Your Brilliant Light

Photo credit: Tamara Hanson 

I think one of the things that saddens me the most about human nature is that we do not let our brilliant and beautiful light shine. We are given this grand adventure in life to do something amazing. ('Amazing' doesn’t have to be changing the world or inventing something new. 'Amazing' can be little things, too, and it can inspire one person or a million.)

We all have this wonderful and divine nature that was given to all of us, but many of us prefer to settle for mediocrity. Why? Why snuff out that beautiful light that you were born with?  

Unfortunately, we tend to settle for less than what we actually deserve. We extinguish our light for absolutely no reason… and there is no valid reason to snuff out your light. We play small to help someone feel bigger. 

Or, we put our dreams, our wants, and our needs on the back burner so others can fulfill theirs.

We begin to believe that someone else determines our worthiness, not fully knowing that our worthiness and value is found within, and only we have the power to determine it for ourselves.  

As Lupita Nyong’o said so eloquently, “I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy.”

We have become enamoured by our inadequacies. We prefer to identify with our negative beliefs, our insecurities, our illness, our failures, our financial situation…. We prefer this over letting our brilliant light shine.

I think Marianne Williamson said it best with her famous quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

"Don't die with your music still in you." - Dr. Wayne Dyer