Whilst now a repugnant and deservedly dying abuse of power, do you know one of the main reasons why Lion Tamers were able to control beasts so infinitely more powerful than they were, with a mere whip and a chair?
Obviously the whip caused pain, which the lion was quickly conditioned into avoiding at all costs, but if the lion was ever able to get close enough to the Tamer, the whip would have been rendered useless, simply because it needed distance to be optimally effective. That's how tenuous the power the Tamer had over the beast was.
And what of the puny chair? How in the name of custard was a simple wooden chair going to deter a muscular 30 stone (190kg) beast, if it had set its sights on you as lunch? In essence, the chair represented no more than a collection of matchsticks at best, offering zero feasible protection at all. So how and why did it work?
Look at this accompanying image from the lion's perspective. Whilst undoubtedly physically strong and powerful, the human Tamer's intellect easily surpassed the lion's intellect. So far so obvious, which gives us reason number one as to why the chairs were effective, because what the Tamer's discovered was that the lion didn't see one chair and one threat, the lion saw multiple threats.
The lion saw the human Tamer, the whip, the chair as a whole and the four legs of the chair, all representing their individual threats. The lions miscalculated the threat against them and perceived it to be more dangerous than it actually was in reality.
Can you see where I'm going with this?
When trauma, or conditioning from the world around you, leads you to believe you're outnumbered, overpowered or outmatched somehow by e.g.: feeling everything, always, combined and all at once, it can lead to things like helplessness, depression, analysis paralysis, procrastination, fight or flight responses and an overwhelming sense of... well... overwhelm. But often you're not seeing or perceiving clearly, just like the lion - who had all the power to snack on the Tamer at any time, but was persuaded by his human-induced limiting belief that he could not. The human had deceptively convinced the lion of a successful power dynamic switcheroo, and the lion believed himself compromised when he wasn't, resulting in him becoming (reluctantly) subservient to the Tamer and his own limiting beliefs - simply because he didn't know better, or believe in his own inherent power.
Is this resonating with you? Do you currently believe you might be wrongfully overpowered by your limiting beliefs, that you're somehow powerless to change your current circumstances, thoughts, feelings, and experiences of life? If so, then we need to talk, because you're currently miscalculating your own power, like the lions cowed by deceptive thoughts - and your own deceptive thoughts at that - which is how I know we can change them for the better, and how we can change your life for the better too. How can I be so sure?
Well, you were born and you have learnt everything you know, believe and feel today, yes? Good. That means if it was learnt, it can be unlearnt and relearnt. You are not a hostage to your genetics, past, habits or anything else you care to mention - unless you choose to be. If you really want to be, and feel, better then I can help you with that - but you have to want it more than the current comfort within your habitual ways of thinking and behaving now. You have to be willing to drop your 'better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't' mindset.
For a deeper life experience, you must immerse yourself into who you want to become, and be just as willing to let go of who you don't want to be, because I can't make you do anything, you must want to think and feel better for yourself, more than you want the comfort within your uncomfortable status quo. You have all the innate power the lion has, but doesn't enjoy, because of nothing more than limiting beliefs. Sure, life may have thrown you some curveballs in the shape of ill-health, divorce, financial struggles etc, but it's not what happens to you that matters. What matters more than anything is how you mentally process and address those circumstances, because they don't have to tame and disempower you.
There is zero emotional content in any event. The only power a shitty life has over you is the power you choose to imbue it with.
Let me show you how you're currently misjudging the challenges you're facing, and how you can pull your own reverse switcheroo on the power dynamics that lay ahead.
Let's talk.
Karan x
