02 My Light – Introduction
“Only when I am brave enough to explore the darkness in me will I discover the infinite power of my light.”
Introduction
There are things I don’t dare to do. I keep my opinion to myself. I swallow what I want to say. I avoid people, make excuses, duck out. And I tell myself that’s simply the way I am. It isn’t.
I can feel the handbrake. And not just a little. It is full on while I put my foot down. Engine screaming, tyres smoking, and I don’t move an inch.
And yet I want to live with my whole heart. All of my potential. I have a lot to offer. Instead I function. I’m there for everyone. I smile. From the outside nobody sees it. That is the insidious part.
I built myself armour. Masks. A smile, a silence that lets nothing through. Back when I was still too small to fight back.
When my father was shouting and I didn’t know where to go. When the others in the class laughed and I wanted the ground to swallow me up. When I cried and nobody came. That is when I learned: harden up. Make yourself small. Show nothing. Then it hurts less.
It worked. The armour got me through childhood. And then I forgot to take it off. I am still wearing it now. With my wife. With my children. With the people who want to love me.
The same armour that saved me back then locks me in today.
What keeps the pain out keeps the love out too.
Behind my walls I am safe. And alone. Nobody gets near me. No real closeness. No connection that holds me. I sit at a full table and still eat alone.
A life lived with my whole heart. Deep connections. Love. I give all of that up – for the safety of not getting hurt.
I stand on the touchline in full kit. Helmet on, visor down. And I don’t play. I sit on the bench and watch the game go on without me. What a lousy deal.
The thing I bury deepest is exactly the thing that would connect me to other people. My light. That is what this is about. I am bringing it out. I want to shine.
I take a look at my armour. One piece at a time. I get to know the fear sitting underneath it – the fear of embarrassing myself, of not being enough, of being thrown out.
I ask myself whose life I am actually living here. Who loaded all these expectations onto me. And why nobody ever told me that I am good enough. Just as I am.
I dare to show myself. At the baker’s, where I usually mumble and want to get out again fast – I say clearly what I want. In the meeting, where I usually swallow my idea – I say it out loud.
And with the person closest to me, the one I hide from most – I let them see how I am really doing. What I need. What is too much for me.
I put my arms around my little one. The child who learned to make himself small so that he would be a burden to nobody. And I finally get the difference between fitting in and belonging.
One thing I am taking with me straight away:
This fear is not me. I learned it.
And what I have learned, I can unlearn. Not overnight. One handbrake at a time. I don’t have to become a hero for that. I start. Today. It doesn’t matter with what.
Nobody is going to come and do it for me. It was me I was waiting for. I am on my way. I don’t compare myself with anyone – except with myself. I am right as I am. I’m doing really well.
Now I take the torch and go down into my cellar.