To get to the treasure you have to face the ‘gremlin’ that’s keeping it hidden.
Here is a challenge to consider and it comes in one of my favorite quotes that illustrates it well.
‘The Cave You Fear to Enter Holds the Treasure You Seek.’ – believed to be by Joseph Campbell.
That certain ‘cave’ in our mind is often the place where the scariest ‘gremlins’ or monters hide.
Most of us have a ‘cave’ like this. In my own journey doing personal work or when guiding others into their ‘cave’ the experience has given a ‘treasure’ to the person who dared to look. By entering the cave and shining a light, what once seemed so scary, mean, painful, shameful, embarrassing, or whatever tends to shrink in size.
What is the ‘light’?
It is actually the act of consciously looking at ourselves deep inside our hearts and mind. What makes the ‘light’ even more powerful is when you look without judgement.
One of my favourite authors wrote. ” Judgement is weakness, observation is power.”
To observe with curiosity can be an alternative to judgement.
Sometimes there may be great fear of looking, but when we dared to look the thing we fear loses it’s power every time.
By having a ‘light’ shine in that ‘cave’ that we dared to enter in ourselves, the ‘treasure’ gets revealed.
Often the treasure is in the form of a new kind of freedom, or more creativity, or more clarity, or more peace, or greater purpose, and many other positive possibilities.
The cave can be hidden or obvious. Usually the cave is the issue that causes us the greatest fear or discomfort that holds the treasure we seek. That fear or discomfort is the gremlin’s power used against us to keep us from the treasure.
By entering the cave and shining a light (observation) starts the process of gremlins losing their size and perceived strength very quickly.
Then you get the treasure.