Ashok Gupta compares recovery to bowling: the bumpers that keep the ball from the gutter are like life's painful corrections, redirecting you toward your authentic center. Perfectionism and achievement-driven behavior push you off-center; symptoms act as corrective barriers that knock over old mental patterns.
Something that I really love playing with my nephews is going bowling. And when I go bowling, they think that they're brilliant at bowling. So what will happen is I'll go up, I'll grab the bowling ball and you know, hey, I can be, I can be quite competitive myself, even with my nephews who are only like, you know, 7 and 10. So I'll throw the bowling ball and try to get a strike or half strike and it will go off into the gutter. And I think, oh, okay, fair enough. And they will get on and they will put that little, I don't know what you call it, that there's a little triangle thing where they put the ball on the top and then roll it down the middle and then they put those little side skirts up. So in the bowling lane, right, kids, put those little side skirts up. Yep. And this ball will roll along really slowly, hit the side like seven times and then they'll knock all the pins over. Yes. We did it. We beat him. Yeah. And they genuinely think that they, you know, they're brilliant at bowling as a result. And the reason I bring this up is it's an analogy which is very relevant to what Lindsay mentioned there. This idea of this sneaky kind of spiritual accelerator, or even if you don't have a spiritual set of beliefs is the idea of a. It's a self growth accelerator. And the way it's. What on earth is. How does it relate to bowling? You imagine you are the bowling ball and as you're going down the path, if you veer off too much into your achiever which isn't your authentic self, guess what? Bang. You hit the side and you hit the side skirts and it redirects you towards the center again, back to your center and then you're then rolling along. Oh, you hit the side again. Your perfectionist has kicked in and you're going off in a direction that's causing you stress and it's making you push beyond your limits and not loving yourself. So then you get a course correction and the ball goes down the middle again. Oh, you hit the side again. Your achiever has overtaken you and made you think that you know your status and how well you're competing against your peers is more important than your living, authentic life or what you truly want in life. So you get a course correction. So these conditions and these symptoms are like those barriers on the side that keep you along the straight and narrow, take you towards your goal. Otherwise you're going to get stuck. The ball is going to go off into the gutter. And then, guess what? You have to play the game again. You have to bowl the ball again. So rather than having to bowl the ball again, and those of you who have a spiritual belief system will know what I mean by that. Instead of having to bowl the ball again in this lifetime, the side skirts have come up and said, right? If you veer off too much to the side, it might be a little painful to hit the side, but at least it stops you going into the gutter and having to play again. You're getting to go down the center, down the middle, and then you achieve your goal of knocking over the pins, knocking over those old patterns, those old impressions in the mind, and becoming a cleaner and purer filter for the light to enter.
