When James was in high school he and his friend Mike Zamzow went on a backpacking trip with the dads. Mike’s poor dad was trudging up that hill wondering why he was in such bad shape, lagging behind and huffing and puffing the whole way. They finally reached the summit and sat down to pull some beef jerky out and have a snack. Mike’s dad opens up the pack and reaches in, only to pull out lead weight after lead weight, as the other dad is chuckling beneath his breath at the joke. James learned that day to pack his own pack, he could have lugged a 4 course dinner up the hill had he traded the weights for something worthwhile. What if you put down the bag you are carrying. Take a look inside and see if you have been carrying lead weights up the mountain for so long that you don’t even realize it.
Someone hid them in your backpack and you thought you were carrying all you needed for the journey, but its all a practical joke played on you by the comedienne named FEAR. She isn’t trying to be funny, she really truly believes that you need to remember every mistake and painful experience you had in your life, so she engraved them on the bricks and put them in your pack and you have been carrying them along with you all the way up the mountain. From her perspective everything is out to get her. There are bad people and scary things that can happen. You can get your feelings hurt and your heart broken and feel embarrassment and loss and less than. She is so freaking scared of not being loved and of any discomfort that she holds on to every negative thing that has happened to you so that you can remember and avoid it next time. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. The bricks you carry are actually magnets. They are there in your pack, and they attract more of the same. Even the ones buried deep in the bag pull you into situations that remind you again and again what it feels like to be scared.
What if I told you that you don’t have to carry that stuff around anymore? What if you just put down the backpack, the one you didn’t even realize was full of fear, and felt the freedom and weightlessness of letting go? You can have the joy and lightness of a child, just let go of the fear. What is the worst thing that could happen? You could fall down, but you fell down before and got back up. You could lose everything, but you can’t lose yourself and your capacity to love and rebuild. You could fail, but you can learn.