Letting Your Light SHINE!
Published July 1, 2009 | 
One of the most inspirational quotations I know comes from former South African President Nelson Mandela. It’s too long to be included in Your Daily Inspiration, but far too good not to use, so here it is.
It’s originally the work of Maryanne Williamson, but first came to many people’s attention when Nelson Mandela used it in inaugural address in 1994 as South Africa’s first black president.
He said: “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 frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
His words shoud have the power to stir the heart – but to some they’re more of an uncomfortable challenge than an inspiration.
It’s not that they don’t want to let their light shine. Too many people don’t believe they even have one. They’ve experienced so much negativity, criticism, self-doubt and lack of hope or expectation that the idea they might be supposed to be all those good things is not the inspiration Maryanne Williamson and Nelson Mandela intended.
Instead of exciting them and igniting their ambitions, it disturbs them deeply.
It doesn’t bring them joy – they find it so uncomfortable that it’s actually a threat against their peace of mind.
I’m not asking you to take my word that you have every right, all the power, the entire duty and the whole responsibility to be those things.
Instead, I’m asking you to listen to someone who spent 27 years in jail rather than give up on all the things that he believed in. Not only did he come through that to be his country’s first black president – he’s also a man revered and loved throughout the world.
If Nelson Mandela has such faith in you, why not find out if he’s right?
If you need encouragement to believe you’re naturally gorgeous, check out Reveal Your Inner Beauty. If you don’t believe you’re brilliant, you need to raise your self-esteem. If you don’t believe you’re talented, you need to boost your self-belief. If you’re afraid you’re too inhibited or shy, you can reconnect with all your natural assertiveness and project your real, dynamic self.
Most importantly of all, if you believe the things you most want to believe or do, to have or be, are way beyond your power to achieve, check out Success Begins With YOU, or try Achieve Your Wildest Dreams… and for a free book of inspirational quotations to keep you motivated all year round, just help yourself to Your Daily Inspiration.
Nelson Mandela has real faith in you. Live up to his belief, and let your light shine!
Posted in Positive Thinking | 
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Published June 25, 2009 | Back in the days when UK radio presenters had to be extremely careful about what they said on air, the story goes that a music show presenter was anxious about his intro to a well-known classical piece – The Flight of the Bumble Bee, by Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov.
The title wasn’t any problem, of course, but try as he might he couldn’t get his tongue round the composer’s name. He practiced and practiced, but he was still quite sure that he was going to make a mess of it, and the night before the show he couldn’t sleep.
At last the moment came, and he took a deep breath and began, “The next piece is by that popular composer, Rimsky-Korsakov…”
”YES!” he thought in triumph. “I’ve done it – I’ve done it! Nothing’s going to go wrong now.”
Then he proudly announced the title as… “The Bum of the Flightle Bee.”
Now, the word “bum” doesn’t have the same meaning in Britain as it has in the US. In the UK it means the equivalent of “a-s” – the part of your anatomy you sit on.
It’s regarded as a very mild word now, but at that time it was apparently quite high up on the list of things you couldn’t say on air. The mistake the presenter had been so afraid of making, a slight mispronunciation of a name in a language the didn’t speak, would have brought him far less hassle from his bosses than the one he actually made.
The point of the story is that what you focus on is what you get.
If you keep thinking hard enough, for long enough, that you’re going to get something horribly wrong, the intensity of your feelings about it will convince your inner mind that that’s the very thing you want to happen… and it will find a way it can achieve it for you.
You can work as hard as you like, try as often as you want, have all the talent in the world, have a mind that’s filled with great ideas you have, and have ambitions that mean more than all the world to you… but if what you’re mainly feeling is the fear of failure, then that’s all you’ll going to get, because your subconscious, inner mind will prompt you to to keep sabotaging every bit of progress so that you can make those pictures in your head come true.
If you want to be successful, then you need to see yourself as totally successful. Feel all the excitement and anticipation of it as if it was already happening right now.
Hold that picture firmly in your mind, as strongly as you can, in every detail – and make sure you thoroughly enjoy it. If there are any details you don’t like, change them for some others you prefer. The more intense your feelings, the faster that picture becomes real.
You still have to do the work for your ambitions – but that feeling will empower you to work much better, and more easily.
What you focus on is what you’ll get… so make quite sure you’re always focused on success.