Are You Keeping Yourself Small?

Today, let’s talk about keeping yourself small, staying hidden, not attracting a lot of attention, not standing out … being your whole self and showing everybody who you are.

So, first question is: do you tend to keep yourself small?

Now, the reason I thought about this topic is I had a conversation with a mentoring client recently … She said, when I was young, you were taught to not dream big, to not talk about it … don’t make a big deal about yourself, or about what you’re going to do.

And I’ve just kept thinking since then: How many of us were taught or trained into being smaller than we are, or being smaller than we feel like? How many of you have dreams that you don’t share with people because you don’t want to make them uncomfortable?.

Think about it for a minute: How many of you have struggled with keeping yourself small because you don’t want to make other people uncomfortable or because that was your training? And if you are doing that … then how do you think it sabotages your goals, your dreams, your desires, your visions, your wants for your life.

When I was young, I was really confident. I just knew that I was smart, and I knew I could figure things out. And I had a lot of confidence when I was young.

And then people would say: Who do you think you are? You’re not special.

And internally, I remember thinking I am special. I recognized that I am special, just like I recognized that we are all special. I recognized that we are a spirit, in a body …. and we’re all fricking special. It’s special that we’re each here.

And yet, so many of us hold ourselves back or we hide, or we pretend, or we dumb it down so that it doesn’t make other people uncomfortable … so that it doesn’t rock the boat … it doesn’t take attention away from someone else.

And we don’t stand in the power of everything that we are … and stand in the energy of the specialness of us, because we don’t want to upset somebody else – because we don’t want people to think that we think we’re better than them.

Have you struggled with this? You’re not meant to!

Others say you don’t want to brag; you don’t want to be arrogant. True. You don’t … but you don’t have to be bragging to know that you’re good at something. If you’re good at something, you’re good at something. Right? I don’t think Michael Jordan would be bragging if he said, I’m a great basketball player. I don’t think so!

So, we often just keep ourselves small and we stay hidden, and we don’t step up or stand up to our potential because it’s uncomfortable … because of something that somebody or many people have told us not to do. So, we just didn’t do it.

I want you to think about that for a minute … and I want you to think about how that has held you back in your life.

Has it held you back?

Is it because you didn’t want to upset the applecart? You didn’t want people to get upset with you. You didn’t want to put too much attention on yourself. You don’t want people to think that you’ve got a big head.

How does that allow your spirit to shine when you hide?

If you’re hiding – if you’re keeping yourself small – then how does your spirit shine through that? And what if we’re meant to shine? What if we’re meant to show all of our abilities? What if we’re meant to talk about and recognize our special-ness … not because we’re having to put everybody else down, but because we are special … because we’re a spirit in a body … and we’re here in this human experience and that’s pretty fricking special.

What if we’re been holding ourselves back because we’re needing to protect our friend, or our family, or a sibling, or a parent from feeling uncomfortable or feeling less than?

You can’t control how somebody else feels … and you can’t make somebody feel less than. Somebody feels less than, and they’re projecting it onto you. Or you feel less than, and you project that onto somebody else … because we can’t make people feel a certain way. If you could make somebody feel a certain way, wouldn’t we all be happy … because I would just want to make all of you feel happy! So, we’d all be happy!

But I can’t make you feel happy. I can’t make you feel joy.

I can just do and be who I am. And maybe through that, it may inspire you or it may not … but we can’t make people feel or be, or think or say, or do a certain thing.

We can’t do that. But it’s interesting, because we keep ourselves small, thinking that somehow that makes it better for others. And what I think it does is I think it creates mediocre for us all. We are meant to shine, my friend. We are meant to express. We are meant to expand. We are meant to be colorful and joyful and happy and experience life in whatever form you want to. That’s what we’re meant to do. And we are each in charge of how we feel. We’re not in charge of other people and how they feel … we are in charge of how we feel. If we could make other people feel better, it’d be done, right? Don’t you think we would’ve figured that out as human beings by now – if I could control you and make you think and feel exactly the way that I want you to think and feel, don’t you think we’d already have done that by now?

Now some of us did have experiences when we were younger, where our parents did try to control that to the best of their ability … not to be hurtful, but often because of their own misunderstanding and or lack of knowing. And sometimes it’s their desire to want to protect us, right? But you staying small, even if you think as a child you might’ve needed to do certain things, you can make different choices … we are adults now. We are adults. And I understand the child still lives within us, but we are adults. So, you may need to parent the child … because you being small, you playing small, you dimming your light is never going to help somebody else … because it’s false. It’s not true. It’s not real. Your Light is meant to Shine.

The light is meant to shine, my friend. If you’re playing small, if you’ve been playing small, I would like you to share one thing in the comments that you’re willing to do to stop that behavior. Just one step. It doesn’t have to be a jump off the cliff. But what is one step that you’re willing to take to stop the behavior of playing small.

One step to not playing small anymore … Isn’t it time?

I mean, how long are we just going to keep hiding?

You’re here for a reason. You’re here for a reason … your spirit in the body that you’re in is reading this message right now for a reason … what if it’s to plant a little seed that says: You don’t need to keep staying small? My friend, you are much greater and much more powerful than you give yourself credit for. Does it mean that we have to go out and tell it to every single person that will give us the time of day? No, but it does mean you’ve got to know it inside of yourself … because when you know – inside of yourself – you don’t play small. You just play who you are. You will just be who you are.

And when you are who you are, it isn’t being judgmental or in comparison or boasting or being vain. You just being who you are.

I remember one time, when I was in second or third grade and I got straight A’s … and I always got straight A’s so it wasn’t really a big deal … but my dad would always pay me for my grades. And so, if I got four A’s, I got 20 bucks or something like that. I got paid $5 for every A … and so I called my friend and asked her what she got in English, and what she got in Math, etc. And when my mom overheard it, she said, “Sunny, you don’t do that. Don’t tell people what you did or what you got because it makes other people feel bad.” And I remember feeling like, “Well why, if I’m doing something good, does that make somebody else feel bad?” I get it now because I’ve been the one on the other side of it. But at that time, it didn’t make any sense to me. And now I know that no, we don’t hold ourselves back because it might make somebody feel bad. We stand in our power and stand in our beauty and stand in our light and stand in our knowing energy – because that inspires people … and it attracts that out of people also – so people can stand in their power even more.

When you allow your light to shine, you automatically give people permission to let theirs shine too.

It’s so true.

So that’s the message for today: Don’t Play Small.

Go big. Stand in your power. Stand in your truth.

You can share your dreams … AND … Sometimes you need a community that can support you.

Sometimes your friends and your family can’t hear your dreams because they like you where you are. They’re comfortable with you being right where you are – and if you make a change, that means change is going to happen. And sometimes that’s uncomfortable for them.

But the reality of it is, you want to be able to find people or a community that you can share how you feel. Find your person. Maybe it’s a therapist. Maybe it’s a counselor. Maybe it’s your sister … whoever it is that can really support you and cheerlead you. And if you don’t have that, I encourage you to find it – find it in the community, find it in my community, find it with others of like-minds and like-hearts. Get the support, okay? It’s time to stop playing small. You ready?

Leave me a comment below about that first step you are ready to take as you Go Big & Stand in Your Truth!