Let Your Light Shine Bright

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. …[A]s 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. ~Marianne Willamson

I had a friend who, although barely five feet tall, was bigger than life. She wore skinny jeans and spike heels, and spoke with a deep south Mississippi drawl. She was funny and irreverent and was definitely the captain of her ship. When someone would shake their head, laughing, and exclaim, “Faye, you are just too much,” she would draw herself up tall, with one eyebrow raised, and shoot back, “No! Honey, you are just not enough.” While her retort was admittedly not very charitable, I loved it. She refused to let anyone diminish her, even in jest. She was a giant of self worth packed into a tiny frame.

Many of us, however, don’t need someone else to bring us down a notch. We are quite happy to do that on our own. We apologize for ourselves, bemoan our shortcomings, hide our gifts, deny our authority, and tiptoe on eggshells, lest we come across as arrogant, self-righteous, or conceited. As Marianne Williamson says, our “deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

Why is that so scary? Why does it seem so wrong? Perhaps because we misunderstand our powerful birthright. Our power isn’t about being domineering or controlling others. It’s about being aligned with the energy that courses through all of creation. It’s not about control. When we are aligned, we are carried by the flow of this energy. We are part of a natural order that operates according to its own laws and harmony.

Perhaps we are afraid of our birthright because with that power comes responsibility. We are not victims of our lives; we are, like Faye, the captain of our own ship, not controlling the current, but choosing to go with it or to vainly struggle against it.

Denying our power and responsibility does nothing to change the fact of its existence. Nor does claiming it make us arrogant, because we are not singled out for the gift of this grace. The universe bestows on all creation the blessing of mysterious, magnificent, radiant glory. So arise and shine. You are never “too much.” Give the gift of yourself to all you meet and watch love bloom.

I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness. ~Walt Whitman