Do you feel bold enough and show up just the way you are in the world?
Or do you struggle like many people to shine brightly and worry about what others think?
Marianne Williamson’s enlightening, succinct and short poem gives us such great insight into what goes on with us internally, and why we have so much resistance to shine ‘as children do’.
What is our deepest FEAR!
Please watch and listen to the poem below, that I have recorded on YouTube, Our Deepest Fear is Not That We are Inadequate.
The Sacred Poem to Shining Our Light
Where are the blocks?
If there is anything that is stopping or blocking us from shining our light, then we must find a way to overcome it, our happiness depends on it.
Let’s break this down and look at each segment of the poem.
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?
Who Do You Think You Are?
Those first few sentences are powerful. Most people will resonate with the words to some extent. When I first read them many years ago, it really did shock me to realise how true that actually was. It made me wonder why so many people are so afraid to become their ‘powerful’ selves in the world and shine their ‘light’ brightly.
There seems to come a point in some people’s lives (usually when they are around 7-8 years old), they begin to ask themselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Usually a sibling, a parent, a teacher, someone, shatters their dreams, puts them down and makes them feel that something is ‘wrong’ with them, just the way they are. It compels them to doubt themselves and live with the belief “Who Do you Think You Are!”
We are Born to Manifest the Glory of God
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s 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’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
As we get older and wiser the second part of the poem begins to make more sense and we start to realise what has been blocking us from living a life of success and abundance as we see it. Each of us has a different vision of what that looks like for us. We start to want that more and more for ourselves. This is the REAL awakening of ourselves and who we truly are.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking, so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
And that’s when the above lines really get us thinking and choosing to return to ourselves. We realise that at some level we were forced to abandon ourselves for the need for safety and approval of others around us when we were children and dependent.
A Spiritual Awakening
The shift from thinking that we are still children in an adult body is where the work lies now.
Particularly if we start to connect with our ‘spiritual self’. Abraham Maslow, American psychologist, created a human behavioural model in 1943, The Hierarchy of Needs. In this, he explained how our needs evolve as human beings as we move up the pyramid. Some people, have a great the need for spiritual growth and ‘Self Actualisation’ This sits at the peak of pyramid in the model of the diagram. It appears to be the final stage of the development of human needs. One perhaps connected to spirituality, which is highly personal and different for each individual.
And it answers the conundrum…. in Marianne’s poem –
Actually, who are you not to be? (powerful beyond measure….brilliant, gorgeous, talented)
Self Actualisation can mean that we recognise that we are both Spiritual and Human beings and that we have a greater need to liberate ourselves from the fear of shying away from the unique gifts and talents that have been bestowed on us by our Divine Creator. In fact the realisation is that we need to share it with the world in order to feel a sense of purpose and encourage others to do the same.
Shine your light.
Allow your best self to shine and as you do you’ll likely transform many lives in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. You could be the change this world needs to see to heal itself- don’t deprive us of your light.