The ant on the elephant's back
As you start living more and more as yourSelf, you find that some stories resonate more than others. I have had self-esteem issues throughout my life. I spent years going from one diet to another and periods when I really didn't want and dare to look in the mirror just because I felt it didn't fit the picture that was presented to me everywhere. I did talk a lot about the fact that for years I actually lived with my mind separated from my body. I let my life be determined by what my mind thought was right. And my body had to be okay with all that. The body is controlled by the brain, right? Well, then it makes sense that you can therefore make up your life. Because that's how it works.
So that's not how it works. Because thinking and the guidance of your brain are two completely different and separate functions of our body. The brain does indeed control our body, but not always in the direction of what we think. In my case, I mainly think about things that are about what could possibly happen in the future. And since I know my design, I know that this is the most nonsensical activity I can do. It actually wastes all the energy I have on something that really serves no purpose other than to distract me from what I am here to do, which is respond to living in the moment and in the NOW.
The illusion that we can achieve what we want by thinking something, has been the biggest eye-opener for me since I stepped into my experiment of Human Design. It also gave me an answer to all the questions I've had in my mind throughout my life that I've been very busy trying to answer them all. Questions like, "What is the reason for this, why can't I do that, how is it possible that so-and-so, what can I do to make such-and-such.....". Endless internal question-and-answer games then ensued in my own mind, to which I then added all kinds of questions from others. And I always felt the pressure to want to have or find an answer as quickly as possible, because I didn't like that pressure very much physically either.
I have sometimes called myself a 'hamburger between two buns'. When I was a manager, I had that feeling quite often. The principle of 'serving two gentlemen' (or ladies). And when I saw my design, it became visually very clear to me as well, that in my design I am actually a 'hamburger between two buns' of conditioning. I am mentally and physically sort of squeezed together by conditioning and pressure that I try to resolve when I am 'not-self'. And that is exactly where my receptivity and vulnerability is. My open Mind and Ajna Center and my open Root Center in Human Design terms (aka the mental and the physical pressure or stress), make me very open in those places to conditioning and outside influence.
However, when I turn that receptivity into wisdom, and don't think about things that don't matter to me and don't allow myself to be rushed because that pressure is not something that works comfortably for me and my body, it immediately gives me a very nice feeling of satisfaction. So when I follow my body where it takes me and I see that mental and physical pressure mainly as something that can go through me, it really does resolve itself as if by itself.
Coming back to the beginning of this article about whether or not stories resonate. I heard someone say today, 'you can think of your mind (and your thoughts) as the ant and your body as the elephant. The ant sitting on the elephant's back and thinking it can tell the elephant where it should move to'. Well, I think the image is enough to conclude with a smile with:
"And then came an elephant with a very long muzzle, blowing out this narrative fairy puzzle".