Overcome Your Limitations
Those who know me know I have two sons I absolutely adore. Each is amazing in his own way and I am very proud of who they are. The eldest, Alexander, is mentally and physically handicapped. About a year ago, with the recommendation of Alex’s doctors, we decided to move forward with putting him in his own home, with full-time caregivers and a roommate. I grappled with the decision night and day – convinced that he would be miserable, depressed or even be taken advantage of. My son’s handicaps are severe. He is unable to speak and does a handful of signs to communicate. I could not shake the idea that if he didn’t live with family, he might someday need help with no way to tell us. It was a miserable process, but after discussing with the rest of the family, all who adore him, I agreed to give it a chance.
That was about a year ago and Alex is doing better than ever. He has made a ton of new friends, takes part in special-needs softball games, has a great roommate and no longer has panic and anger attacks in public. I was overwhelmed with emotions a few weeks ago to see how happy he was when I took him to one of his softball games. He walked right out on the field, ‘hi-fived’ some of his friends and then stood in the infield smiling and waving at other friends. All of this was something new and foreign to me. As I wiped the tears from my face, I began to realize something amazing. For many years I had tried to protect my son from his ‘handicaps’. I thought I was keeping him safer, sheltering him from social and emotional struggles of his own. However, in the meantime, he continued to grow and develop as a person and became a young man capable of much more than I ever dreamed he could be. He is enjoying having his own life, a roommate and caregivers that love him. The handicap that I thought was keeping my son from being happy is now simply a part of who he is – and he has accepted it, embraced it, and outgrown it.
And so have I.
Realizing that I have mistakenly allowed his handicaps to determine who he is, I began to look at myself, and others, in a similar light. What aspects of my own personality, performance and life have I permitted to dictate my own personal and professional success because I allowed it to define me? I could see that throughout life we all allow the same types of labels and limitations that I placed on my son, to limit our own self-growth.
‘Too old’, ‘too young’, ‘poor’, ‘wrong color’, ‘wrong sex’, ‘uneducated’ and other stereotypes are some of the labels we each carry and too often embrace as the reason we might fail. I have used a couple of these over the years as handicaps to excuse my unwillingness and fear to ‘try’. We are not these words that we allow our minds to whisper over and over. We empower them to impede our ability to be the best version of ourselves we can be. We lean on them to accept self-imposed limitations on what and who we can be.
When I think back on watching my son out on that softball field with his friends, I think of a quote by C.S. Lewis,
You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.
Alexander’s joyful soul becomes more and more evident the less he accepts his ‘limitations’. He is happy and continues to experience personal growth almost daily.
We shouldn’t allow ourselves to accept labels. We shouldn’t embrace the stereotypes that bombard us daily. We need to believe in ourselves and understand that our willingness to accept self-imposed limits is keeping us from being the best, happiest and most fulfilled people-employees-family members that we can be.
Like Alexander, we can outgrow any of our accepted personal handicaps and continue to grow in everything we do.
Written by Wade Esau / https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/wadeesau/
#Mindfulness #SelfHelp