Your Daily Focus: Monkey Trap
What we can’t let go of possesses us.
On Monday I wrote about how physical things have no intrinsic value, they only carry the meaning we assign to them. It is easy to get completely immersed in the value we agree to give things, to accumulate, or even hoard things. It is equally easy it is to shift our thoughts and let go of the agreed value and escape the burden and restraint of physical things.
Ambreen from Pakistan contributed a comment reinforcing the concept that by letting go of our things, we can experience a wonderful feeling of freedom. Ambreen wrote that even though we view our things as possessions, if we can’t let go of them, they actually possess us!
It reminded me of a story I heard growing up: The Monkey Trap. A trap is set by staking a hollowed out coconut or gourd to the ground and baiting it with a banana or other treat. The opening in the coconut is just large enough to allow the monkey’s open hand to squeeze through. The monkey reaches in and clutches the banana, and then finds it cannot remove its hand, as the opening is not large enough to allow it’s clenched paw to pass back through.
No matter how hard it yanks it cannot escape. As the hunter approaches, the monkey needs only let go to escape, but it won’t. The instinct and programmed habit of behavior is too strong. The monkey has spent it’s whole life looking for food, grasping it, and eating it for survival.
The monkey’s paradigm will not allow it to change its short-term thinking and is captured. Only by shifting to long-term thinking, and opening to the idea that by letting go it will live to find food another day, can the monkey preserve it’s freedom.
This is such a fun parable to illustrate our own programmed habits of behavior. So often we will not change short-term habits to obtain long-term freedoms.
Try in your own life to let go of that you are clutching the strongest. I suspect you will be surprised to find freedom of thought that you never knew existed.
Rick – While I completely agree with you on the freedom that comes from releasing physical possessions, I must point out that they have intrinsic value. Think of the many hours and energy the artist put into painting your favourite picture, each brush stroke designed to elicit an emotion. Then add in the the framing, storage and upkeep (think how quickly the painting would decay if left outside in the elements) and you have an object with a lot of intrinsic value. Any emotions that you may attach to the painting do not add any intrinsic value, indeed it is the intrinsic value of the painting that elicits such emotions.The freedom you experience when giving it up is the energy (physical and mental) that you no longer have to invest in the painting.
I loved the story about your Dad keeping a styrofoam cup from McDonalds. He recognized that it had value and was too good to simply throw away (Think of the impact that would have on the environment if we all kept our styrofoam cups and reused them).
It seems that it is human nature to not be happy where we are at. We quickly get used to having whatever we have and then want to change it – give it away, throw it away, sell it or get more. I think true happiness stems from accepting where we are at and respecting the physical objects around us, appreciating what they do for us (think how you would feel if you had no possessions – naked in the forest or wherever you live). The problem stems from over consuming – cleaning out the local Walmart or similar big box store then stopping in for fast food on the way home. Buy a new car, the latest electronic gadget that Apple is dispensing, redecorate a room, new TV etc. This teaches us that physical objects should be disposable, used once or very little and then discarded.
It gives me great pleasure to walk into the house that I built for my family, and comfort lately as I walk into my daughter’s bedroom where she is recovering from a broken back (skiing accident – seems she has inherited my need for the adrenaline rush) and look at the wood floor that I laid by hand and the paint my wife put on the walls 15 years ago, the fireplace is on keeping her warm (it is still cold here) and know that I am happy with the objects around me and that I can concentrate on her recovery. My car was made in 1983, I buy my dishes from the Potter who lives across the street and never shop at a big box store or franchise. We have a garden and had chickens (until a bear ate them). I have no cell phone or TV. That’s a big one – those adds telling you to buy are simply unbearable.
My point is that you need to be very selective about what things you bring into your life. This will give you great freedom. Rick is correct – if you have been on the wrong path get rid of those things to get on the right path.
Excellent!
Thanks Dave. You know me well, and you offer great perspective. I do love curling up under the quilt my Mom made for me.
Perhaps you can help all of us with that pesky problem you speak of… “How do we keep the bears from eating our chickens?!?!”
Those pesky bears are a cycle of nature that can’t be stopped. If one goes, another eventually shows up. Our surviving chickens are now housed at a friend’s farm much to the disappointment of our current furry friend. I’m sure we will see him again though once the fruit starts to ripen.
What do you do if the possessions remind you of family gone long ago, how do you give them up to gain the freedom you speak about? I think a family member took some of them and how do I forgive and move on?
Hi Mary, you already know the answer, you let go and move on.
You simply need a mechanism or tool to help you get there. I have two for you.
First, shift your thoughts from the negative to the positive, from lack to abundance, from what you don’t have to what you do have. Take your attention away from the things and put it on the people, which is why you want the things in the first place… to remember the people. Write a story about family gone long ago and their essence, their being, their legacy. Focus on all the memories and stories you have that are in your possession.
Second, exchange the word “forgive” for “accept.” The energy in the word “forgiveness” is one of judgment. Like “I am good, you are bad. You did something bad and I will judge you in that and I will from my righteous place now say I’m okay with it.” You are not ever going to be okay with it if you use the judgmental perspective of “forgiving.” (by the way, Wayne Dyer wrote a chapter in 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace called “There Are No Justified Resentments.” It is really well written.)
Using the word acceptance takes away the judgment, and makes every action truly okay. People do what makes them feel best in the moment, and it really is none of our business what choices they make. If we make it our business, we will be miserable, and we will make everybody around us miserable. If we are in acceptance, no one can effect our mood. It is totally in our own possession.
I trust this gives you hope. It may feel a bit out of reach at first, but try it, an then practice and practice and practice. Write about it. Think about it. Talk about it all only in a place of acceptance.
Keep at it, it’ll work, and you’ll feel fabulous!
Rick, you are absoutely right! The key word is ‘Acceptance’.I have also read Wayne Dyer, and I guess he is right in stating that there are no justified resentments. It’s just the way we look at things! And to quote Wayne Dyer again:’If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change’.
Besides, I feel that it is in our own interest to move on. Nursing feelings of resentment will affect no one but ourselves. We can’t change people’s thoughts, but we can certainly modify ours to feel greater peace and contentment.
We can’t change the entire world, but we can certainly change OUR world. And at the end of the day, it’s OUR world that is the entire world for us, isn’t it!