The Worst Disability…

Many people live with very real, life altering disabilities every day and although these disabilities (whether physical, emotional and psychological) vary in severity, the disability is valid; it is real. There are however, many among us who have succumb to “perceived disabilities.” These “disabilities” have been thrust upon us through the taking in of lies as truth. Perhaps someone who was entrusted with our care told us that we “could not” learn or someone with great influence told us at a very critical time in our lives that we were incompetent, “ couldn’t do the job” and we were left with the internal injury that created our “disability.”

Today, I am going to ask you to do a very scary thing: evaluate what you believe about yourself; search it out and see where it originated and then test it out to see if it is true. Many of us have been held as tormented hostages to falsehoods that others have told us that we accepted as truth. Then to compensate for what we believe our deficiencies to be, our dysfunctional behavior begins. We will “overdo” it to compensate for feeling inadequate. We will go above and beyond in relationships to compensate for feeling unlovable, unacceptable or unworthy. Think for a moment. Think about what is driving your behavior. Think not about what you do, but why you do it.

On India.Arie’s most recent album, Testimony: Vol. 1. Life & Relationships, she has a song entitled “There’s Hope,” and in that song she says “I’m taking back the power today.” Eventually, that is what we all have to do. We have to take back the power, the time, the belief, the attention and the space that we have given to the lies that have left us withered, lame, and paralyzed—that have rendered us disabled in some area of our lives. Wouldn’t it be horrible if you could walk and you just believed you couldn’t?

How about if you were beautiful, lovable and worthy of love and affection, but believed that you weren’t  What if you lived your life in a limited fashion when you didn’t have to? That would have to be the worst disability case that there could be. It would be a shame.