Are you Playing Small in your life?
The term “playing small”, popularized by spiritual philosopher, Marianne Williamson, refers to the part of us that dismisses our true desire for our life in order to maintain a gratifying illusion of security, acceptance, or control. It is the part of us that settles for short-term temporary comfort, security, relief, and validation.
We are good at playing small in our lives because in spite of our accomplishments, our successes, or the look of our life picture, our playing small is driven by our deepest beliefs that fuel every feeling we feel and every action we take. Our playing small is motivated by our fear and our shame.
I have been studying and teaching for quite some time about how our fear and shame keeps us playing small in our lives, and I know it was by no coincidence, that this morning in my quiet time, I was struck by the words of 2 Corinthians 6:11-18 (The Message). I was reading about God’s promise for rescuing His people from a life of pain and struggle, and the pathway to a new life of freedom.
Here’s what I read:
“I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!…God Himself put it this way:
‘I’ll live in them, move in them; I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
So leave corruption and compromise;
Leave it for good, says God.
Don’t link up with those who will pollute you.
I want you all for myself.
I’ll be a Father to you;
You’ll be sons and daughters to me.’”
God didn’t create us to play small. He intended for us to live wide-open, spacious lives, as His very sons and daughters.
But the lies we believe about our identity, value, and worthiness, and the lies we believe about who God is and whether He is trustworthy and for us, keep us from living the bigger life God has for us. These lies are fueled by our shame and fear.
When we encounter our fear or shame, we immediately feel small. We shrink, hide, isolate, and often, we move into self-hatred, self-pity, or loneliness. Then, in our pain, we seek relief in instant gratification, which keeps us in a vicious cycle of playing small.
So, how do we stop playing small in our lives?
- We live in truth about who God really is.
We stop believing lies about God, and we come to understand His true nature. We begin to live out of the truth that God is love, abundance, light, truth, and that He is always for us.
- We understand and walk in our true identity.
We are God’s sons and daughters. He is our Father, who desires an intimate, personal relationship with us. He has blessed us immensely, and He lavishes us extravagantly. The lies we believe about who we are and about who He is keep us from receiving our inheritance.
- We clarify what we really want.
We reconnect to our passions and realign with the essence of who we are and what we love. We determine what is most important to us, and what experiences we want most – what makes us feel most free, alive, loved, and connected.
- We take time for ourselves.
We take time to be still and listen to our hearts, to nourish ourselves, to rest, and rejuvenate. We begin to take the time and energy to do things that feed us physically, energetically, emotionally, and spiritually.
- We live by our priorities.
We determine what is most important to us in life, and we intentionally schedule those things in first. We begin to control our calendar instead of our calendar controlling us, and we begin to proactively determine where our time and energy is focused instead of reacting to daily demands and tasks.
- We live in the present.
The peace of mind, wisdom, and relief we seek is in the present moment. If we learn to slow down and show up in our lives in every present moment, we will be open to receive the peace and the blessings that are here for us.
- We take responsibility for our happiness.
We realize that we are not responsible for the happiness of others, and that we are solely responsible for our own happiness. We learn to take responsibility for what we truly want and stop waiting on circumstances to change or waiting on others to make us happy.
- We push into our pain and shame to allow healing.
To heal our emotional pain, we need to invite it up into our conscious awareness. We need to care about ourselves enough to spend this time looking within and being with ourselves. When we allow this pain and shame to come up and out, it is in that space that healing occurs.
- We stop letting fear bully us.
Fear bullies us. It spews lies to us all day every day that we believe and accept. When we begin to pay attention to the lies fear is telling us, we will recognize how we are being bullied. Then, we can begin to stand up to fear and take our power back.
- We learn to love ourselves.
Our most important relationship is with ourselves, so it is critical that we become our own best friend. So many of us hide from ourselves, and we don’t know who we are anymore. Loving ourselves begins with compassionately attending to our feelings, learning what they are telling us, and then taking action to remedy the situation. When we learn to take responsibility for our own needs and desires, we are filled with self-love. Further, when we open ourselves to God’s love for us, it flows in.
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