  This quote is often misattributed to Nelson Mandela, but was actually written by Marianne Williamson in her book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles". You can read the Snopes about it here). This is a famous quote, and it is no surprise why - because it speaks the truth of the human experience, and truth can be felt in our hearts. Being authentically yourself, and allowing that authentic self to shine as brightly as possible is the most courageous thing that you can do with your life. I believe that each of us has a yearning to do this - to live into our gifts as fiercely as possible, but the question is, exactly how do you become liberated from your own fear? How do you learn to freely allow your greatness to exercise sovereign power over your life? I don't believe the answer is easy, my friends. If I could write an article called "3 Steps to Liberating Yourself From Your Fear & Fully Living Your into Your Brilliance", my guess is that your gut would call bullshit. Because as I said above, you can feel truth... and you can feel a lie, and pretending this is easy stuff just wouldn't be the truth. It also wouldn't serve us. It would just add another layer to this completely erroneous, all-pervasive belief that says that when you you finally ______, you will arrive. You will finally be happy, you can finally rest, it will finally all be okay. You will no longer question yourself, and everything you want will come with ease. Oh, what a fantasy that is. You might as well believe that tiny unicorns will carry away every thought of self beat-up before your consciousness perceives it. The truth is that this courageous way of living, continually choosing things to further liberate us from our fear and more fully shine our light, is hard. This pursuit is a journey, and it requires you to bare your soul, again and again. It means that you will be in the arena, marred with dust, blood and tears. It is about showing up and being seen, and as Brene Brown says, "If you are going to show up and be seen, there is only one guarantee: you will get your ass kicked." Yes, my friends, you will fail again and again. You will be squeezed and you will soar. You will live to the edges of your humanity.  Things won't get easier, they will get harder... but somehow you'll be happier. Thats the oxymoron here, the complete brain f*ck. Life will call you to the table. You will be required to put it all on the line. You will have to have conversations that terrify you. You will have to own parts of yourself that have spent a lifetime in darkness. You will be required to create boundaries stronger than the walls of Mordor. You will have to learn to say no. You will have to stand up, legs shaking, and step forward. It's not 3 steps, its millions of steps. It is choosing, over and over again, the path that you can't really see, the one that doesn't make logical sense and is invisible until you step out. It's choosing the angst of confusion over the comfort of knowing. It is sitting with the discomfort of risk over the illusion of safety. It is questioning everything, always, in the pursuit of shedding more layers (both of yourself and this world). It is a commitment to growth. It is not somewhere you arrive, but something you become. It is not something you can Do, it is something you have to Be.
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AuthorMindy Amita Aisling Archives
March 2023
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