We all have the tendency to dim our lights when we feel like it’s too uncomfortable for others to see us in our full brightness. Often times, it’s in subtle ways we don’t even recognize. It’s like when you decide not to wear the expensive purse you love, that looks amazing with your outfit, on the coffee date with a friend who’s feeling stuck and struggling with their finances. Or, when you minimize your accomplishments, making yourself small, while on a date with a guy who’s feeling unworthy and underachieving. It may even be as small as feeling guilt for owning shoes when you walk by a homeless person laying barefoot in the cold. 

But how much better would the world be if you gave away all your shoes and you too were barefoot? 

The Universe has way more to offer. 

You don’t make this world brighter by dimming your light. You make it brighter by fanning your flames. 

The Challenge: Fan Your Flames 

This week, choose to be aware of how you’ve been expressing empathy. Are you doing so in a way that is self-deleting? Are you neglecting and abandoning your own health, needs, desires, and/or dreams? 

If you find yourself shrinking to seem more relatable or likable or just to make others “comfortable,” consider the cost. As I shared in this post on empathy and how it’s not what you’ve been led to believe, complete self-sacrifice and self-neglect is not generosity. When you do this you rob the world of the very thing it needs to heal: you shining at your brightest. So, spend this week in full acknowledgement, appreciation, and celebration of what you have, your own power, and all your talents and capacities. In doing so, you’ll invite others to do the same. 

Stop Making Yourself Small – Be the Invitation Instead

When you let go of your own cross, that vacancy can feel super freaky and uncomfortable. The fear of joy and healing is something I’ve had to work through and continue to peal petals away from. Even the thought of “heaven” used to scare me. What would there be to do in such a peaceful place? If I’m at peace, will I be able to create real art? Why would I even desire to create anything at all? We can then try to extend our own overdue suffering, distracting ourselves with five-ever-long processes to get to “enlightenment” or “wellness.” And when we see a victim in need, from this place we may then choose to take up their cross in an act of shared enslavement. 

For me, that looked like taking up a hip pain to shoulder my mother’s back pain (amongst other things). But you don’t have to pick up another person’s cross or create more issues and limiting beliefs for you to clear to fill that void. Lean into peace, fan your flames, and shine on. Remind others that there is indeed no cross to bear. When you stop making yourself small, you give others the opportunity to dare to be big too.

This week’s intention: I choose to fan my flames and brighten my light. The more I shine, the more I give. The world needs me at my brightest.