Monday, December 09, 2013

Making Mountains into Molehills

Many people have the habit of making molehills into mountains. They like to amplify things, giving them more weight than necessary and making them bigger than life. But does this type of attitude and vision really serve us?
 
How many times have we found ourselves fretting about small situations that don’t really matter that much at all?
 
If one has a hyperbolic vision they will almost always blow things out of proportion. Everything gets exaggerated and there is no excitement or adrenalin rush if it’s not! Almost like living out a fantasy or fairy tale of adventure and heroism and making everything a big drama!
 
Another reason for making things bigger than they are is because of fear. In a recent survey it was found that 94 per cent of our fear is imagined, in other words it has very little basis in reality. Because of our fear, we then also create fear in others. Fear and anxiety can only create more of the same. Do we realize that as we send our imagination off into these realms, we are also becoming creators of our reality as we subtly invoke those scenarios (mostly negative) towards us.
 
In fact going into the expansion of a situation is easy: we can gain a lot of attention by exaggerating small matters, and this is why for some people it is almost an addiction. It’s only ‘small minds’ that make small things big. By contrast, making big things small is an art; it takes maturity, wisdom and a certain amount of self-discipline. To make ‘big things small’ is usually the sign of a person who can manage themselves and therefore is more easily able to manage the situations around them. As we ‘grow bigger’ in this way, we are able to better cope with these situations as we become greater or ‘bigger’ than the situation itself.
 
It is very freeing to the soul to let go of old attitudes, preconceptions, remembered hurts and grudges from the past. If we don’t they can dilute and pollute every moment of action which we are about to perform.
 
Our vision too is not innocent. We so often look for the negative, for someone to blame, or we tend to find fault with something or someone. If we expand in this way, we are not helping ourselves. If we can just accept the moment for what it is and not bring in memories from the past and fears for the future, then it becomes much easier to apply a full stop.
 
For whatever reason we tend to exaggerate: whether it is out of panic, fear or simply a desire to dramatize, we have to realize that our Ego is in control of us at that moment. We cannot master a situation if we are slaves to our overblown emotions.
 
If we are grounded in a real sense of who we are: if we are calm, controlled and peaceful, if we are relaxed and centred, then instead of throwing fuel on the fire we will sprinkle cool water on a situation. We remain stable and make others around us feel safe and secure.
 
In one second we can allow ourselves to indulge in a rampage of thinking, where one thought leads to another and another and another… or in the same second we can decide to apply the brakes and call a halt to the waste of thoughts, time and energy. Be essenceful. The more we go into expansion of the situation or event, the more life we give to it. If something is not that important, then let it go. Learn to put a full stop, question marks are more difficult to shape and curve, full stops are easier!
 
It’s time… to stop making mountains out of molehills and to learn to to put a full stop. Before you go into expansion, ask yourself whether it’s necessary to do so, or is it better to save your time, energy and self-respect? As we make the mountain into a molehill, we become greater for it!
 

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