What Keeps Us In Prison

On my way to work this morning I was thinking about my business. About 10 years ago I was talking with the franchisor, and he mentioned that the students were students of the franchise, regardless of who was teaching. I politely agreed but inside I felt, no my students are loyal to me. I'm not sure why I thought about this but on today's walk I had a different realization. I suddenly connected to TV shows like Doctor who. The main actor in Doctor who has changed over the years, but the popularity of the TV show remained. The viewership is loyal to the TV show, not the actor. And the students are loyal to the franchise not the teacher. However I couldn't see this 10 years ago. I can see it today. I chalk that up to the power of emotional baggage.

I've been spending the last two or three years working on reducing my emotional baggage. It's a slow gradual and exhausting process. But I am beginning to see rewards in small places of my life. This is one of them. With less emotional baggage I am free to see a broader Horizon. I could not see that loyalty connection 10 years ago but I can see it today. The emotional baggage is like strings or webs that push and pull us, and direct our thoughts. Then when we think about things we tend to look for what we believe, and we generally find what we look for. For instance I believe that my students were loyal to me. So I looked for all sorts of evidence to support that belief. Of course I found it. My students are loyal to me after all, but they may not be as loyal to me as I want to believe. My beliefs were limiting me and my beliefs were created by my emotional baggage. It's kind of like a filter bubble. You see what you want to see. Now I can see in all sorts of cases how students or viewers or customers remain loyal to the overarching business TV show or school regardless of small or medium changes to it. I can see all sorts of situations where that has happened.

The point of this is not the loyalty. The point of this is the limits my beliefs and emotional baggage caused. My beliefs put up walls around me that prevented me from seeing farther and wider. As I get rid of my emotional baggage I'm able to see farther and wider than I could before. For me now the big question is, as I get rid of more emotional baggage, what other new things will be revealed to me that I wasn't able to see or I'm not able to see now?