Letting My Light Shine

Sometimes, even though I am sitting in my home, surrounded by my loved ones, I get this deep melancholy feeling of wanting, needing to go home; a profound sense of homesickness.  This feeling has come to me time and time again ever since I can remember.  Sometimes it lasts for days or weeks, other times only for a day or even a few hours.

This used to really perplex me.  How can one be so homesick while sitting at home?  As I have grown spiritually, I believe I now know what this is.  What this homesickness that I am currently feeling is…what is at its roots.  I choose to believe that it is my divine inner being, my true self, longing for the connectivity to the great oneness that I had before I choose to experience it through this human experience, through this body. 

As a spiritual seeker, I know that I am divine, complete and whole in my divinity.  I know that YOU are, too.  We all are.   When we chose to have this human experience we each chose to experience it in its own way.  We all are the light.  We connect to others, in a real and meaningful way, when we allow others to see our light in its full glory and it is reciprocated by the other person also allowing us to see their light in all its magnificence. 

As humans, though, we tend to dim our lights.  Let me use this analogy:  Our true selves are here in physical form, choosing to use this body to go through life, much like getting in a car to drive.  The car is our body and divine selves the drivers.

As we take on roles and we step into others expectations of what we should be, sometimes we put up a layer of tint on our windshields, dimming our light to others to fit into their expectations.  I have put up tint when conforming to the expectations that I perceive others to have of me when I step into the role of employee, another when stepping into the role of wife, another for being a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a coach… layers and layers of tint that I have put up, shielding others from my true light. 

But it doesn’t stop there.  Those were the ways that I put up barriers to you seeing my light from the inside.  From the outside, others have thrown things that I have let stick to my windshield like bugs that met their untimely demise by splattering all over my windshield.  Those words that others have spoken that I have allowed to stay in my vision – “You’d be so pretty if you lost a little weight.” or “I’m sorry, we don’t feel like you are a good fit for this position.” or any of the things that people might say (or my perception of what was meant by some off-handed comment) that I allowed to stay with me and block both your view of my light and my vision of yours.

So, my feeling of melancholy, of being homesick, is because I have not only blocked your view of my inner light, it makes it harder for me to see yours and to have that divine connection that we are truly one.  My guess is that your windshield may have layers of tint and bug guts, too.  This makes it just that much harder to connect, as we are both looking out of ever increasing dark tint and layers of bugs.

I am getting ready to go on a getaway.  We had a call asking us to set our intentions for the trip.  I have been in this state of homesickness for a few days and what instantly came up for me was that I wanted to make a connection, a deep and meaningful connection with someone. 

So this retreat, for me, will of course be pulling my car into the station and filling up my soul, but it will also be taking the time to remove layers and layers of tint from my windshield and using that little squeegee with the netted foam to clean off the bugs and walk away letting my little light shine.

I hope that you have the opportunity to do the same and we can all “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!”