There is a story from my childhood called Gulliver’s Travels that is about a man who travels to a distant land and finds that he is a giant among the ‘little’ people of this land. The people of this land are so fearful of this giant that they use thousands of tiny ropes to lash him down and control his movements. Eventually he frees himself and is able to show the townspeople that his size was nothing to fear.
Of course the story is more detailed than this but it is possible that there is an energetic message here that we can explore.
Let’s start with the possibility that we are love – that everyone has an essence that is love and that this essence remains forever equal within all. More than this, that this essence (love) is our point of connection to divinity.
If this were the case, then we would each have the ability to either express from this essence or not. We would each have the chance to live from a level of love (divinity) that would tower over any other way of living.
This would mean that inside everyone there is a giant, waiting to be expressed. So we could all well be Gulliver, not in terms of physical stature but in our potential to express that very divine aspect of ourselves.
If you look around the world, it could be suggested that many of us don’t live from this essence. If we ignore the people who go out of their way to harm others, what you see around the streets, shops, workplaces are a sea of people who are kind, diligent, well intentioned for the most part but who also look tired and just trying to get through life. Essentially, you see people who look and feel ‘small’.
So how does someone living small respond to seeing someone in full expression (a giant)?
Some view it as scary, because it is so unfamiliar, some even see it as a threat, possibly because it shows how small our lives have become. So it makes sense, if we feel threatened, to protect ourselves from this giant – to find ways to tie it down and contain its movement.
Certainly history has shown that when people bring great truth to the world, they are often not met with open arms, because often what needs to be said challenges what is currently being lived.
Now this all might make some sense when we talk about people reacting to how other people are, but this is only the first layer…
If we all have an essence that we all live to varying degrees, is it possible that we also become threatened by the giant within because it shows us the ways that we have lived that are small . . . so we reach for ropes to try to tie it down.
We do a deal with the world that we will play ball with certain ideals about how life should be and subscribe to certain beliefs about what is true or not. At no point do we realise that each ideal, each belief, is equivalent to a piece of rope tying us to the ground. Over the years, and some would suggest lifetimes, we end up successfully harnessing the giant within. From time to time we might break a rope but, because there are so many, there is always another to take up the slack.
So how do we release the giant within? It is not a single heave or wave of the magic wand, but rather a dedicated process of lifting off each rope, one at a time.
Eventually you might free an arm but become shocked to find that when you haven’t moved a limb for a long time, those first movements aren’t always pleasurable… so in those first movements we might wonder if there is any real benefit to moving. But if we want to release the giant within we must persist…
Over time, as the one arm becomes free it can help remove other ropes, then others, then others. But this is not a fairy tale; there is no magical resolution once you understand what you have to do. Getting what you have to do and doing it are different. We can get frustrated, tired, bored, feeling like it is a tedious thing to do but, after those reactions, you look down and the ropes are still there.
We all have ropes to deal with. Some people are secured from head to toe, some have a hand free, some people are sitting up, some people are standing… everyone is realising, in their own time, that there is nothing to fear and everything to gain by releasing the giant within.
By Joel Levin
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
Playing small is harmful for all.
Thank you Joel. What this brings to my attention is another teaching, and that is from Pinocchio and how his life unfolded as a boy; that it is import for us to learn how everything in life holds a level of responsibility. Then could we be in the understanding of our True-responsibility, and this is at any age, not just from young, as we are never too old to learn that we can appreciate that divinity is coming in and through us, releasing deeper levels of what is within?
Beautiful metaphor, when we begin to lift off the ropes life can seem confusing, like we don’t know how to be or how to act. I went through a phase where everything just seemed wrong, but if we persevere and keep going, we eventually get on the other side and life begins to be beautiful again.
Could it be possible for there to be a wrong there has to be a right and neither are True? Truth and appreciation of the fact we are more than human will deepen the relationship with our repose-full-ness and thus untangle the most difficult entanglements of ropes and cords we are attached to.
Thank you Greg, it brings clarity and a different perspective.
It is always up to us to allow a rope or not, and in many ways we also tie ourselves down, discovering power is also about discovering responsibility, because such power is unstoppable unless we ourselves stop it.
Playing small when it comes to our light and love doesn’t support anyone and actually hurts us.
Reading your article makes me realise that I can play small and be in self doubt and lack of self worth or I can choose to appreciate me and all that I bring and walk this and that feels very empowering and then I feel expanded and not small.
Gorgeous analogy Joel, thank you.
Another great blog Joel, I love how you share your wisdom.
Possibility or Truth? ✨ ‘Let’s start with the possibility that we are love – that everyone has an essence that is love and that this essence remains forever equal within all. More than this, that this essence (love) is our point of connection to divinity.’ Indeed what if we all lived this and our full potential .. how marvellous that would be.
The possibility that we are all love…’that everyone has an essence that is love and that this essence remains forever equal within all. More than this, that this essence (love) is our point of connection to divinity.’
The more I practice being a giant, the more I realise how natural it is to be such. We can spend so much time and energy in believing we are small but it’s not true.
We are so much more than what the eye can visibly see, ‘This would mean that inside everyone there is a giant, waiting to be expressed.’
When there are some among us who walk tall and make an imprint of love on the Earth, we have a choice to shake off the ropes and walk beside them – or not.
If we could all walk in our greatness, what a difference it could make to our world. However what I personally need to allow is the love of who I am within, so that the ropes tying me down can slowly easy off and allow the hidden part of me to truly evolve.
There can come a time too when focusing on the ropes becomes a distraction away from living the love we are.
Those ropes that hold us back represent our unresolved hurts and issues and when being removed can easily become an entangled mess – which is why enlisting the support of others in this process can help free us of their bondage.
The ropes can also be ideals and beliefs that limit us in various ways, ‘At no point do we realise that each ideal, each belief, is equivalent to a piece of rope tying us to the ground.’
Sad that we have lost sense of who we are to the degree that when one walks in the mightiness and grandness of who we are, as a reflection and an inspiration, we are fearful of the power and instantly draw arms to fight it as it seems so foreign to us. Yet if we are willing to be open to truth and to turn within surely do discover, as you have gorgeously shared – ‘that everyone has an essence that is love and that this essence remains forever equal within all. More than this, that this essence (love) is our point of connection to divinity.’ We then are able to appreciate the grandness lived in another is a reflection and an inspiration of who we all are in essence.
It is no wonder that so many of us are masters at tying ourselves down with ropes (beliefs) as these beliefs are swirling around us non-stop from the day we are born. So, I wonder why life is setup from day one for the giant within us to be tied down, numbed or even put to sleep, as if the opposite was encouraged our lives would be so very different and the world an amazing place to live is. It sure is time to blast this long-accepted paradigm apart
Something that occurred to me about the story of Gulliver’s Travels is how much more powerful the giant truly is than the tiny ropes that are used to keep him down. So if in truth we are that same powerful giant in all our divine essences, why do we allow those tiny ropes to contain us when we could literally snap them as if they are the thinnest of threads?
That’s how it feels sometimes when letting go of the ropes, that they never really had the holding power that was given to them.
No matter what size we are, when we are connected to our essence we are all equal in every way.
When being small and contracted has been accepted as normal, grandness appears to be out of place, and when we react, isn’t that not because we see it as an unknown threat, but because we actually do recognise it as something that we had walked away from?