Bamboozled

"One of the saddest lessons in history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.  We're no longer interested in finding out the truth.  The bamboozle has captured us.  It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous.  So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise." - Carl Sagan

Outside of the pink leather binding of my iPad that holds my Bible App in any translation that I could ever want to imagine, God still comes up with unique ways of teaching me so many of life's most precious lessons.

Just after 8:00pm I walked through the open door from the parking lot up the narrow stairs into the place only a couple of months ago I have been so happy to see.  When you walk through the glass door, you see a great collection of Hammer Strength equipment, you can feel the energy of the inhabitants, and the feeling of familiarity.  There at the front desk when you round the corner is the man of the house - the one they all look up to, the one that they introduced me to who could help me on my journey to pursue a dream.  This is a place that I would love to call my gym -- "my home."

Just two months ago things were all good, and I was (and still am) making great progress, but something in me has been a little unsettled.  I train four hard days a week, and my body has been wearing down on me rapidly, but I keep pushing. This method of training is contrary to everything I have learned, but this guy: "He sends athletes all the time to competition.  Even his girlfriend has won awards, so he must know what he is talking about and how to get there."

That still small voice on the inside of me is steadily whispering something I just cannot hear.

Juxtaposed to this, I was fortunate to meet another man through a chance visit in Zurich, that led to an email to a friend, who emailed another friend to ask if he would be interested in training.  Less than 24 hours later I get an email from a man I have never met in my life (to date) offering me an opportunity to explore another avenue for my training.  To this offer I quietly said 'yes' and reached out to the man of a friend's friend's friend -- I call him Karsten.  One thing Karsten has done for me was help get me back to center.  The still small voice gets a little louder.  

With my training, I have always followed and trained a certain way, and I believe this way absolutely works.  Where I have gone wrong is trying to pursue a path how others do it because that is way things have always been done.  The bamboozle begins.

Social Media is filled with people training 6-7 days a week - "team no days off" they say.   To myself I think they can't be training that hard.  Because I am all for days off!  My body needs days off, or I cannot function as a normal human being.  

My body - my body is the most intelligent organism that I have encountered.  And if I listen to it, it tells me exactly what it needs, and if I give it what it needs, it give me what I need in return.  It is the best relationship I have been in!

So what if the time and energy spent beating your body in the ground and posting it all over social media was not necessary to reaching you goals?  Unfortunately, that will never be the case because too many people have trained this way for years, and other people who see them look up to them and automatically accept what they have to say.  Parallel to that, these people have built a following, a platform that draw hundreds of thousands of "Likes" a day.  And what would happen to those "Likes" if you started training "against the grain?" To think you would "fall from grace" is too much to swallow.  So we push off the search for new truths and keep getting up every morning and pushing it to the limit, because that is what you have built everything on.  The bamboozle continues.

The problem with the above is this: we look at people and assume that because they have reached a certain point in their journey, they have also taken the "BEST" path. We never question or research for ourselves that there could be an easier way.  Instead we give them platforms to show they "expertise" and jump on the bandwagon for every new craze of any kind that is marketed to us.  We want to believe in something so bad that we start to believe in everything. And when those things do not work out, we blame ourselves but we are unwilling to change to do things differently from what is the "norm" because these things challenge us to our core.

But being challenged to the core is what makes us great.  Being stripped down and exposed is what propels us to new levels of being.  But to be stripped down means to first be vulnerable, and to realize that a lot of what you have come to know and stand on may not be 100% true.  It means that your core beliefs are faulty, it could even mean that you have invested a lot of time and effort for nothing.  It means that you will have to change - all the way down to your beliefs.

Unfortunately, this is a challenge that is most commonly looked over because to crack a foundation is to crack a portion of your soul.  Even though I can tell you that there is something greater just on the other side of those flames, and those are only shadows that you are so intrigued with on the wall.  It is a place few people choose to go.  So instead we stick to the "bamboozles" -- the shackles -- that we have built our lives, our past times,  our goals, our joys on top of, in fear of the life - in the matrix :) - that actually frees us.

Because what will my life be without the bamboozles?  New bamboozles arise.


With Love,

Jo Coop