When leveling up in any area of your life, it takes some time to make it a new normal again.
That leap of faith may even feel uncomfortable!
And this is the point where too many just give up and quit. Cause they think that the uncomfortable feelings mean that that’s not the direction to go to.
What we sometimes fail to differentiate, though, is between the feelings prior to living according to the new normal versus the feelings after doing it.
Usually it’s the feelings prior to, that stop us.
Those willing to put up with temporary discomfort are the ones that enjoy the deferred gratification in the longer term and in more sustainable manner. However, if the feeling is awful continuously afterwards, not just when beginning, then it’s a good time to go back to basics and align with your vision.
Another reason why people give up too soon is that they expect instant results to physically manifest. When leveling up your business by changing, for example, strategies on sales and marketing, it takes a little while before what you’re doing gains traction. It has to first fully align and happen in your mind, before the outside results can follow.
Often the moments when everything feels stuck are the moments when most progress is happening. It’s just not visible to the eye, yet. If you keep on going, the results will follow and you leap forward.
However, one topic comes up more often than those mentioned above with my clients in these kind of moments. It’s about this shine that comes along as you step up and own your new normal.
This boost of confidence and knowingness about you that shows not only as charm but as peaceful certainty coming from within.
For most, it’s assuringly safe and inspiring to be around such energy. Yet for some, it pushes triggers that they would not prefer to face, neither in themselves nor in the world around them.
Fearing to face such objection, or being left behind or shut out of your circle of family, friends or community as consequence, raises a question of ‘am I shameless to shine?’
Over the years, on my own work with moving forward and going beyond the false foundations of the limiting beliefs, I’ve learned that shining your light shamelessly is only good for the world.
It either gives an unspoken permission to others to shine their light too, without shame, or provides an opportunity for healing in case of getting triggered by someone else’s shine.
I call it a double blessing – it serves us all, either way.
Now, the word shamelessly may well be a charged one, yet it only means that we can do what we do without the feeling of shame.
Too often we, however, combine the word with being shameless or with shameless behavior, which is an entirely different case.
When we truly shine our light, it comes from within, from this inner peace we experience. That peace is there only when we’re fully aligned with who we truly are and with our values. When our thoughts, words and actions all point to the same direction.
Also, when we momentarily depart with and from that alignment, as we all every once in a while do, we still know that that is ok, too. That we will surely align again, just as we have done before. This knowing nurtures peace even in the midst of a storm. All is good.
So, the answer to the earlier mentioned question always is: We’re meant to shine, and without shame.
Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., talks in his book The Big Leap about four hidden barriers that are based on fear and false beliefs and may hold us back in our lives. In my words, prevent us from shining without shame, if not from shining at all.
In his extensive work, he has identified these four fear based false beliefs to be:
- Feeling fundamentally flawed
- This feeling makes some question whether it ever could be possible to be happy, successful, loved or creative at all. Wanting something, but then having a conflicting inner belief about it, makes your mind try to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time, causing something called cognitive dissonance and leading to inner chaos. This can only be solved either by returning to the familiar, which is to keep within the learned limits, or by breaking through those limits by questioning your beliefs and coming up with new ones.
- Disloyalty and abandonment
- Feeling of guild when living your life on your own terms and thus leaving behind your roots, your family’s ways of living and being disloyal to those you love and who love you. This guild makes one put on the brakes and holding oneself from ultimate success and enjoyment of life. It usually shows up as unconscious self punishment after any breakthroughs.
- Believing that more success brings a bigger burden
- The belief in this is not that the success is of burden and should thus be avoided, it’s the false belief that oneself is a burden and success would only make it worse. This crippling belief can massively make one pull back from life’s adventures.
- The crime of outshining
- The unspoken message to not shine too much in order not to make others feel bad or look bad, and especially not to steal attention from others. With such message we end up dimming our light so that other’s wouldn’t feel threatened by it. Or dimming down the enjoyment of our success, appearing to be suffering because of it. If we suffer, other’s will be more understanding.
As I and all of my clients, I’m sure you, too, can relate to one or more of these. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s a very normal and human thing.
When you notice how some of these may have had a grip on you, the plain awareness itself already turns the light on in the dark room. And in that moment as the light comes on, on Gay’s words, there’s usually some clean up work to be done, but with the light on it’s not that hard or difficult.
Let’s do the clean up work together, starting with ourselves, and shine our light shamelessly. Imagine how much good we are able to do in the world as a consequence!
I’m full out with you on this one! We’ve got this!
Much love,
Paula
xx