To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.
Unknown Author
I don’t know why I chose this quote for today’s post. It’s not really about gratitude, and this topic wasn’t my first choice for this post. I was going to talk about how great snow is – its beauty, its ability to slow us down and its gift of Christmas.
The kids are Christmas crazy right now, and all that joy and energy seems to lend itself to a gratitude blog. However, when I was looking for a quote, this one popped out at me and I knew that I had to write about it tonight.
We go through our lives trying to be what we think other people would like. We hide all the brilliance and wonder that is us, and we play small so we can fit in and be “normal”. I’ve never fit into the little box that was presented to me, but I sure did tried hard to get in that box. I did my best to be shorter, fatter, prettier, nicer, smarter, etc.; I worked on being a part of the background so that other people could be the star of the show, and feel good. I worked so hard at being invisible that there were times when I talked that nobody heard me or saw me. I had succeeded in being a wall flower, and I was completely miserable.
Despite my superpower of invisibility, I occasionally got noticed, especially when I laughed. My uncle Charles had a laugh that washed over you like a brook dances along the stones in its bed. Everyone was happy when he laughed, and I did my best to create the same kind of laugh for myself. Many people told me it was too big, too loud, too annoying, but the habit of laughing like that was ingrained in me and there were times when I couldn’t stop it, even if I tried. I did my best to crush it (hey, I was trying to be normal!), but I only managed to make it go into hiding most of the time. I was like everyone else, and I spent most of my time fighting depression.
One day, I hit bottom and wondered about jumping into the lake, and not bothering to come up again. I felt like everyone in my life had abandoned me, and I felt like there was no one who would even care if I wasn’t here anymore. My quest for invisibility was complete – why stick around? I even felt that my daughter would be better off without me, and that I was the reason why she was having problems.
Thankfully, all the work I had been doing on myself kicked in, and I heard Bob Proctor’s voice complementing me on a sales simulation we had done on a training call. He saw me, he saw the potential within me, and he believed in me. To Bob, I wasn’t invisible, nor was I invisible to my daughter. I started to climb back up, and be me.
In just a few short months from that dark day, I’ve done some amazing things. I’ve climbed the CN Tower, collaborated on a gratitude book that became an Amazon bestseller, and I’ve stepped out and been me.
All those years, I was trying to be a person I was never meant to be, thinking that the bright, beautiful, talented Jenny wasn’t the right person for my life. Thanks to the work I’ve done on myself, I’m beginning to take the lead in my own life again, and I now have people coming to me who love my laugh, my ideas, me.
There are still times where I’m being pushed to be invisible, and I do still fall into that behaviour pattern more than I would like. I’m in a situation now where I feel like there is a target on my back if I stand out and get seen, but it’s just temporary. I’m making sure that I keep a low profile, but I don’t hide who I am in order to make someone else feel better. And, if I do become the next target there, I’ll be grateful to see the end of that situation.
I’m asking all of you today to take a look at the times you play small, and ask yourself why you are doing it. The smaller you play and the less brilliant you shine, the less you help the people who need and want that beautiful light of yours to shine!
Tonight, I want to show my gratitude for all the wonderful gifts that I’ve been given. Thank you, God, for the blessings you’ve given me of:
- Intuition
- Kindness
- Generosity
- Patience
- Believing
- Intelligence
- Beauty
- Inner Strength, and many, many more!
What gifts have you been given? Please leave your list of below – let’s shine some light on our True Selves!