Unchain My Heart

 The idea that our perceptions determine the reality that we perceive is quite old. In the classic story, known as "Plato's Cave", Socrates describes how a group of men who are chained facing a wall observe shadows dancing across the wall in front of them. They have never known that these shadows are projected on the wall from figures near the entrance to the cave that are moving behind them in front of a candle. To the men chained in the cave, the shadows are reality.

One day one of the men turns around and sees that there are figures moving behind him casting their shadows across the wall. From that day on, the "reality" of the shadows no

longer exists.

Changing my thinking; challenging it, testing it--is my attempt to unchain myself and to see the reality of what is outside the small cave of my mind. I have believed the shadows on my “wall” all of my life. I have made decisions about people and situations, about work and especially about love based on what I saw in the shadows. Now I want to know what’s real.

If my thinking and perceptions can change I can slowly unchain my heart.