Isn't it too bad someone hasn't come up with a book on How to Break Down Barriers in Three Easy Lessons or Ten Short Steps to Overcoming Limitations? Sometimes old habits and limited thinking seem so much a part of us that we either fail to recognize them as such and make no effort to free ourselves from them or we feel the task is too great for us to go to the trouble of changing our thinking.

We learn in Christian Science, however, that if we desire to overcome limitations and break barriers nothing can hinder us.

What are these barriers? Are they external to us? No, they are right in our own thinking, where we can come to grips with them, whether they are habits that would enslave us or limitations such as fear, apathy, selfishness. If we entertain these undesirables as house guests, they limit our lives and keep us from experiencing vital, interesting activities and from reaching out to help others. In short, they chain us to a limited concept of ourselves and of God and keep us from really living.

Christ Jesus gave the best example of breaking barriers. Long before powerful jet planes broke the sound barrier and set new records for speed, he was instantly at his destination across a lake (see John 6:21). He changed water into wine and multiplied loaves and fishes centuries before modern laboratory scientists experimented with changing the physical properties of matter. He healed the sick and raised the dead in defiance of material law, and his crowning example of overcoming limitation was his own resurrection and ascension. All these things he accomplished by purely spiritual means. Mrs. Eddy also gave irrefutable proofs that an understanding of God breaks all barriers. She discovered the Science of Christ-healing and gave it to the world, working against all odds and at a time when women's rights were less recognized than they are today.

Now, how does one go about breaking down barriers in his thinking? First of all, one starts with God as good and All and with man as His perfect child now. He holds to the fact that man is God's expression and is constantly at one with his divine source. To demonstrate these facts, one must consistently claim his own harmony with God and endeavor to express more of God's qualities— purity, wisdom, love, and integrity—in his everyday life. He makes a conscious effort to identify himself as God's idea and to overcome limitations that seem to have been a part of him and to have ruled his actions. He knows that limitation and all evil are not real because they have no place in God, good, and no place in His expression.

If fear has dwelt unchallenged in our consciousness and has been limiting our activity, shouldn't we deliberately face up to it and reverse this suggestion? Remember, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." ^{II Tim. 1:7;} And Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health, "We must look where we would walk, and we must act as possessing all power from Him in whom we have our being." ^{Science and Health, p. 264;} If the power is from God, we are not depending on any personal power or struggling vainly alone.

We may have an opportunity to break the barrier of apathy and stagnation by engaging in some worthwhile activity or by helping someone. What if we don't feel like doing it but would rather be by ourselves? It is wise to be alert to suggestions that would keep us in the apathy and ease of a comfortable rut. We should make use of every opportunity to break loose from this enslavement and exercise our God-given right to be vital, fresh, spontaneous, and vibrantly alive!

Another mesmeric and seemingly impenetrable barrier is selfishness. The battle to forget self is often long and hard, entailing many backward steps. Yet, when we claim our heritage as God's idea, we can look for little ways every day to express unselfishness, even if at first the effort seems forced. We must not become discouraged, because unselfishness will surely be ours as we express the qualities of our true selfhood, which is created by God, who is Love. What a relief to be free of self-centeredness! Someone may ask, "If I have to force myself to express love, isn't that using self-will?" This is a subtle argument of evil, or mortal mind, to delay our progress. If we always wait until we feel like doing something, we may never budge!

Man is not a stagnant mortal trying to become active. He is already expressing the vigor and freshness of Life, the unselfed goodness and expansiveness of Love. Therefore it is natural for man to have dominion. As we discipline ourselves to express these qualities and claim man's dominion, we find it easier to live our true nature as God's reflection.

It is fun to keep our thinking open to ways of breaking down barriers of limitation, fear, stagnation, and selfishness. We find our thinking expanding and becoming more elastic. We are doing things we never did before and finding ways to help others. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health, "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis." ^{p. 258 .} Let us remember that we are Love's expression, not limited mortals struggling to become unlimited mortals. Love's expression is unfolding in our lives.