Don't Be Afraid to Sparkle

It was never my intention to be preachy or sanctimonious while blogging. My only intention was to share some of the highlights from my journey toward a deeper connection between my mind, my body, and my spirit. To be clear, this is an ongoing journey. I have wondered if sharing my thoughts is a worthy pursuit and I have decided that it is only my job to share because sharing is what I do best. Determining the worth of what I share is your job. Today, it may be worth nothing to you. Another time, maybe I made you laugh, or think, or cry. It might be different every time. Once, when I shared my doubts with a very sweet friend of mine, she said, "If you can touch just one person with your words, isn't that worth it?" To touch just one person would mean a lot to me, so I will continue sharing. But this time, I'm putting on my preacher's robe so please forgive me if I sound sanctimonious.

Here is my sermon: Don't be afraid to sparkle. I stole that from the Brave Girls at http://bravegirlsclub.com/. A lot of different people have said it in a lot of different ways. One of my favorite ways comes from a print that hung in Your Heart's Home, a place I stayed while visiting Sedona, Arizona in January. It is attributed to Nelson Mandela and it goes like this:

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 and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.

And as we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, Our Presence automatically liberates others.

When I first read this, from the print, it sort-of took my breath away. I had spent most of my life feeling as if I didn't measure up and that I wasn't good enough. The idea that my deepest fear was not that I actually was inadequate, but rather, that I might be powerful beyond measure startled me. Could it be true? Well, the print said it was true and according to everything I had been taught, prints, books, authors, teachers, parents, coaches, talking heads on television, and any and all "experts" don't lie. I, like just about everyone else I know, was trained to look outward - beyond myself, to look to other people and to look to other things to see if I measured up. What I have learned is that if I look outward, I am sure to find that I am inadequate. There is always someone who appears to be better, smarter, stronger, faster, thinner, prettier, and more clever than I.

So there I was, looking outward, at the print, and all I saw was "...who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" And I thought, "Right. Exactly." Then I saw, "Actually, who are you not to be?" And the first thought that came to me was, "Fuck yeah! Who am I not to be?"

And a new Anna was born. Well, really, that little Anna, that little seven year-old Anna as Ken the Angel Life Coach calls her, came into her own. She was there all along, but over time, her light grew dim and eventually went out altogether. Instead of skipping down aisles in the grocery store like my little Sophia does now, singing her own songs, and twirling to her own tune, instead of sparkling, little Anna went still. She was silent. I grew so comfortable waiting for other people to speak and listening to what they said, that I lost the ability to hear my own voice.

But here's the twist: my light was shining all along, I just didn't know it. I couldn't see what everyone else saw. I saw a big gray blob where others saw kindness and warmth and well, light. If I did see the light, or even had a little glimmer of hope that it was still there, I squelched it immediately. When I heard a compliment, I blew it off. I said things like, "Oh no, that messed up pumpkin cheesecake with the crack down the middle? It didn't turn out right (even though it took the extreme skills of a domestic goddess like myself to extract it from the special spring form cheesecake baking pan)." Or "No, no, my house isn't spotless (because I got up before the sun to clean it), it's a mess." Or, "Oh yeah, thanks, but you must be losing your eyesight because I look fat (despite the fact that I did just receive the "I LOST TEN POUNDS" ribbon at Weight Watchers and I had to work like hell  to do that).

I wonder, when you give someone a compliment, like "Oh my God! This cheesecake is to die for! Did you make it? Can I have the recipe?" and her response is "Uh, yeah, well, you can, and hopefully yours won't have a crack down the middle..." how do you feel? When that happens to me, I feel a little like shit. On the other hand, when I give a compliment to someone and she accepts it graciously with a smile and a thank you, it warms my heart. This is a small example of what I think it means for this person to let her light shine, thereby giving me permission to do the same.

Try it.

Oddly, giving compliments isn't nearly as hard as accepting them. So try both. In this time of giving thanks and getting ready for all the winter holidays and traditions that come with them, try both. In this time of what sometimes seems to be never ending to-do lists and no matter how hard you try or how late you stay up, you still feel like you'll never finish all there is to do (both imagined and real), try both. In this time of minimizing Herculean efforts to make magic and memories that will last a lifetime, try both. Give compliments and accept them. Play around a little. See what feels good. Try it because if you close your eyes for a minute and imagine a world where we all let our lights shine, where each of us was liberated from our darkest fears, and where we celebrated and honored one another's grace, wit, and charm, I think you would see an incredibly beautiful, colorful, wonderful, super sparkly place. Complete with picture perfect cheesecake.

I will meet you there.

from the Brave Girls Club

www.bravegirlsclub.com