(A quick story this week as I prepare to head out of town.)
There’s an old story that appears in several traditions about a group of blind men encountering an elephant for the first time.
- One man feels the trunk and concludes that an elephant must be like a snake.
- Another touches the leg and insists it resembles a tree trunk.
- A third grabs the ear and declares that it’s obviously like a large fan.
- A fourth runs his hand along the elephant’s side and argues that it’s more like a wall.
They argue with great confidence, each convinced he understands what an elephant is.
Each man is describing something true.
Each description comes from direct experience.
And yet every person in the group is working from a limited view.
I initially heard this story during Montessori training many years ago when faced with the following question:
Is it possible for multiple, even conflicting things to be true at the same time?
Cool Story, Get to the Point
This story comes to mind often when I’m working with coaching clients.
When life changes suddenly (divorce, career shifts, empty nests, health scares, or simply a growing sense that something feels out of alignment), people begin examining their lives with the tools they already have.
They look at the parts of life they can access easily.
Work. Relationships. Finances. Daily habits.
From those pieces, they begin forming conclusions about the larger picture- and what’s possible in their future.
“I guess this is just how life is now.”
“I had my chance already.”
“It’s probably too late to change anything major.”
Those statements often feel convincing because they grow out of real experiences. They simply grow from a limited slice of the larger situation.
The parts of life that we spend the most time in tend to dominate our thinking.
I Dont Know Who Discovered Water, But it Probably Wasn’t a Fish
This line from one of my favorite poems (warning: language) highlights the challenge of perspective, and how reflection practices can become useful.
In my world, coaching conversations help.
Journaling helps.
Experiences that interrupt routine can help as well.
A weekend trip.
A new skill.
A conversation with someone outside your usual circles.
A small adventure that places you in an unfamiliar setting.
Moments like these do something subtle- they shift the angle from which you’re looking at your life.
When the angle changes, new possibilities sometimes come into view.
Quote of the week:
I am telling you that your perception of ultimate reality is more limited than you thought, and that Truth is more unlimited than you can imagine.
-Neale Donald Walsche
Many people are already closer to forward movement than they realize.
What helps most at the beginning is space to look more carefully at the life they already have. A broader vantage point tends to reveal options that were harder to notice while standing in the middle of the situation.
That’s the reason I created several tools to share with clients.
Each one approaches reflection from a different angle.
Some help you reconnect with what you value. Some help you examine how you treat yourself. Some help you understand where your time and energy are going.
None of them attempt to prescribe what your life should look like.
They simply give you additional ways to look at it.
If the story of the elephant resonates with you, you might enjoy starting with one of them.
You can download them here:
Each one creates a small pause for reflection and perspective.
Sometimes that pause is enough to reveal parts of the elephant that were previously outside your reach.
And once a few more pieces of the picture come into view, the path forward tends to feel a little easier to navigate.
