Letting your little light shine

In my last post I talked about being afraid of shining and being afraid of not shining.  

These teeter-tottering fears make me wonder, which is real: (1) the fear of making a fool out of myself and people thinking I’m a complete idiot, or (2) the fear of shining, and people thinking I’m too big for my britches?  

Um, neither?

But I’m guessing that the second fear propels me to behave in ways that guarantee fulfillment of the first.  If I’m scared of being shiny, the result is all too predictable: fidgeting with a thread on my skirt will cause it to catch on the podium.  As I walk away, the skirt will unravel leaving me standing on stage representing every definition of vulnerable.

Or, the second fear will leave me just as exposed.  Either way I feel naked. Interesting.

Noticing that two opposing fears are battling for the crown is actually pretty cool, because it alerts me to the culprit: only my ego could respond to the soothing of one fear by inventing and swiftly converting me to another.

Another signal these fears are a death threat gift from my ego: the in-your-face obvious preoccupation with what other people think.  

All of these thoughts have Marianne Williamson’s wise words on endless loop in my head.  And I’ve been resisting quoting her, because it seems like one of the most oft-quoted of oft-quoted quotes.  I’m going to do it anyway:

“It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us . . . Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you . . . And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.”

Maybe there’s a reason people in the spotlight keep quoting this wisdom.

Maybe to get to where they are, they’ve had to face their own stuff about getting all sparkly and successful, however that looks for them.  They’ve had to learn how to let their own light shine in order to encourage us to do the same.  They’ve had to stop getting in their own way.  

Because if we are harboring any issues with being shiny, I think it’s a safe bet that we’ll trip ourselves up on the way there.  

And playing big doesn’t necessarily mean stepping into the spotlight of fame.  It may mean you stand up for yourself when someone criticizes you, or you accept a compliment graciously, or you finally lose the ten pounds that used to feel like protective armor.

For me, writing a blog post about shining makes me nervous that you’ll think I think I have all of these legitimate reasons to shine, like I’m getting famous or becoming some kind of successful.

And just telling you that, being honest, is what helps me shine a little more comfortably. Because it’s so not at all about those things that now I’m laughing at myself out loud.  Which makes shining feel way less fancy-pants-ish.

Of course Marianne Williamson’s right that our light scares us.  But our darkness scares us, too.  And maybe the real power comes from peering closely at the darkness, meeting it, and then consciously shining anyway.

This strength is what gives others permission to do the same.  This is about realizing that perfection is not required, and that we all have a shadow, but that the light is stronger.

And what about the fact that being all squeamish about not wanting to shine makes it all about us instead of about the people we want to serve?  

If you are meant to do this big thing, then your people need you to do it.  If your people are waiting for you to shine in order to feel safe doing their thing, then who are you to get in the way?

I’m keep trying to remember that I’m just a channel, a vessel.  I’m able to accept grace a little less clumsily when I acknowledge that any good I do is flowing through me.  I am not the source of it.

In the words of the Sufi mystic, Hafiz:

I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through – listen to this music!