Undimming Our Light

I first wrote this post a while ago, and I’m sharing it now because it has come up often recently, and now is such a time of change. A couple of months ago, someone asked me these questions (paraphrasing):

Is it normal for certain people in your life to feed off your light and potential, yet see your potential, and express impatience for you to achieve your goals, but also play a part in pushing you into previous negative patterns?

Can those we love be the biggest catalyst in our growth?

Yes, there’s no question: Those we love are most often our biggest catalysts for growth!

These questions could describe a wound-mate relationship (as opposed to a soul-mate relationship). Wound-mates can be spouses, parents, children, friends, co-workers, etc., and so can soul-mates.

What is a wound-mate relationship? A wound-mate relationship is one in which each partner, generally without trying whatsoever, brings to the surface in the other person whatever core wounds each took on in the first seven years of life. The four main core wounds are: not being seen, not being heard, not feeling loved or lovable, and not feeling nurtured or feeling over-nurtured (thus not feeling safe).

If we’re in a wound-mate relationship (that’s most of us), our challenges are often related to personal boundaries and self-respect. If we’re interested in working through our wound-mate relationship challenges, that requires digging into our internal early-imprint patterns related to our meaning of love, and creating a new blueprint for ourselves going forward.

You’re likely not interested in this blog unless you’re a light-worker of some kind. You may not know yourself as such. But your light is bright. People in your life can feed off your light instead of shining their own light. One main reason is because of your giving nature. You make it easy for others to depend on you rather than on their own light and strength.

Most people are afraid to shine their own light. We often dim our light out of fear of shining more brightly than others, or leaving others behind. Sometimes, when we begin to move into our own purpose more fully, we encounter push-back from loved ones because they are afraid we will leave them behind.

This is a quote from Marianne Williamson that rings true for me:

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, and 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 will not 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 is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

If you dim your light for anyone, neither you nor the other person will be happy. Always put your own oxygen mask on first. Always follow your highest joy. What makes your heart sing? What are you undeniably led to do? That is your higher self, guiding you. Does that mean following your highest joy even if it means leaving someone in your life behind? That is up to you, but for me, yes, it does.

It’s possible that loved ones see you expressing more authentically who you are and they believe consciously or subconsciously that they can’t do that on their own. They might see you moving into self-love and self-respect in a way that you have not done before. Seeing you move into self-love can bring them face-to-face with their own lack of self-respect and self-love. That might be too painful for them to acknowledge, so they project resentment or self-hate onto you. Anyone’s reaction or response to you is about them and not about you. You can choose to give away your power in deference to their needs and wants or you can keep following your own inner guidance and shining your own light bright. Again, the choice is yours. For me, I would follow my own inner guidance.

Often by you removing your own light from someone in your life—by you removing yourself from an unhealthy codependent relationship—the other person is forced to find their own light, which your presence was preventing them from doing. And it’s also possible that in finding their own light, they are then able to grow and expand with you, which neither of you would have been able to do otherwise.

The people with whom we are in intimate relationships are our greatest catalysts for growth and expansion. We made soul agreements with everyone we encounter in this life before we incarnated, for the purpose of our mutual expansion.

Actions speak louder than words. If someone says one thing and does another, follow their actions rather than their words. Actions or behavior, rather than words or intentions, indicate subconscious motivating patterns. The reason for that is that 95% of our motivations and programs running our lives, thoughts, and actions are subconscious. Our actions, more than anything else, will give away those subconscious patterns.

Sometimes we need time and space away from people whose presence or vibration drains us or is toxic to us. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s part of self-care. Per the airline instruction, put your own oxygen mask on first so you’re then able to assist others rather than lose consciousness because you tried to help someone else before helping yourself.

People who are afraid to look inward can react or respond to their environment (in this case to you) from a place of subconscious emotional upset. They can project that onto you without being consciously aware of what they are doing. It can feel like you’re being attacked. Often, if someone had a traumatic experience in their childhood or earlier in life, their emotional responses and frame of mind come from that point in their life. Even if they don’t consciously remember the traumatic experience, they are stuck at that point on their timeline because they haven’t emotionally processed that experience. Until they do, the old experience will influence and filter their responses to every new experience they have. It’s not about you.

At the same time, in a sense separate from what your loved one is going through, your higher self is using this seeming attack on you to reflect your own inner emotional blocks. It is showing you the inner blocks that are stopping you from being able to fully receive what you have asked for in your life. You may not see those blocks at the moment. But everything that is being reflected to you in the moment holds that information. You can navigate through the turmoil of relationship interactions by staying grounded, meditating, getting plenty of rest, drinking good water, and eating nutritious food.

Those in reaction toward you don’t believe in themselves. They don’t love themselves. Self-love is the foundation for all other relationships. If you don’t love yourself, you are incapable of loving someone else.

If your relationship stays as it has been, you both will likely continue your co-dependence, stuck in re-runs. The other person sees you shining your light more brightly and fears you will leave them behind. If you shine your light more brightly, and perhaps remove your light from their life for a time, they will be forced to find their own light, which will ultimately be the best thing for them.

If your loved ones are locked in their patterns, they will continue to depend on your light to assist them in navigating their own lives. They will remain scared of what they will have to go through on the way to finding their own light, which they’ve buried deeply under layers of emotional contraction. And they will resist you shining your own light more brightly. But whatever reactivity they are experiencing now is what is on their plate to deal with by looking inward, if they choose to do so.

These dynamics are the laws of reflection and attraction at work, showing both of you aspects of yourselves that stand in your way of moving into what you desire. Any change in your relationship will start with you. By you “being you” more fully, you will trigger those around you but will also give them permission to do that same inner work, to their benefit. It’s up to them. You can believe in them. But you can have no expectation. Their path forward will need to be their own, borne out of their own inner knowing. Or perhaps out of desperation.

We are motivated by inspiration or desperation. Either will work. Higher self doesn’t care which one it is. Higher self uses even the darkest of circumstances for our learning and expansion.