Opening to Possibility
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about choices. The ones we made in the past that have shaped where we are now, the results of those choices and the future and the choices that we have yet to make, that will shape the road as we travel along.
Over the Easter long weekend I happened to spend an afternoon on the couch with The Lord of the Rings trilogy of films. There is a moment in the second film, as our group of heroes traverse the mountain of doom and finally come upon the doorway to the Great Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor. The doorway is inaccessible and cannot be seen and will only open through a spell. This started me thinking…how many doorways do we intentionally enchant, closing them to others, sometimes to ourselves…can they be opened again? Of course, as we know, in this fantastic realm the enchantment is a riddle that needs to be solved by the light of the full moon (all the best spells are, after all).
The following day, to break the ennui of too much sitting and doing nothing, which I am not very good at (see Ziggy is My Guru), I walked myself over to the gym for session with Daria, trainer extraordinaire. Along my regular route I pass this stairway that leads to a walled up doorway. It’s a mystery. Why is it blocked, where did it go to before they blocked it, why did they leave the stairs? Once again, I am left to ponder the question, can a sealed up, concreted doorway ever be opened again, could that stairway ever lead to a room, what could potentially be in that room and could that potential (whatever it might be) be life changing? Of course nobody will ever know, I don’t suppose, but it’s interesting to imagine breaking through that concrete with a jackhammer to see what might be on the other side.
Daria and I spent our session together (I think she likes to get me talking so I forget the pain!) mulling over the conundrum of things that we close ourselves off to in life. At times it is fear. Fear of failure, not doing, being or excelling enough. Sometimes we even fear success…what if I am actually good at this, I succeed…then what?! If I actually succeed then I have a commitment to myself and, potentially others, to continue learning, exploring or maintaining this success, building upon it. That can certainly be scary. It’s always safer to stay in the comfort zone. No risk means no change and no change is status quo. It might not be exciting but it feels safe. And so, in the spirit of maintaining our safe place we close the window, block the door, enchant the spell and lose that possibility
But do we really? Is that opportunity really lost forever? I guess there are choices that can never be exactly the same. For instance, my choice to not have children. There comes a point where that choice is certainly physically not possible but does that mean that I can’t have people in my life that are children, humans that I share a parental bond with…? There are so many things that we label as closed, over, missed, lost. How many times have we all said, “When I was younger I loved…” “Oh, maybe if I was younger!”…”I’m too old for that now” “I really wish I had…” I am feeling more and more that that is concreted, enchanted, boarded up doorway thinking. What if that possibility is still there, open to us?
All we need is the right incantation on that auspicious night. Maybe we just need to reach for the right mental power tools or throw down some serious creative dynamite and that doorway is open again, with all its potential still available to us! I’m certainly going to give it a try. I owe it to myself.
