Something simple yet profound today for us – the emperor, and the sand.

Now this is an old, old metaphor that no-one now remembers just where it came from, but it is about a victorious general picking up a handful of sand and trying to hold it in his clenched fist in the gesture of owning the land he has just conquered – but the sand, being sand, just runs from his hand, slides through his fingers and he can’t hold on to it, no matter how hard he tries.

I personally think that this is not a sad metaphor, but an important truth about the world that can lighten your burdens, your responsibilities and your sense of having to control everything.

There are things that cannot be held in a clenched fist, and that’s a good thing, if you think about it.

If you want to, you can leave it there; but if you wanted to as well, you could now take something that you have held in a clenched fist for a long time, and really do spend 60 seconds to hold on to it some more, as hard as you can, and experience for yourself that it can’t be done, and that this, too, like sand, will flow from your hand and return to the world, as it must.

A beautiful metaphor, and an amazing exercise, indeed.

The MindMillion Energy Exercises created by Silvia Hartmann, exclusive to The Guild of Energists