises or sunsets of good times with the family, fertile green fields of career building are just examples of sights and sounds that await you on the other side. 

I have always thought that life's obstacles are challenges to be overcome and not obstacles to be avoided, but like everyone I falter and allow the obstacles to take root and become my mountain. It is only through walking on this rough terrain that we learn a better way. The mountain is the obstacle, the rocks are the stresses, the stones and pebbles are the doubts and the gravel is the fear that holds them all together. Understanding the root of the problem, understanding the source of your mountain, namely the fear, is the key that will also set you free. Send out love instead of fear, send out gratitude instead of doubt and your new shovel gains strength. Soon your mind and consciousness takes flight and your soul soars above your mountain.

Chip, chip, chip !! Are you chipping away at your mountain yet? What is over your ridge top?