Inside of me lives a nasty critic. And, she is by far more critical of myself than she is anyone else, yet she also has this talented gift for making the most incredible excuses for me. Over the years, through my yoga and meditation practices, I have tamed her, but there are moments when she peaks through and I have to reason with her until she hides away again.
It's easy to be a critic. It's much harder to take the risk and put yourself out in the world, to give yourself permission to shine rather than sit behind the screen and nitpick and compare.
We are all meant to shine, but it takes a special bravery to allow ourselves to do so. We get scared and want to hide behind our varying different numbing mechanisms-- be them, eating, drinking, drugging, television watching, social media obsessing, relationships...the list goes on and on. We take the beautiful light that we are and we dim it until we are unrecognizable.
Per the recommendation of a friend, I am reading the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. The book lays out the ways in which we sabotage ourselves from living in our Zone of Genius, as Mr. Hendricks calls it. It discusses how we fear being truly happy for long periods of time and tend to sabotage that happiness through varying different ways and for a variety of reasons, all of which stem from fear.
Fear is this powerful, yet useless emotion that blocks us from really living as the bright and shiny creatures we are meant to be. I spent years hiding in relationships or behind different numbing mechanisms or, even worse, making excuses and thinking I already knew everything. I didn't have the courage or the strength to shine and I criticized those who did. I hid behind excuses and avoided committing to me.
I had moments where I would shine but when my world would shift I'd have a difficult time following the change and I'd shrink again. And then I'd shine and shrink and shine and shrink. I thought too much and analyzed too deeply.
Within the last few years, I finally began saying yes to life and life began saying yes back. I had the courage to commit to myself, which was one of my biggest issues, my inability to commit, not to others, but to myself. When that became clear life blossomed.
When we have the courage to let go of our bullshit and sit, in silence, with ourselves that is when we begin to heal and when we begin to heal, truly heal we can get clear about who we are and what our unique purpose is and then we are able to give that back to the world. And when we shine we allow others to shine too. When we commit to our purpose and to the beauty of our soul life sings our unique song and allows us to dance to our unique tune.
Be brave. Dream Big. Commit to yourself. And, let go...
Peace and Love...xoxoxo