On my walk today, I noticed how muted the colors in the December landscape have become.
This obviously happens every year, and every year it takes me a while to adjust to it.
It is like things are fading away, into nondescript blah-ness. I love color: full, robust, vivid, vibrant color. Color engages me; it gets my attention. Color excites me. I feel like I am living a fuller version of myself and my life when I am in a colorful environment.
The muted landscape got me thinking. How often do we mute ourselves? How often do we hold back from expressing the full color of our point of view, our wisdom, our perspective? How might we hesitate from taking what feels like bold, colorful action?
Settle in, relax, and ask your deepest wisdom: How do I mute myself?
What bubbled up from that inquiry from deep within me is that I mute myself when I don’t publish what I write. I have so many reasons, but none of them are good enough to hold myself back. I read something just last week about how important it is for us to publish, because there might be even just one person out there who would feel good hearing what we have to say, in just the way that we say it.
The guidance from within me is not to publish every single thing I write, but to search my heart and in that, I will know what is ready to go out into the world. This feels right. In the past, I have held my writing back, trying to make it better, or because I’m not sure it will be significantly different than everything that is out there already. I don’t just ask my “inners” if it is ready to go.
Our colors are our colors. They are, by definition, different than anyone else’s, if we let them shine into their full authenticity. Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic, makes the distinction between original and authentic. She says: “Well, yes, it probably has already been done. Most things have already been done – but they have not be done by you.”
It’s important to let our full colors shine. The world needs all of our unique and individual essences, shining to their fullest.
Where might you be muting yourself? Where can you let your colors shine?
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