What if a ray of sunlight–feeling guilty for its brightness–purposely dimmed itself?
Who loses out? We all do!
Light-dimming is fairly common. Concealing our flaws is understandable, but it’s a bit tragic when we conceal our finer qualities.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, we may hide those better attributes even from ourselves, banishing them to the territory we call our subconscious. There, they reside alongside the other things we don’t want to face about ourselves.
It’s a sad state of affairs when acknowledging our assets is as hard to do as facing our flaws.
Why do we dim our light? There are many reasons, such as fear of looking pompous, inciting jealousy, and the desperation to fit in or gain approval. If we do give ourselves permission to shine—just a wee bit—taunting voices in our head tell us things like, “Well, who do you think you are?”
After all is said and done, I think Nelson Mandela put it perfectly:
“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 frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? . . . Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”
Mandela is on to something. A flower doesn’t seem to worry about offending the flower next to it, or causing it to feel insecure. No . . . it blooms with abandon, and without the slightest urge to apologize for its magnificent beauty!
The whole garden benefits. Sweet. 🙂
(c) Salee Reese 2018
great blog Salee . Watching your comments as I grow and your always helpful and positive. blessings dean
Glad you liked it! Good to hear from you 🙂