Elephants make unrealistic pets. Not only are they ginormous, but they eat hundreds of pounds of food per day. They have brains similar to humans in structure and complexity and a highly evolved hippocampus, which is the part of the brain responsible for emotion and linked to memory.

 There is the old joke: “Don’t think of a pink elephant.” Of course, you are now picturing a pink elephant. It reminds us that the brain is powerful and will focus on whatever we tell it, including negative commands.

I remember an incident years ago. I had gone straight from my aerial silk class to my job at the spa, wearing tight pink leggings. I decided to check my appointment schedule before changing into my work clothes.

A guy in the staff lounge made an innocuous comment about a pink elephant. I laughed because I wasn’t expecting it, and that’s what I used to do when I’d been verbally slapped and was still rearing for footing.

To someone else the comment may have slid off with a shrug, but I was still in the process of trying to recover from my eating disorder so that one little image of a fat pink elephant handed over a ticket for hours of adventure on the mental roller coaster in my head.

One of the things I did later that night was research elephants. I discovered that they are smart and playful and have developed brains. . .

BUT their incredible self-awareness and memory is also used to their disadvantage. Adult elephants can be held in place simply by tying a small vine around their foot and securing it to a nearby tree.

They are clearly strong enough to snap the vine but they cannot because the vine is holding the elephants mind!

When elephants are young they tie a chain around their leg, which is attached to a concrete slab. After days, sometimes weeks, of forcefully tugging on the chain to no avail, the elephant finally gives up. It is then that they are “trained.” From that point on, all the elephant needs to feel is the tiny pressure on its leg and it will instantly give up.

The vine is holding the elephants mind because the elephant has been programmed to believe that it cannot escape, that escape is futile, why even try.

Humans are a lot like this. We often use our memory to our disadvantage. Instead of using it to learn and move forward we can believe that the past (equals) the future. If an experience was heartbreaking in our past the feeling stays alive in us, and can hold us back in present and future situations.

The past heartbreak/rejection/negative thoughts, can hold us back from being open to new possibilities. Old beliefs can stop us from creating a new and amazing life for ourselves. We can become like that elephant that is being held back only in its mind.

When that guy at work made that seemingly harmless comment that threw me for a wild ride, he also gave me a gift.

“Don’t think of a pink elephant.” Gotcha

 That guy reminded me that what we believe about ourselves, and the world, 
     directly shapes our reality and our experiences.

The more I focus on the “pink elephant” (in whatever thought it manifests at that particular point in time), the more I am like that intelligent and powerful elephant that is ridiculously held in place by a feather light vine.

For the next few months, I purposely wore pink tights to aerial class as a reminder that my thoughts and beliefs should be challenged. And if I decided that they were no longer serving me, I would be wise and brave, and simply discard them.

We are what we think about most of the time. Why not think great things and create the lives we want no matter what might have held us back. Our past does not have to equal our future. Our future is a clear aquamarine sky, full of possibility.

With Love,

Z :)