The year was 1997, I was 25 and living in a semi in Balmain, in the inner west of Sydney with a couple of girlfriends who’d both made the big move from Adelaide to The Big Smoke. One of them was moving back to South Australia to be with her ‘true love’* and her taxi had just left for the airport after a tearful goodbye.
As I walked back into my small bedroom, I spotted a thick cream envelope propped on my pillows, and inside held a handwritten note from her containing these words:
“…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.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
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 other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
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 everyone.
And as 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.”
Nelson Mandela**
I was a bit befuddled by that note. Because I didn’t feel like I was hiding anything from others, but also because I certainly never thought of myself as “…powerful beyond measure” let alone brilliant, talented or fabulous. But like the handwritten note received from a friend when I was 16 that quoted Kurt Vonnegut, it felt kinda deep and important so I tucked it away in my ‘special box’ with various other treasures from my life.
16 years on, I still have that note from my dear friend, and I’m glad I kept it.
Over the years I’ve pulled it out, reread those words, and over time, got it.
And because Nelson Mandela has now sadly passed, and we now have the internet, I just googled those special words, and realised that they’ve been misattributed to him all along. It’s been commonly thought the quote was part of his 1994 Inaugural Address, but the words were actually written by Marianne Williamson in a book ‘A Return To Love’ (with both the author and Mandela’s people acknowledging that fact).
But regardless of who said what and when, the death of this great, great man reminded me today of this quote, and that handwritten note left on my bed all those years before.
And I wanted to share that with you, because those words are just perfect.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?”
Especially once we become mothers, when it’s so easy to give our all to our children in their new-skinned shininess, we often step into the shadows, and there we can remain. Like those first outings with our newborns when everyone “ohhs and ahs” over our beautiful babies, we stand back, and are delighted to do so – to let them take centre stage. Yet it’s ok – in fact, it’s important – that we get back into that spot where the light hits us ‘just so’.
Because “…as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
Is that not what we want for our children?
And if ALL of our lights are on, the whole world will be a brighter place.
*shes’s still with him, all these years later
**Actually, not Nelson Mandela
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