Re-Visioning
Success
by Wendy Ball e are living in times when success seems elusive, even impossible to achieve for most of us. Careers are difficult to establish. Financial security and savings are difficult for most to achieve. Family life and relationships are complicated. Physical and emotional health are issue laden for many of us.
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So, if success is associated with triumph or prosperity as it generally is in our culture then to many of us are left to struggle with feeling some degree of failure in our lives. But what if you were to turn your requirement for the experience of success on its head and focus on the smallest rather that the biggest. And what if you were to replace the notion of success held in our culture with one that works within your unique and individual circumstances. And what if you were to give yourself permission to focus on what is working rather than what is not working? What might success look like then? Success would be the smallest thing you do toward a particular goal. Imagine that you allow yourself to experience pleasure and pride with each step you take. Then each and every effort might build energy and confidence that could be used toward the next. Success would be each time you show up for a challenge that is uniquely yours. We’re talking about an experience here, not an objective reality. It's the experience of success that gives us pleasure, confidence, self esteem; that buoys us up and gives us the energy to carry on in contrast to the feeling of failure that diminishes and drains us. The objective reality is about comparison. One person has more money than another person, and is therefore more successful. Some would even judge them to be superior. Many of us dread failure. Sometimes we avoid the kind of action that would lead us to success because we are so afraid of failing. What if we could eliminate the demoralizing experience of failure. What if there was only the pleasure and confidence gained in accumulating instances of accomplishment that we call success and the experience of learning that comes from what we call failure? A friend of mine shared once how he stopped smoking. He had joined a behavioral science experiment in which he agreed to self-
inflict a shock each time he smoked. After a bit he declared: “bad enough I’m smoking but now I’m zapping myself besides, and it hurts!” Instead of accepting “failure” by dropping out of the experiment he decided to design his own alternative program where he would congratulate himself each time he decided not to buy a package of cigarettes, or each time he took a cigarette out and then decided not to smoke it, or even each time he lit up a cigarette and smoked a certain amount and then decided to put it out. In his method of quitting there was no failure, only success. One success added to another and eventually he stopped smoking, permanently. In one of my favorite tarot decks where each card represents a major life lesson based on stories from different spiritual traditions there is a card called Comparison. The story is about a proud Samurai who goes to see a Zen Master. This Samurai is famous, and yet when he comes in front of the master he suddenly feels inferior. He asks the master why is this? The master invites him to look out the window where there is a tall tree and a small one beside it. The master comments that the two trees have been there for many years and he has never heard the small tree say it felt inferior next to the big one. The Samurai realized, of course, trees can’t compare. And then, in this story, there is a beautiful sentence: “When you don't compare, all inferiority, all superiority, disappear. Then you are - you are simply there. A small bush or a big high tree - it doesn’t matter, you are yourself. A grass leaf is needed as much as the biggest star. The sound of the cuckoo is needed as much as any Buddha - the world will be less rich if the cuckoo disappears.” Leo Babauta talks about success in the context of habit change. He has found that thinking big has not been helpful to him. He has found a way to change his life that he can enjoy each step of the way and feel increasingly good about himself, that is focused on what he does and not on what he doesn't do. He has boiled his method of successful change down to 4 steps:
1. Start very small 2. Do only one change at a time. 3. Be present and enjoy the activity (don't focus on results). 4. Be grateful for every step you take. May each one of us re-claim the ability to experience success in each moment that we show up for ourselves and each other in our unique lives. References:
Rajneesh Neo Tarot www.zenhabits.net
and
Leo
Babauta:
Wendy Ball has a private counseling and shamanic energy healing practice in Albany NY. You can get more information about her work by calling 518-813-8524 or visiting www.wendyballlcounseling.com.
“It's the experience of success that gives us pleasure, confidence, self esteem; that buoys us up and gives us the energy to carry on in contrast to the feeling of failure that diminishes and drains us.” 14
Healing Springs I #87 August—September, 2016