Tales for Our Times-What a Gigantic Black Spider and a Sunflower Taught Me (Part 1)

Your Divine Nature expresses itself most eloquently through images.  Through the process of Interactive Imagery you dialog with your Divine Nature and discover whatever it is that you need to know.

I am in awe of this process and of the beauty and power of the messages my clients receive. They often feel to me like modern mythology.

In Tales for Our Times I offer these narratives to you. May you find the wisdom in these Tales both inspiring and beneficial.

What a Gigantic Black Spider and a Sunflower Taught Me about

Success and Failure – Part 1

Early in my coaching career I felt ready to throw in the towel. When I failed to win a hoped for contract, success seemed entirely out of reach. In my discouragement and despair, I turned to my Inner Wisdom for support and guidance.

In this blog and the next, I will share what I learned in the hope that you will find it helpful any time you feel discouraged or doubtful about continuing on.

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I hear, “It is time for you to learn about Success and Failure!”

Immediately the Animal of Failure appears – a gigantic, enormous black Spider, as big as King Kong.

Spider says to me, “I will not bite you unless you embrace me.”

As soon as the Spider says this I am seized by fear and apprehension.  Can I trust this ugly creature to be good for its word? What will happen to me if the Spider actually strikes?

The moment I feel this dread, I find myself stuck in the Spider’s sticky web.  I cannot get free.  I recognize that my very fear of failure has propelled me straight into the Spider’s web, and placed me within its scary reach.

As frightened and apprehensive as I feel, Spider remains still, just gazing at me. Spider repeats that it will not bite me unless I embrace it.

I hesitate.  Why would anyone want to embrace failure?

Then I realize that the only way to learn more about failure is to embrace Spider, so I reach out and clutch it.

I hear Spider shout “Right on the jugular!” The next instant, it bites me on the neck.

Immediately I feel totally paralyzed and overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness, inadequacy and despair.  Spider starts wrapping me up in its filament, which is as strong as steel.  I recognize that it is the very fact of embracing the notion of failure which has created these negative emotions and the immobility that goes with them.

Curled up in a little ball, tightly encased in the Spider’s silk, filled with helplessness, inadequacy and despair, I wonder where this can possibly go.

Then, suddenly, the palm of my left hand begins to itch, the kind of itching so intense that you absolutely have to scratch.  I start scratching my palm furiously and the Spider says to me, “See, even when you feel helpless, inadequate and despairing, you are still alive.  That itching is there to show you that you are still alive. And where there is life, there is hope.”

I ask Spider what it wants me to know about hope.  Spider replies, “That is clearly not my department.”  And with that, the Spider disappears.

In its place appeared a beautiful Sunflower, as large as the Spider. Sunflower tells me, “It is my job to teach you about Success.”  And you will discover what I learned about Success from the Sunflower in the next installment of Gifts of Intuition.

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Those times when you are overwhelmed with feelings of failure or self-doubt, remember the lessons that Spider taught me:

• You are only a failure if you embrace the concept of failure.  It’s a judgment you lay on yourself.  Even if others see you as a failure, if you do not buy into that notion, you’ll just recognize it as their judgment, with little impact on you. (Thomas Edison is reported to have said that he never failed.  He just discovered hundreds of ways not to make a functioning light bulb.)
• The failure mindset creates the feelings of paralysis, helplessness, inadequacy and despair. As soon as you let go of the notion of failure and begin to act, these negative feelings melt away.
• As long as you are alive, there is always hope.

Watch out for What a Gigantic Black Spider and a Sunflower Taught Me about Success and Failure – Part 2, to learn what the Sunflower taught me about success.

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