Spiritual Warriorship in the Face of Hardship

I used to be normal... at least I used to be able to hold up the facade of being a "normally abled" person, but my body had different ideas about that. For those of you who know me, for the most part I _seem_ like a normal person. Those who know me really well know that I am indeed handicapped. I mainly run around acting like superwoman between times of being severely physically incapacitated. Part of that is due to the nature of my handicap, and part of that is been a result of being super stubborn. I'm not going to let a stupid handicap keep me down. Oh no, No way.

One of the interesting things about people who manage handicaps is different people do really different things with what life has given them. For example, My mother in-law contracted polio while living in India a year or two before the vaccine came out. She lost a muscle in one of her legs. After that it was chairs, canes and walkers for her. She never even tried to go beyond the limitations that were set by the loss of that one calf muscle. She spent the rest of her years not achieving very much beyond ordering people about from her throne of self imposed exile from life. On the other hand, there are plenty of people that refuse to be limited by the hand they were dealt.

It's not what you've got, it's what you do with it.

Each of us across the board has a choice, we can either bow to our limitations, or we can choose to be larger than them. We can "cop an attitude" or choose to laugh in the face of our own frailties and foibles. As for myself, I love to laugh. If I really took the time to focus on the fact that I have an "incurable condition" I'd probably be bummed out and pissed off. Instead, I see that having this ability difference pushes my to be more that I ever would be if I felt I had all the time and energy in the world to accomplish my goals. It pushes me to ask for help and be vulnerable because I have no choice. My handicap has made me a stronger, more compassionate and a more effective person in this world.

Lemons or lemonade, you choose.

So what limitations do you live with? ... emotional, physical, mental or spiritual?
How are your belief systems "handicapped"?
How do you perceive yourself or your world limiting who you can be or what you in regards to what you WOULD LIKE to be doing?
How much of that limitation is truly a limitation?
How are you using that belief as an excuse for not moving out of your "stuck spot?"

I think most people lie to themselves a lot.
The average person would rather argue for his or her limitations than get some energy together to change a life situation.

How are you lying to yourself?
What's the truth?
What are you going to do about it?

I notice that the hardest time to bust a move is when a person is feeling low. The time each of us most needs to move beyond limitations is often the time we are most unlikely to motivate ourselves to do so. Sometimes life is like a storm that forces us to change.
What if we chose our highest path even when we had the choice to lie low? What if each of us chose to rise up in the face of despair? What if we decided to push back on life when the going got rough? What if we decided to soften our hearts in hard times?

This would truly be a different world.

This takes courage that you may not believe you have, but courage and tenacity are like muscles you must strengthen in order to use.
This takes faith and trust in the face of no evidence. It means believing in yourself, no matter what the odds.
It means being true to your highest vision for yourself, and loving yourself through it all.

This is the path of the spiritual warrior, and I wish you blessings upon it.

Sylvia Brallier
Director of the Tantric Shamanism Institute
Author, Dancing in the Eye of Transformation