A Return to Love

"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 will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. 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 others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

The above quote is often incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela. It actually came from author Marianne Williamson in her 1992 book A Return to Love.  To me, where the words come from really do not matter. It is the words themselves. They are so awesomely powerful, so beautiful and full of positive energy, it brings tears to my eyes nearly every time I read them. Over my lifetime of empowerment, I have read literally tens of thousands of quotes by thousands of different people from all walks of life and this one is my favorite.

A family member and I were talking today about the things that are happening in her life lately and about how massively good things are for her right now. She was telling me how they are shaping up the way she secretly always wanted them to. Things are happening that she has hoped and wished and focused on for so long, but never really talked about.

Why did she never talk about them? Because she did not believe they could happen, even though they were what she wanted more than anything else in the world. She couldn't or wouldn't admit them to any one for fear of ridicule or of being told that she was being silly or any one of a hundred other reasons.  But some of those things could have been made to happen a heck of a lot sooner if they were things that she had voiced. I am very happy that things are going so well for her but a little sobered that they took so long to happen when they did not need to.

And thinking about that reminded me of the above quote. Just the first two lines are so full of lessons that we could learn about life. People do not resist change because they fear failure. Often, what they have already is failure. Change does not need to happen for failure to arrive.They resist because they are afraid to succeed, afraid of who it is that they have it within them to become. As long as people stay the same their lives stay the same. What a person already has is familiar and controllable. People are afraid of how different life would be if they had all the awesome things that they say they really want.

You are probably not going to ever be truly happy though if you do not reach for what you want. So, who are you not to be, brilliant, gorgeous,talented and fabulous?

Who?