The Bungee Cord Effect

Standing over a deep ravine, strapped to a bridge with an oversized rubber band, you begin questioning your intelligence. But hey, you are on a new path in life where you are facing your fears and getting out of your comfort zone, breaking through the walls that limit your abilities. The fear and questioning set in as you hear the countdown to jump time. You muster all your courage and jump… The fear is overwhelming for an instant, then feelings of absolute freedom as you feel like you are flying, then dread and another crushing fear as you see the earth racing towards you. The cord begins to stretch and you feel security coming back as your decent slows. Relief that everything worked as planned sets in as you come to a stop. Then just as quickly, you are snatched away from all that as the cord snaps you back into the sky, pulling you away from the beauty of the ravine and the safety of the stillness you experienced for all of about a second. You race back toward the bridge and as the bridge nears you feel as if you are back at the beginning. You feel all is for naught, you gained nothing. The thought of being back at square one is quickly replaced with the free-falling feeling again, then the fear and back and forth until you come to rest, suspended somewhere between the bridge and the ravine. You bounce through as many emotions as you do rises and falls as the bungee cord works to stabilize your experience.
Many of you have worked hard to get your personal growth path in gear. Many of you have taken major steps to improve your life. Many of you have felt like it was one step forward and two (or more) steps back during the process.
Your personal growth journey is much like this bungee cord experience. The fear of stepping out of your comfort zone, followed by the exuberating sensations of taking a step towards your ultimate life, then the fear of the unknown, and the comfort of growth all add up to rise and fall of the bungee jump.
Last week we broke through our walls of shame, from the “Introductions Please” theme, and saw our unlimited potential. We saw just how powerful we are. We felt the strength within us and understood the core strengths and traits we have within us that have gotten us this far in life.
Even with this wonderful feeling, new knowledge and unlimited understanding, you may not feel like you have moved too far away from that wall. Sometimes it feels like you have a bungee cord attached between you and the wall. No matter how hard you try to accomplish something, you find yourselves standing at the wall staring into its cold brick construction and wonder what side of the wall you are really on.
Some of the areas of your movement to pay close attention too are:
Action: The first step in improving and empowering your life is to take new action; different action. You will never enjoy new and improved results if you repeat the same old behaviors.
For a moment, imagine that a healthier lifestyle is in your personal growth plan and part of that is to achieve and maintain a healthier weight. If you are still going to the freezer each night and grabbing a scoop or two of ice-cream hidden under a layer of chocolate sauce, you are participating in an action that does not get you to your goal. You are sabotaging yourself, creating a path to failure. It is not the ice-cream that is damaging, it is the action.
Some of you may have removed that action and left a void. Leaving a void will eventually get filled with something, and not always a positive something. Fill that time slot; replace that action, with something positive, maybe some exercise or reading, anything that will motivate you to continue moving forward. Look at the actions you take every day and see if there is something else that is not working in your best interest and replace it with something positive and empowering for you.
Thoughts: All right, now you have the actions in line and you are moving forward then, everything is really working out ad you have begun seeing progress and just as you are about to turn a corner on your goal, WHAM, you are back at that wall again. Look into your thoughts and beliefs about the situation and your abilities. Do you think and belief you are enough? Do you think and feel you are worthy? If not, change your beliefs. The truth is, you are worthy, you are enough and you do deserve to have all that you desire.
There is no lack in this world. There is plenty for everyone and those who believe themselves worthy receive, those who believe themselves lacking also receive, they just receive lack. The law of attraction is as real as the law of gravity, what you think about most is what you get coming back to you. If you think about your lack, you receive lack. If you think about losing weight you will create more weight to lose. Think instead of your healthy weight. Move towards your healthy weight.
The trick with this is, thinking coupled with feeling determine your results. If you think healthy weight and feel the need to lose, you get more to lose. If you think healthy weight and feel the wonder of being at that weight, you reach and maintain your goal. If you are out of sync, fine tune your feelings. If money is part of your vision, imagine what if will feel like to have one million dollars just to play with, above and beyond all your financial needs. Feel it, identify with that feeling and then integrate that feeling into your life. Positive feelings synced with thoughts of abundance will attract abundance and loosen the grip of that bungee cord.
Be Flexible With Your Expectations: A man was desperately holding onto a buoy in the middle of the ocean when a small dingy came by. The dingy owner told the man to get in the boat. “No, thank you”, replied the man, “I have a vision for my rescue and this is not it.” A while later a ski boat came by and the owner said to climb aboard. Again the man replied, “No, I have a vision for my rescue and this is not what I envisioned. It will come along any minute.” Six more boats came by and offered assistance and six times the man refused. For days this went on until the coast guard found the man barely clinging to life and the buoy. As the man was leaving the hospital after recuperating, a news reporter asked why he had refused to accept rescue from all of those boats. “I had a vision for a catamaran to come to my rescue, it never came.”
We often get so intent on having things work out the way we envisioned that we miss all of the open doors of opportunity that present themselves. Sometimes things come along just as we vision, and other times something better happens. Be flexible in your vision and that bungee cord will not strike so frequently.
Shift Your Perception: What you see may not be what is real. Shift your perception of things in your life. What is true for everyone is this; once you step away from you wall, you will never fully return to it. You shift, you change, you grow and you evolve. We tend to see only the negative and when that is true, we can look completely past the positive in our life and feel as if we have never done anything right. We feel that we made no progress at all. We feel as if we have wasted our time and should have just stayed where we were.
Notice the steps you take, even the baby steps are moving you in a direction. Even the steps that seem to be a mistake have created movement. Movement is action and action creates momentum. See your movement without judgment, notice if it is moving you towards your visions. If not, tweak it. If so, do it again.
One of two things is happening in your life, you are either moving or your world is shrinking. There is no sitting still and waiting out your life. You have choices, you have power and you have the resources necessary to create the life you want and choose the direction of your movement. Loosen the bungee cord by paying attention to your actions, thoughts, expectations and perceptions.