I love inspirational messages and quotations. You know, the kind you get from your friends and family when they think times are tough. I see them just about everywhere these days, (except on the evening news). I see them in blogs; posted on Facebook; people email them to me; I get email newsletters filled with them. I love them. There is some really good stuff floating around out there. I even included links to some blogs with great inspirational content under “Blogs to Investigate”.
I have noticed most inspirational messages are the keep-going-when-times-are-tough kind, and rest just make you think about how we act out life, like “mean dogs have mean owners”. Of course this is translated as, you get what you give. Give mean, get mean…. Give love, get love…. Give respect, get respect, you get the picture.
The message I came across today is “every castle has a dungeon”. On the surface this does not sound much like a keep-going-when-times-are-tough message. It doesn’t even appear to be the think-about-how-you-act kind. Or is it? Ponder this a minute while I sip my coffee.
We live in many castles all at the same time. Our material castle (home), our spiritual castle, and our emotional castle. We move around our castles exploring various rooms where we experience our daily life. Some rooms provide safety, some nourishment, others entertainment. We spend the majority of our time in these rooms living health happy lives, but… once in awhile we tumble down into the dungeon. You know, that dark dingy scary place where all the bones are hidden. That place where our fears and inadequacies reside. That place where we beat ourselves up into a merciless pulp of mush. We usually end up there when we feel bad about something, when we are disappointed, or fearful, or guilty, or hurt by others, or something just didn’t go the way we expected. Ugh! Unfulfilled expectations.
So…. where is the inspiration? Dungeons have stairs. Even though we may fall down them breaking every bone in our body, the stairs are always there. When you are ready to stop the infernal internal crazy talk, wipe your tears on your sleeve, open your eyes, locate the stairs and walk back up. There is no shame being in the dungeon, just don’t stay too long.
Comments