What Invisible chain is holding you back?

Posted on March 24, 2022 by Lois Lavrisa , One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

What invisible chain holds you?
Hello Lois,

Grab your favorite beverage and settle in.

I’d like to tell you a story, myth, legend … about elephants.

I’ve always loved these great big gentle creatures with enormous kind eyes.

From the animated version, like Dumbo, to seeing them at a zoo or circus (although I’m not a fan of captive animals…but that is not where this story is going today.)

Trainers take a baby elephant, for the purpose of this story let’s call her Wilma, when she is young and vulnerable and put her into a circus environment.

To make her mold into her new environment and life, the trainer takes a huge heavy metal clasp and tightly closes it around baby Wilma’s ankle.

That ankle clasp is then secured to a heavy metal chain, which is hammered into the ground using a thick metal stake.

What happens next?

Wilma’s instincts kick in.

Wilma tells herself that something is terribly wrong. (After all, elephants live in diverse habitats including wetlands, forest, grassland, savanna and desert across 37 countries in southern, eastern, western and central Africa. Not the confines of a circus tent or a cage.)

Somewhere deep inside her, she knows she is built to be free – to roam the land -with antelope and that she must break free (as there is not an antelope in sight!)

When she tries, she notices she is attached to this contraption and tugs at the chain, panicking as she realizes she cannot escape.

Instinct kicks in and Wilma throws a full out tantrum as she tries to run. But she can’t. She gets snapped back by the chain. She fights with all of her might to break free.

This goes on and on for weeks.

No luck.

Until Wilma gives up, defeated, tired and frustrated.

Her will has been broken.

With a bloodied ankle, Wilma now feels she can never move beyond the distance of this metal clasp and chain.

She knows she is stuck. Trapped. Confined.

Defeated, she submits.

Then 10 years later, this once 200 pound baby Wilma is now over 6,000 pounds. She is a beautiful, majestic animal who lives in the confines of a cage and performs in a red and white circus tent.

Trainers no longer use the metal clamp around Wilma’s ankle, instead, they tie a small woven rope around, just tight enough for Wilma to feel the pressure.

When Wilma senses this rope, she believes she is still that same baby elephant who can not break free of the metal clamp and chains.

She has long forgotten the wild inside her, where she knows she was built to uproot trees using only her trunk and roam as she pleased in a natural open habitat.

Now a rope (which she could easily break free from) holds her captive, and her days are spent with clowns and acrobats.

The adult Wilma is now held by invisible chains.

This story shows how in life, the stories people have imposed on us can bind us in invisible chains.

We’ve all had experiences in our lives that have put a clasp on how we define ourselves.

When someone else tells you, you can’t do something and you believe them, they write your story for you…

You can’t have that

You can’t wear that

You can’t

You shouldn’t

You are not allowed

This is not for you

Don’t try…

Believing someone else’s story about you influences the actions that you take and where you see your goals in the future.

What if you take those tired old stories and turn them around? Identify the stories (the invisible chains) holding you back.

Break free.

Say to yourself, “I can. I will try. Why not?”

You can escape and live your one and only precious epic life free from the tired old false stories that once held you back.

I’d like to think there is a happy ending, and Wilma realized she could yank that rope off her ankle, so she hopped on a freight train to the open land where she now roams free and lives her natural wild full life.

If you’d like help breaking your invisible chains that are holding you back from succeeding as a new coach- I’d love to chat with you.

Yours in epic-ness and joy-

Lois