Kindred Spirit Network Newsletter 12

A lesson from the Chicken Run

Is this just a simple story of a bunch of chickens trying to break out of their chicken-wire world to escape their fate at the chopping block? Or is there more to the story?

The story of the Chicken Run centers around the evil Mrs. Tweedy who has decided to switch her farm from egg production to chicken pies.

This clearly produces panic and a very real threat to the survival of the chickens and they plot to escape the farm by flying over the fences that contain them. However, they realize that chickens can't fly and it is not until their freedom leader, a feisty little hen named Ginger, comments profoundly in one scene: "the fences are all in your mind." She reminds her fellow chickens (and us), that a bigger    obstacle than the physical fences they're surrounded by are the mental fences that hold them captive.

And how true is this of us in our lives too?

This week, we will all have encountered frustrations, obstacles and events that appear to block our way or    prevent us to making the progress we desire. But the size of those obstacles is often increased in our own minds where our anger, frustration, impatience and unwillingness to accept what "is", simply magnifies the fence in front of us to a size where we believe it can't be overcome. Fears, doubts, procrastination, or the belief that we are not worthy of success can so easily build fences in or minds that sabotage our dreams and keep us stuck in our chicken coup.

However, the greatest limitations are neverexternal. They always live inside us. Perhaps the antidote to being trapped by our mental fences is to create a compelling enough vision so that, like Ginger and her flock of chicken friends, we are willing to resort to amazing measures to break out. We need a vision that moves us   beyond the fences we have created for ourselves and forces us to focus not on the fences in front of us, but on the freedom that awaits beyond.

I have built fences this week-big ones with barbed wire on top. I have endured frustration and I have judged others. I've avoided taking the responsibility for the coup that I find myself within. My fences were huge and ugly. But now that I can see them and recognise that it is I that have built them, I know it is I and I alone that can take them down and begin to plan my escape.

So what fences have you erected that need to be taken down?

Just follow Ginger's advice....