This is certainly a time of the year that I, and I would venture to say ‘most people’, spend in reflection – over the year as a whole, my business, my personal goals. One picture from the past keeps popping up in my mind  – I believe that it’s telling me to keep it in the forefront and use it as my inspiration for the coming year. I actually used it as part of an inspiration collage I created and wrote about a while back, but now it’s a stand-alone.

This photo was taken many years ago – yes, that’s me laying stiff as a board suspended between two chairs, as the hypnotist prepares to stand on my stomach. It’s so bizarre to even think that this really happened, but I remember it as clear as day. Here’s how it unfolded.

I was attending a banquet and the hypnotist was the entertainment. He asked for volunteers to come on stage and be hypnotized – several people went up. As the lights dimmed, he said that it sometimes happens that someone in the audience might be hypnotized as well. If that happened, we weren’t to touch them or wake them, but rather let him know and he would bring them up on stage too.

Well, guess who got hypnotized in the audience? Yep – that would be me! I went up on stage and he had us all do the usual silly stuff – pretend the chair we were sitting in was a ‘hot seat’, make a sound like a chicken, and so forth. The funny thing is, even though I was hypnotized and doing those things, I was still totally aware. As the program wound down, he was going to use one person for his final activity. He began asking a few questions of each person – I was the last person on the stage since I had been brought up there last. After questioning me, he decided I was the subject for this last demonstration.

He positioned the chairs – sat a man in each one to hold them steady. Then he started talking to me – telling me I was ‘strong as steel’, ‘unbendable’ and so on. Then he had me fall back – someone caught me and I was positioned on the chairs. He then stood on a chair himself and then stepped up onto my stomach. He didn’t stay there long – only a second or two, but it was enough to prove his point. Which to me was…

The power of the mind is beyond our actual imagining. We hear this and ‘know’ it but forget it so readily. But I believe it’s something we need to remember and harness. If we visualize and believe, we truly can do miraculous things. Things that matter more than being part of a ‘parlor-trick’ demonstration.

I’m keeping this picture in front of me all year – maybe (probably) every year – to remind me of what is possible. So I ask you – what motivates you? Keep it in front of you for daily inspiration.

Thanks for reading!

Adena