Talking with a particularly luminescent friend of mine yesterday, we reflected on how all too often It seems, fear holds us back in the most subversive and sneaky ways.

There is a perception that if we “strive to shine” we need to do so very quietly so as not to make others feel dimmer, for if they do all too often they will remind us that we are not “special enough” to achieve any truly lofty objectives .

We are conditioned, by those gripped by fear around us, to believe that “lighting it up” and allowing our own light to shine, we will almost inevitably be confused as arrogant. We limit ourselves in the fear others will interpret our self perception as being “better than”

Often this creates a roller coaster life experience of stellar moments of brilliant performance followed by jaw dropping idiotic behavior.

My friend shared, he struggled with this for a long time.

So deeply interwoven into the fiber of his being, that he unconsciously practiced self destruction and self sabotage, lest he left his peers thinking that he believed his “shit don’t stink!”

As he never intended to project arrogance on a conscious level, he figures unconsciously he must have concluded that “I better just behave in a way that contradicts what I feared people might think of me “.

Like many of us, his darkest place was loneliness and isolation, so he chose to play small and shrink so others wouldn’t feel “less than” and withdraw from him.

He shuttered his light.

His behavior was much less of a reflection of the infinite possibilities at our fingertips us through the power of an open loving heart (and self love is huge part of that).  Choosing instead to behave under the influence of the power of fear, simply to prove that he didn’t see himself in the way he feared those around him might see him.

How fakata !!

The truth is that’s just so over thought it proves fear is at the root.  The truth is if we weren’t supposed to leverage our gifts why would we possess them ?  

Put best …

“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 are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” — Marianne Williamson

So uh ..No dude- fear not projecting brighter than. precisely you  have a role to play and your part is to play so others may also be released to light the stage, to play their role, so we all can get on with the show!

In the eloquence of Williamson we were all born to shine, in order to manifest this light within for the precise purpose to light the path for others to find their own brilliance.

And in so doing collectively one day, we will brighten an what sometime appears to be an increasingly darkening sky.

We all succumb to the darkness life offers every so often. A good friend came to me recently struggling at such a moment in his life.

I didn’t know what to say. I listened and after he was done venting, I momentarily felt helpless.

Driving home I thought of what I had learned in the face of the darker times of my life and wrote this down to share with him:

1) I opened my heart and mind to the principle that:

” The Darkness does not eliminate the light – it defines it” .

One sleepless morning I went for a walk and as I photographed the sunrise, (that’s the pic I took above) I became aware of the simple truth noted here and began to embrace the darkness as what highlights the intensity of my own light.

2) I decided to get up and “move” to the rhythm of the ethereal beauty of music, (nobody other than me would actually call it dancing ).

This taught me to get in the flow with all of life-both the fun stuff and the situations that made me feel less than comfortable.

“I chose this song but choose that one song that always gets your fingers and or toes tapping” I encouraged my buddy.

3) I wrote 5 things I was grateful for every morning, as well as limiting my “to do” list to only 3 things that I wanted to take on that day.

I learned to be gentle with my expectations of myself, because sometimes I loaded too much to compensate the feeling of “less than”. So I became mindful to “crawl, walk, run” in that order.

4) I learned to position my view of self from the perspective of a third party and and treat myself the way I treated “someone I love” .

This took practice, but it really paid off when I remembered to.

This is where I learned that idea :

5) I began to work with others.

I forced myself, to get up and do something for someone else or listen to someone who was struggling or even just drive someone somewhere.

The goal was to get out of my head for a little while every day and make someone else the focus of my thoughts and actions.

So armed with these 5 tools, all that was left was to define a purposeful intention.

So I decided that I was ready to accept that:

A) I wanted to get better

The sweet pleasure of pain was no longer working for me.

B) I needed to simplify my life.

I held my accountable only for the 5 practices noted above “on the daily” and I worked hard to practice them to my best every day.

with progress not perfection as my target I prevented myself from experiencing feelings of failure when I missed a day. Instead I just restarted my practice of the same five things the next day.

What other choice did I have ? I mean yesterday was gone and we all know we can’t really “create a better past – right? 😉

“Rest, simplify, get a routine, build a practice, and make re-establishment your only true birthright” I told my friend.

I remember grade five, leaning back on the two legs of my chair, there in the most distant row from the teachers desk.

Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Mr. Morgan but it was clear that no self respecting (deeply insecure), cool ( wishfully) and outwardly extroverted (read inwardly paralyzed by anxiety), dude could EVER sit in the front of the class!

Most of the time we sat woefully staring at the standard government issue clock painfully ticking toward recess, lunch and the final bell.

There I would lean against the back wall, with the other ne’er do wells, keenly focused on the fashion gaffs of others, not so much because we were so cool, but more so to ensure we were never the focus.

There were only two small respites that released all the beauty that lies in the heart of a young boy.

1) Gym- uh, no big reveal here, I was an 11 year old !

2) Reading our stories after “free form writing” which we actually referred to as “SWISH”.

One was a physical freedom and the other a creative release.

Mr Morgan was an imposing man who had an occasional stern moment but he was a teacher ahead of his time

” Write for 5 minutes… don’t let your hand come off the paper, don’t stop, don’t worry about spelling or punctuation just let it flow.” He would instruct prior to starting the timer for five minutes.

My heart would race, and despite the idea that we had a time limit, back there in my seat it was like time stood still.

I was in a state of bliss. The kind of altered state where all the edges go soft around perception.

I had but one intention; to write in an entertaining enough way that I would leave the class enthralled, if I were to be chosen to read my piece in front of the class after the five minutes concluded.

Few moments in life at the time or since then have been magical in the same way… yes the birth of my children and maybe a couple hours on a trip to Amsterdam after university were similarly euphoric.

Yet as I reflect back now the one feeling I recall is the sense ” This is what I want to do… and I want to do it well … I want to make this my profession- story teller par extraordinaire”

Life (or fear) had other plans for my talent so I went into Sales!

And while things rolled along through a life that I am profoundly grateful to experience there has always been this unrequited love. This unfulfilled corner of my being that wants to return to that bliss.

When we spend so much time being who we are supposed be we become entrenched and risk missing the opportunity to be who we are.

I was speaking with my daughter and lamenting this unfulfilled love and she reminded me that the only way to overcome fears is to stand before them and present your true self. Only then can we truly “right size” the voices that tell us we won’t be read or laughed with or loved.

What I hope follows this very first outward expression, is the joy and bliss I felt in Mr Morgan’s class. I hope this time I will shape and hone craft and write to present my truest self to whoever is left listening when the buzzer sounds.

In so doing, right sizing the critics in the back of the classroom of my mind.