#318 – What's the only way you can reach your potential?

Like many self-help believers, I was convinced the only way to reach my potential was through accumulation: degrees, certifications, books read, courses attended, names in my contact list.

But it is emptying––rather than accumulating––that allows the mind to fulfill its true potential.

Here's a simple analogy: your mind is a computer, and your lived experiences, things you know and remember, are the programs you run on it.

Some programs are about the world:

• Water wets
• The sun heats
• Certain things break when they fall from a certain height

Other programs are about you in relation to the world:

• I don't like it when I get soaked in the rain
• The heat from the sun feels good in the winter but not in the summer
• I believe I'll break if I fall, which scares me because I don't want to break, so I'm afraid of heights

The second type of programs were first installed in your hard drive by your Ego, back when you were little and your only goal was to survive childhood.

Over time, each experience wrote a new line, a new command:

• Make sure people like/fear/obey/follow you
• People love you more when you succeed/fail/are skinny/have money
• Never show you're scared/sad/happy/in love

With each new command added to the code, the program lost flexibility, and your mind, this virtually limitless computer, became overstuffed with information, not all of it relevant, effective, or true.

What could you achieve if you erase all the lines of code installed by the Ego and see the world through an empty mind?

Love,

Carolina