Our Light Within

“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.”

- Marianne Williamson

These are the first lines of a poem I’ve known for many years, decades really, and its true meaning for me is only now coming through. “Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” I used to think of that line in a guilt-like, should kind of way. I knew deep down that I was a bright light if only I was not so afraid, more motivated, more…. I’d be all of me. And it held a beacon for me trying to be more, to be better every day. Helpful in a certain way, but also from this perspective creating a contortion in the stretch to become an idea of myself. Using force with a little bit of punishment and “not enough” thrown in for good measure. 

Last week it came to me like a revelation - a different perception of these words. As the last few years of my life have been a slow careful examination of the fears within me incongruent with the Me I could feel in my bones. These fears creating a weightiness of freeze, of caution slowly very slowly lightening to allow more life to come in. These are the places where I understood that speaking up in places was dangerous. Places where I thought  emotions would make me weak because I would be overwhelmed by them, or not think clearly because of them. The places where I dared not open my heart to life for fear of heartbreak. Places where my nervousness created freeze - money, conflict or disagreement or abandonment would knock me out. Those were some of my deepest fears. And, the slow turning toward them allowed me an understanding of myself the real truth of myself beyond the stories of fear frozen within me. A slow thaw. Coming into presence and into trust again. Glimpsing the beginning of the person with power beyond measure. Learning to come back and stand there again and again. A practice.

My deepest fears are the care filled steps that it takes to be in the karma creating the consciousness of my lifetime. And the poem now, a remembrance, a call back home to a greater willingness to engage and try in life. 

For one-on-one coaching and group classes on self-worth go to: https://www.jennylewiscoaching.com/myofferings