This "Little" Light of Mine . . .

Throughout the day I had this childhood gospel song playing in my head and I had to stop and think about the words.

This little light of mine
I'm going to let it shine
Oh, this little light of mine
I'm going to let it shine
Hallelujah
This little light of mine
I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

I grew up with the unspoken message not to shine my light too brightly because it might be offensive to those around me. Out of respect for others, perhaps it was better to play it “little” rather than step into my light and shine brightly. If I was too successful or too happy or too friendly or too whatever, someone else might feel badly.  So I tempered myself. I made sure I brought others along with me and took them with me to “the party”. But they didn’t always want to go where I wanted to go, nor did they always have the same enthusiasm and excitement for something that I did because it was “in me” and not “in them” just as I wasn’t excited about all their projects. But still, being a respectful “girl” I did what was right and tried to make sure I took care of others as I made my way.

It is beliefs, such as these, that can give us our own “self-imposed” glass ceilings as we grow up. These beliefs, especially if they are unconscious, play a deep role in our life without us consciously being aware. Many of us have underlying beliefs preventing us from shining brightly, whether it is fear of being out there for others to critic us, or being “too big for our britches”, or maybe not trusting our own inner knowing and thinking those outside us know more about our ability than we ourselves might know. Maybe it is our fear of success. For whatever reason, we may chose not to let our “light shine” fully. If this is the case, then perhaps we need to assess what we might be doing on the unconscious level with underlying beliefs and bring the beliefs into our consciousness so we can know what rules we are living by that may be contributing to our own imposed glass ceiling.

And the other point of this is that “this little light of mine” isn’t a ‘little light’ and if we are trying to decide to shine our ‘little light’ out there onto the world, we haven’t stepped fully into our light.  When we step fully into our true authentic self, our light will be a strong beacon of light and the world will be quite clear that we are shining it out there for all to see. We might practice shining a ‘little’ of our light, but our work is to step fully into who we are and when we do, the light we shine will be the beacon we were meant to be.  Today, dare to be more real and share more of who you are. Show yourself to the world. Let more of your light shine.