Self-Limitations or Conscious Choices?
Tags: Prompt, Short Story, Energy, Personal Growth, Mindset

Photo by Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash

When I saw the prompt yesterday I thought I had finally met my match. I didn’t see what I might have to add to the topic. After reading Marilyn Flower’s post and meditating on it during my swim today, I came up with some thoughts. First of all, this prompt follows perfectly from the weekend prompt of “Energy Flows Where My Intention Goes”. These and I think self-talk are the keys we must look at.

We all have limitations. There are twenty-four hours in a day and seven days in a week. We also have a daily limitation on how much energy we have. This will vary day to day. This will vary how we care for ourselves physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. If we rob from sleep too often, for example, it can affect our physical health, our mental capacities and such. Rarely do we reach our maximum energy limitation, but it can happen.

There are limitations that we need to deal with. They fall under the following categories; Physical, legal, and financial. Physical limitations would include things like time, physics, strength, and physical conditioning among others. Legal would be whether something is lawful or not. Financial would relate to monetary things. Many of these limitations involve time. I could probably never buy a luxury yacht to sail around the world but it could be that I can’t afford something else today…That could change over time if proper planning is done. The same thing can be said about strength or physical conditioning.

We tend to use the phrase self-limits or limitation because then we get the idea that we can’t change it. When talking about personal limitations I think we need to change to the three “Ps”. Preferences, priorities, and prejudices. Someone may say that they can’t fly. Of course they can, they simply need to get on the plane. That they can’t or won’t involves one of the three “Ps”. They might be too scared, too anxious, or something else but it is not a physical limitation.

I will use me for examples. Long ago in my life, I turned away from organized religions. I will likely not investigate Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, or any other Eastern religion or belief systems due to that. I like many aspects of these but I do not think I would ever embrace them. It is not a self-imposed limit. It is probably a learned prejudice.

Working out is a personal thing to me. I have no problem with people that go to group aerobics classes. I used to go to the gym with a friend and they would do group aerobics. Now there are water aerobics classes that I have to delay my swims for. They often ask why I don’t join. I will even acknowledge that some of these classes may be a better workout than I presently do. I want the time spent in my mind while I swim. This is a preference I can live with. People often ask me why I am not in a relationship. I am not anti-relationship. It is not a priority for me at this point of my life. All of these examples are not limitations. They are choices.

Reiterating what is key here is that energy flows where our intentions go. I think all of us, like Diana, have experiences or situations that we can’t fully immerse ourselves into. That is because if we truly looked deep we would find our intentions are not on that at this point of our lives. That is ok. There is nothing wrong with that.

We need to cut ourselves some slack until they are prioritized to get our energy spent of them. I did that for many years while I taught. When they became important enough for one reason or another I got to them. If I didn’t, like that wooden ship model I never finished, I needed to admit that they were not meant to happen.