It is a hard thing to do, let your light shine and be special! We have been taught that we need permission to be special, we need to be chosen by people in authority. We also know ourselves and that means we know we aren’t perfect and that we have flaws so how on earth can we be special. Interesting that, that you need to be perfect to be special. Is it true though ?

What about replacing special (and so perfect) with being unique and flawed ?

What about spending a week just focusing on what you are good at, the places where you unconsciously let your light shine ? What you think about expands, so start thinking about what impact you have in your world.

If you are anything like me, the thought that you are special will be bringing up intense emotions, churning stomach and in my case, a combination of intense panic, fear and humiliation ( I know, an odd combination and even more bizarre coming from someone who has a world record). I have always battled with the label special and so letting my light shine because I know I am not special. I am good at what I do, but not good enough and most definitely not better than the people around me. I have been taught that through years of being told that, at home, at school and at work. It doesn’t help that I know my flaws, well.

I have always thought that letting my light shine was being ‘too big for my boots’ – who do I think I am ? Better than everyone else ? And as those words from my past thunder through my thoughts I shrivel and hide. It doesn’t even take someone else anymore. I work at being invisible and so making other people not feel inadequate. I have spent a lifetime trying to be smaller so the people around me could feel bigger. The only place I stopped being small was in diving because my desire to see if I could was stronger than my fear of being humiliated – just.

Knowing that you have a light and that it needs to shine in the world isn’t something that you can be given. In fact, if you inherently don’t believe it, it doesn’t matter how many authorities tell you that who you are is important, you will always doubt them and so strangle your own light.

Letting your light shine is a choice. Letting your light shine is a decision to claim back your essence, your uniqueness and your value. It is a choice to let go of the people who want you to be small and create space for new people who see your light and respond to it, making it even brighter.

Letting your light shine is claiming your life back.

Start thinking about the light that only you can bring into the world. Start choosing the impact you want to have in the world. Start letting yourself be who you are – and let yourself learn as you go. Let go of being small and invisible and non-threatening. Let go of the people who insist that is who you are. Let go of needing to be right and perfect. Allow yourself to get it wrong, to learn and grow and shine!

The world needs your light! The world needs you to start being you! The world needs you start living with dare. When that happens you become what you want to see in the world and when that happens, people will start to ask themselves, why not me. That is how you create a new world, a world you want to love.

It starts with you. Let your light shine. Claim your life. Live with dare!