“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, 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 are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s 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.”
I am not religious in any way but I have always found this quote to be incredibly inspirational as it reminds us that we don’t need permission from others to be exactly who we are and that hiding our achievements and diminishing our dreams for the sake of others serves no-one. I think that many of us are much better than we think we are but we have chosen to believe all the bad things that were ever said about us and to learn from the negative experiences that life has thrown at us. Perhaps now is the time to remember the compliments, the admiration, the motivation and, above all, the love that others have shown us. Maybe we should turn our focus towards the positive and our backs on the negative.
Life is a gift which is only ever given to us once. We can bitch, moan and complain about it or we can appreciate it for the priceless, unique, fragile thing that it is. We were not made to exist in a vacuum of self-doubt and fear, we were made to live………it’s all about life ;O)
Have a wonderful day everyone! Lisa xx
I don’t really like to fly alone as I find it very boring and it’s not really socially acceptable to grab a strangers hand during a bout of turbulence! This time I had a window seat. I’d like to say that this was allocated by the airlines and was just bad luck (I really don’t like heights) but I’d reserved the seat myself; not enough attention paid or a sub-conscious choice? After establishing that the people in the seat next to me were not the chatty type I decided to close my eyes and pretend to be asleep whilst my stomach turned somersaults…..then something changed. I remembered that excitement has the same physical manifestations as fear. I looked out of the window during take-off and many times during the flight and, do you know what, it was incredible! For the first time I didn’t imagine myself plummeting to the ground and exploding in a ball of flame; I actually felt the excitement of flying…..
Next: I’m not a huge fan of crowds but when my parents proposed that we spend the day in London I thought ‘why not’? I braved the tube and even the loos at the station (awful in case you were wondering AND they charged 50p for the privilege!). We walked for a few minutes and arrived at The Ritz, there I saw the doorman in full livery which included a top hat. The thought went through my mind that he could make a great addition to a selfie (sad I know). Normally the thought would have left as quickly as it arrived but, on this day, I marched straight up to him and asked if he would mind being in a photo. He agreed readily and was absolutely charming to boot…….
The only thing that stops you having the life you want is fear and what is fear? It’s nothing more than a chemical reaction to the pictures that your imagination creates. That’s the equivalent of being scared by a movie for God’s sake! The really daft thing about it is that you don’t even have to watch the movie, you’ve written the script and chosen the images so change them! You are not Mystic Meg, you have no idea what the future will bring: essentially, you are scared of something which does not yet exist…….
If you meet someone new and they don’t like you, so what? It doesn’t mean that you are not fundamentally likeable, it’s just that you haven’t made a good connection with another human being. Why worry about it, there are another 7.5 billion other humans out there, go and make a connection with one of them. Anyway, why do you worry so much about what other people might think? You can’t know because you’re not a mind reader, you just imagine their thoughts based on your own negative self image. All this low self-esteem nonsense doesn’t come from other people, it comes from you; you don’t think you’re worth it, you don’t really like yourself so why should anyone else? Well, you know what? You are all you’re going to get, there isn’t another you on standby so focus on the good stuff….(this is the hard bit, deep breath)………
Here’s a final reminder before I kick your backside out the front door and into a better life: You don’t do regret, you never have because you can’t see any point in it. You can’t change the past, you did what you did and said what you said and that’s that. So here’s my question for you: do you want to get to the end of your life, which could be in 20 years time or in the next 5 minutes, and think ‘I wish I had’? No? Didn’t think so……
Team positive thinking have recruited self-confidence (who did not come willingly) The cheerleaders are busy chanting motivational quotes and trying to work out how to build a human pyramid with just the two of them.
