Splinter

I found a splinter in my hand Friday night. I picked at it incessantly as I had a conversation over the phone with a mentor friend of mine who works at Landmark Education (an organization I will be referencing quite a lot in my blog from here on out) who was offering me some insight. We discussed various topics all related to the workability of ones life. Limiting beliefs that hold us back and actions we can take to move forward and transform those beliefs into a new realm of possibility for you and your life. Sounds wonderful, right? ‘What’s the catch?’ ‘There’s gotta be a “catch,”’ you must be thinking. The “catch” is that it can be a painful process and it takes a lot of courage. It means confronting your demons and being willing to use intellectual effort to be self-observant and reflective of your own behavior. And not just be aware of it but to do something about it. What’s the good of having knowledge of something if you don’t apply it to anything? Some like to call it baggage or demons but for the sake of this story and the context in which this metaphor arose I’m going to call them splinters.

Turning a blind eye to something in your life that you know you should address, clean up, complete – whatever you want to call it, is like leaving a splinter in your finger and thinking that you can get along fine with it stuck there. Yeah sure your life will still “work”. You still might have good relationships, they just might not be great.  Thinking that something is too small, to insignificant to matter or make a difference is the most ignorant way one could possibly view the impact your actions and non-actions have upon the world. Everything matters. Every little thing. The difference between a splinter and a splinter - less hand could save your life. That’s what I don’t think most people realize when they shrug off an incomplete or avoided conversation. A snide remark. A few minutes late here and there. It’s like day and night. The difference between going through life fulfilled and complete with no baggage pulling you down or dragging you backwards and trudging through the mud with a plastered on forced smile as you try to ignore that annoying pebble in your shoe that slightly pierces your heel with each excoriating step. So quit being a baby and go get the needles, tweezers and peroxide and have the courage to start pulling out the splinters in your life - one by one. It’ll sting like hell but you’ll be free. Just remember the relief after all of the panicked squirming and screaming was over when you were a child. Once it was done there was this sense of serenity. Peace. Imagine that calmness whenever you feel afraid, close your eyes and pull. You might be surprised by what you find.

The more you pull the more you'll begin to master identifying your splinters and getting them out. You'll soon be a Splinter Master or a Master Splinter and no I"m not referring to the wise old sage rat from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

What are your splinters in your life?