Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
When Trip, our Boykin spaniel, was a puppy he would often swim in the pool, along with our Labrador retriever, Ralphie. He never loved the pool as much as Ralphie does, but he swam in it fairly often. Trip swims well. He is a sporting dog, bred to retrieve fallen birds in bodies of water. But then, for some strange reason, Trip just stopped swimming in the pool. He preferred to hang out with the boss lady, our herder, the rough collie, Josie, who runs around the pool, barking out orders at everyone, like a frantic, control freak lifeguard who can’t stop blowing the whistle. Trip seemed to have developed a little bit of fear of the pool, seemingly, out of nowhere.
Now, when we take Trip out on boating excursions (Boykins are bred to be boating dogs), we put a little red life vest on him. Trip loves swimming in the saltwater, and the minute one of us jumps out of the boat, he jumps out, too, often landing right on top of whoever is swimming in the water outside of the boat. He never thinks twice about swimming all around in the ocean, which in theory, is a lot more dangerous than swimming around in a little pool, especially with our vigilant lifeguard Josie guarding it, as if she were a presidential secret service agent. Honestly, on boating days, it is often difficult to coax Trip out of the water and back into the boat.
So this weekend, when we were having a fun pool day at home, my son decided that he was going to get Trip comfortable swimming in the pool again. To do so, he put Trip in his little red life vest. Surprisingly, that’s all it really took. It was like the red life vest flipped a switch, and we couldn’t keep Trip out of the pool. It didn’t take any coaxing at all. The little red life vest gave Trip all of the confidence that he needed to become a pool hound all over again.
That got me to thinking about how we all have our own “little red life vests” that get us over our fears of doing things. We put so much confidence into our own “little red life vests”, even if they are just symbolic, like lucky charms. I looked up why we put so much reliance on our lucky charms and I questioned if they really “work.” Supposedly they do:
“Relying on lucky charms is superstitious, but in fact, it actually works. Researchers have found that people who believe they have luck on their side feel greater “self-efficacy”—the belief that we’re capable of doing what we set out to do—and this belief actually boosts mental and physical performance.” – Psychology Today
“The study says that people who tend to have better luck after carrying certain items have so because of the belief that they are protected from bad luck. This belief acts as a blocker from failure as people go out and give their best shot without worrying about what they might lose.” – Times of India
Now, I have often heard less superstitious persons than myself, proudly and smugly proclaim, “I make my own luck!” And that is true. Obviously, the studies show that people who believe in lucky charms, get into a mindset that says that they cannot fail, and thus, it is that mindset which helps them to succeed (not the inanimate object). Having lucky charms, is a Jedi mind trick that we play with ourselves. But, so what? Obviously, in many cases (such as with Trip), it works. And it’s fun.
What’s your “little red life vest”? What’s a big fear that you have? Can you find “a little red vest” that will help you to overcome your fear? Just remember to never forget that deep down you have made your own luck. Remember that your little red vest is just a little crutch that you made for yourself, and the power was never really transferred to that placebo pill, or to that dream catcher, or to “my precious” (Lord of the Rings reference). The power to overcome your fears and challenges and move on to your victories was always inside of you, your mind just needed a physical trinket and symbol of that fact, to remind itself of its own great and powerful abilities.
“Luck is believing you’re lucky.” – Tennessee Williams
“You can live a charmed life by causing others to live a charmed life. That is, be the source of ‘charm’ — of charming moments and experiences — in the life of another. Be everyone else’s Lucky Charm! Make all who you touch today feel ‘lucky’ that you crossed their path. Do this for a week and watch things change. Do it for a month and you’ll be a different person.”- Neale Donald Walsch
