If you’ve ever watched football, you know pass interference is one of the calls a ref can make. It’s any act that significantly hinders a player’s opportunity to catch the ball—like putting a hand over their eyes, holding onto their arms, etc.
This is what I thought about when I came across the idea recently that our thoughts can create interference. They hinder our opportunities when we are in play, and when our thoughts run interference, we make it harder on ourselves and others.
Besides football, the other thing I immediately thought of is Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron.” The story is set in a dystopian future where everyone is equal.
While that sounds great, to make it a reality, people who are beautiful must wear horrifying masks, and people who are intelligent must wear contraptions on their head that play loud and terrifying noises at random intervals. That stops them from thinking too many thoughts. The main character, Harrison, who is a stunning example of athleticism, must wear 300 pounds of junk all over his body to make him equal to everyone else.
It literally weighs him down, making it harder for him to function.
I won’t ruin the end of the story for you, but if you were forced to wear a mask and hide the real you, wouldn’t you want to tear it off?
If you had something strapped onto your head that made it hard to think, hard to function, wouldn’t you want to rip it off?
Or if you had all kinds of literal or metaphorical junk weighing you down, wouldn’t you want to be free from it?
Our thoughts can create just this kind of interference or intermeddling. Our thoughts can convince us we have to hide our real selves. They can create a kind of static inside, or a heaviness, a thick sludge that can make it so hard to function.
More than that, interfering can also be an inner-fearing. How often do we let fear of what might be get in the way of what is?
What we can do about this will come as no surprise—we can practice observing, like an impartial ref who wants to keep the game fair. We want to allow our mind the freedom to play, to get out there and see what might happen.
And if our minds start to interfere or inner fear, we throw up a bright and sunny yellow flag and blow a whistle. “Nope. Not gonna allow it.”
And we set ourselves—our real selves, our unencumbered selves—in play again and again and again.
When we can do that, we can move toward freedom and lightness and the full joy of seeing just what we are capable of, without any of our normal shit weighing us down.
Easier said than done, right?
Yes and no.
For one of the best ways to make this happen is to take a deep breath in.
As you breathe out, let the junk go.
Breathe in.
As you breathe out, let the fear go.
Just as football players run out onto the field day after day, let this daily practice build up those muscles that can help you get rid of the interference and the inner fearing.
It’s one of the best ways to take the field and be strong and real, light and free.
let the junk go. a good mantra.