I believe that Plato said know thyself, heal thyself. As a special person you have the ability of over- coming handicaps, overcoming obstacles, because if you stop and think that in your life you have overcome a lot of negativity, you have overcome a lot of obstacles, and it's just a question of over- coming as many obstacles as you can.
It is believed by handicapped people that if you believe that you axe handicapped, you are handi- capped. I personally have worked with paraple- gics and quadriplegics, and to some degree helped them through meditations and through guided im- agery and visualizations.
It reminds me of when I was a very young child, about fifteen years old, I had an occasion to speak with this doctor, and I sat in this doctor's office for about 15 minutes, and it was a nicely decorat- ed office, and we had this conversation. I was sit- ting across from him, and at the conclusion of the conversation I was informed by one of his assist- ants and by him also that the doctor was blind. He couldn't see, stone cold blind and he walked around with a cane, yet we sat in that office and talked for 15 minutes about a variety of subjects, and I never had a clue. I never could guess. I con- sider myself a reasonably intuitive person, to be able to sense these things about others, but I didn't have a clue. He explained to me later that that was one of the handicaps that he was able to overcome simply because in not acting blind. You see, it worked for him. It is also widely be- lieved amongst handicapped people, as well as the medical fraternity, that when one of your senses goes down, the other senses come to the fore. Peo- ple that have a handicap in the hearing usually have excellent eyesight, and usually the people that have a problem with one of their other senses, all the other senses seem to bond together to make them stronger at what they do.
In dealing with handicaps I think there are certain ground rules or parameters to be aware of. One is, if you take ten people with the same handicap there will be degrees, there will be differences, be- tween all the ten people. You read in the newspa- pers, the magazines, about people putting a paint- brush between their toes and painting murals and masterpieces, and that's just one way to overcome a handicap, using different limbs, using the feet and the legs to do what normally the hands and arms would do.
If you're incapacitated with the right arm, usually your left arm becomes the tool. The utensil. In people who are normally right handed that have a problem, they use the left hand.
It is the same way in life then if you have a handi- cap with your personality, if you have a handicap with the way you speak or the way that you inter- act, or the way that you see yourself, these things can be worked on to be made better.
If a person has a stuttering problem or stammering problem it will usually happen when the person is under tension, what we call being under fire. I would say to you that it is necessary to have some
piece of mind or some harmony in your life, and by so doing, that you will be able to overcome a handicap.
People who have agoraphobia, people that are handicapped by being house-bound, or keeping close to the house, and maybe not going beyond the back yard, I have been aware in my studies of people who have not left their house in 20 years. Maybe would walk to the corner mail box, but most assuredly would not get in a car to drive somewhere.
And if they do, they force themselves to do this, they end up with arrhythmia and hyperventilation, and they end up with some sort of attacks because in a sense they feel handicapped. The key, of course, is if you feel handicapped, you probably are. If you feel that you will always will be handi- capped, you probably always will be.
There are three things that I would introduce into your thinking. One key is to believe that you can be healed. Secondly, to believe that something or someone out there that can heal you. And thirdly, to believe that you want to be healed. There are several very good books on the market relative to handicaps and relative to overcoming handicaps. One is by Deepac Chopra, and the title of the book is Quantum Healing. The second is by Ber- ney Seigal/How to Live Between Office Visits, and the third is by Louise Hay, How to Heal Your Life. Because everyone's handicap is different. I find it interesting... I have talked to people over the telephone and really not been aware that they we're handicapped.
And yet they may be without limbs or they may be quadriplegics, or they may have problems in their life... dependency problems and handicaps. Because one can be handicapped by cocaine, one can be handicapped by heroin.
One can be handicapped by bad self-esteem, bad image, how they feel about themselves. A bad up- bringing, a child of alcoholic parents, a child of incest, a person or victim of rape. There's many things in our lives that handicap us, in a sense if we allow them.
The key word here is 'allow', and it is much like in one of my lectures I may be asked, Can you place a curse on a person? Can you use voodoo on a person? My answer is normally that yes, if a person believes that I can put a curse on them, then I can. If they believe I am not capable of put- ting a curse on them, well then I can't.
So the key word is 'allow', and if you allow your- self to be handicapped, you can be handicapped. I can remember a young woman coming to me with her arm in a sling, and the arm had been in a sling
off and on for the better part of the year, and the doctor's had felt that it was something psychoso- matic, but she consciously said she could not use the arm and it would not function for her.
I placed the woman under hypnosis and the arm was working fine. I had her open her eyes when she was under hypnosis and again, once she rec- ognized the fact that she could move the arm, and that she allowed herself to use the arm, then the arm moved.
I'm not saying that a person that has problems with their legs is going to run 100-yard dash, be- come an Olympian. I'm not saying that, and cer- tainly I am not taking this subject lightly. But what I am saying to you is to reexamine this hand- icap, and to overcome as much of it as you are able to do.
And in my lifetime, I've seen some phenomenal things that people are able to accomplish with their handicaps. And of course, we're dealing with physical handicaps and we're dealing with emo- tional handicaps. I believe, as far as the emotional handicaps, you have a shot, you know. Each day through the age of electronics and through the age of medicine new things are being developed, new cures are being developed, and even as I speak they are working on a cure for AIDS.
They are working on cures for cancer, and in our lifetime there will be a lot of people that see them- selves as handicapped that will no longer see themselves as handicapped. But I think that ini- tially I feel that it is a question of emotional hand- icaps that can be dealt with. They can be dealt with through counseling, through personal thera- py, physical therapy, occupational therapy.
There is a way of overcoming handicaps. Now, it is all a mind-set. I saw a gentleman the other day that had on this T-shirt. And on the front of it, he was a black man, and on the front it said "The most difficult job in the world is being a black man.' It really made me think. I engaged this per- son in conversation after meeting him, and I came to find out that he really saw himself as a victim, you know, woe is me, the world is against me, I'll never accomplish anything. He had a job as a la- borer and he just felt sorry for himself, he was somewhat masochistic.
I spoke to him at length, and I said, "well look at all the supreme court justices, look at all the law- yers, look at all the judges, look at all the politi- cians, look at all the very successful men that are millionaires that are black men."
He told me he was talking with a politician in Cal- ifornia, a black man, several years ago. He said to the politician, "you should be very proud of your- self that you have been able to overcome all the
handicaps in your life, because after all you're a black man and it's been difficult. How did you do this? How did you overcome these handicaps?" He looked him straight in the eye and he said, "what handicaps?"
Handicaps are there. It's almost like a negative seed that has been planted in your mind. If you're told as a young person that you'll never accom- plish anything. Well, perhaps you won't accom- plish anything if you absorb that negativity. The word handicap has a variety of different classifi- cations and there are many different elements rel- ative to handicap.
A person who's an alcoholic in a sense is handi- capped. A person that is impotent is handicapped. A person that is manic depressive is handicapped. And you might say, a person who takes pills and medications in a way is handicapped, because they will not function properly without the medi- cation.
So again, there are many different classifications. What I am saying to you is don't be too quick to see yourself as handicapped, simply because I think there's been stories upon stories about peo- ple that have overcome all sorts of negativity and all sorts of handicap within their life. Don't be your own worst enemy, don't be judgmental of yourself, don't be critical of yourself, and concen- trate on what you want to do and where you want to go.
In the beginning you crawled and you walked and you ran, and perhaps you'll fly, depending on how you believe in yourself. You can change things, you can modify things, you can alter things. Don't accept everything at face value. Get differ- ent opinions of your situation. People have differ- ent opinions of this particular 'handicap.' You may find many times a handicap may be some- thing temporary, it may be a for now situation, or in fact a for now handicap, but perhaps it won't be a forever handicap. Good Luck.