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Real Liberation
I had a remarkable conversation with a woman about physical limitations. Nancy was a sufferer of M.S. She could no longer walk and spent her waking hours in a wheelchair. "I'm not 'confined' to a wheelchair," she insisted one day. "It doesn't confine me. It sets me free." She asked me, "Do you want to know my reason for living?" "What is it?" I wondered. "To liberate people. To set them free. Before I got my wheelchair," she explained, "I had trouble getting around. Now I can go places! However I can free people, I want to do it." "People speak of being 'shut in,'" she continued. "People who are confined to a room or a house or a bed are not 'shut in.' They're 'shut out' - shut out of activities and shut out of people's lives. So my mission is to liberate people, to set them free, however I can." Because of her disease, Nancy now helps people find ways of gaining more physical freedom. But we humans suffer from other kinds of limitations, too. We need liberation from enslaving beliefs and attitudes. "Almost everybody walks around with a vast burden of imaginary limitations inside his head," says J. H. Brennan. "While the burden remains, personal success is as difficult to achieve as the conquest of Everest with a sack of rocks tied to your back." What burden of limiting beliefs and attitudes are you walking around with? Do you ever say, "I can't do that" or "I can't change this or that"? Do you ever think that you'll never be able to pursue your passion or achieve a cherished dream? Do you believe that other people can experience the good things of life, or simply be happy, but not you? These patterns of thinking are as much of a burden as a sack of rocks tied to your back. Listen to these words from Darwin P. Kingsley: "You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind." Okay, certain limitations are a part of life. You may be more able to see those that are physical. After all, "stinkin' thinkin'" can be easily hidden. But, as Kingsley says, when you get rid of limiting attitudes and beliefs, those rocks tied to your back, you'll discover powers you never dreamed of. You'll do things you never thought you could do! And you'll be truly free. Besides an unhealthy mental outlook, what have you got to lose? |
