How often do you set off on your heroic journey as your own antagonist? The mind like a three-headed hydra bursts forth upon awakening. The daily "shoulds" and "should nots" rear their ugly heads. The hero wants to save the princess from her descent into hell yet he falls prey to the voices of the Sirens lulling the hero into a hypnotic trance. The echoes of the mind reverberating, pushing the hero into his mental cage. There is no escape from the powerful spell the mind has over him. Or is there?

The hero knows he fears. He knows that life is precarious. Despite knowing his fragility, he awakens and steps onto the floor. His mind jumps to and fro. He uses the gentleness, as one would use for a small child, to engage in his first step. This hero experiences searing pain. He feels as though his legs are broken horizontally in 12 places. He steadies himself on the wall. A deep breath and he takes his next step. The thoughts whirl around as a lumbering Cyclops. He gently, gingerly sidesteps the oncoming Cyclops by using the mind to think not involve itself in thoughts.

Now his task is to get to the next room. His mental dragon spews out fiery thoughts: Will I be able to get to the breakfast table? Will I be able to work? The stairs, can I face them today? Ah, there is the mind again, questioning with an intoxicating potion. He uses pragmatism and inaudibly says, "slow down, breathe, and take one single step at a time." The mental dragons are whirling, but he no longer is involved, at least for the time being. He may meet his antagonist once again, maybe in seconds, maybe in hours. There is little he can do to predict the intoxicating fumes elicited by his own antagonist--thoughts. His weapon is gentleness. His weapon is knowing his thoughts are just that--thoughts. Nothing is personal unless he thinks it is.

Clumsily and in much pain he makes it to perform morning ablutions and then is off to make some early morning nourishment. He will gently stretch his body. Maybe today it will move, he thinks. It does not. Tenderly, he gives his body space to relax. As he does so, the pain subsides. His body knows what to do, there is no need to resist. Resisting only makes it worse. The least our hero can do is not make it worse by efforting to become something the body does not want. He listens to the signs of impending danger and ceases to resist. His body knows exactly what it needs and when. The mind antagonistically resists the very message.

He begins his day of work. He is faced with others who do not know their heroism. Their thoughts act as dragons burning up their heroic deeds transforming them into shortcomings at every turn. He now uses the sword of gentleness to support deconstruction of the mind's adherence to the conviction that "I must be something better than I am." His next act of heroism is to reveal the everyday hero in each and everyone.

We are all heroes in our story despite our perspective of the day's journey. Our thoughts antagonistically and perpetually numb us into inadequacy or not being good enough. We heroically face the day. We heroically deal with our pains and forge onward. Do we need rescuing? Who will rescue us but our own will to break the spell of the mind?

We reject the natural human qualities for Godlike qualities the mind is convinced we should be. The mind is a taskmaster, masochistically berating us into becoming, not being. The very notion that what we are is something to be mutilated and changed for something impossible is the very recipe for "not being good enough" and addiction.

Are you ready to reveal your everyday hero?