See the Mountain

Posted on December 05, 2011 by Rori Boyce, One of Thousands of ADD ADHD Coaches on Noomii.

At the heart of any lasting life change is acceptance. Before you can even ponder how to move that mountain in front of you, you have to first acknowledge that it is a mountain.

Before you can determine if it is better to move it, go over it, go around it, or change directions entirely, you have to accept that in order to move forward, you have to do something about the mountain blocking your path.

Too often we continue on our way, oblivious to the mountainside rising in front of us until we walk right into the side of it and find ourselves knocked down. We look around, bewildered and bruised, unsure of how we got there.

Perplexed, we get up, dust ourselves off, and try again. Because the mountain is too tall, or too wide, or too steep, we choose to pretend it isn’t there, and walk right into the side of it again, knocking ourselves down.

Frustrated, we stand up and look around for someone to blame. There must be some other person who is tripping us up.

If we find no one to blame, we blame ourselves. If only we had longer legs, took bigger steps, were taller, shorter, smarter, or some thing other than what we are, we would be able to keep walking.

We rage at life. We lay on the ground in despair. We berate the people we love and we beat ourselves into the ground. We tear our lives to pieces trying to force the world to bend to our will, only to fail again and again.

Think of how freeing it must be to look up from the ground and see that mountain for the first time. To say to yourself, “Hey, there is a mountain in my way. It wasn’t so-and-so’s fault that I keep falling down. I am not lazy, stupid, incompetent, or crazy. It’s not that there is anything wrong with me, I just didn’t see what was standing in my way.”

This is the freedom of acceptance, from which all other great things come. Accepting the things that we refuse to see is the first step in taking control of our own lives and consciously choosing the next step on our path.