Quotes and song lyrics can be just the thing you need on any given day, or during any given situation, and I enjoy them immensely. But I really dislike the ever so minuscule limiting messages that are part of so many of these seemingly awesome words of wisdom.

Wondering what the hell I mean?

Let’s take a very popular ditty taught to a lot of church-going (and even those that don’t attend church) children.

“This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” It goes on through various choruses about not hiding it, letting anyone blow it out, and keeping it shining until an end point. I am sure you are singing it in your head right about now, and you can even see all the children holding up their pointer finger as if it is the light.

So what’s to dislike about a cute little song that seemingly increases self esteem, hope, and triumph?

Well it is little. Literally the word little. Small amount. Not much or often. Limiting.

You see, it only increases self esteem and hope a little. Our mind is our masterful instrument, and it will grab a word like little and hold on tight. So you will grow up and go out into the world and remember this ditty and shine your light, a little.

We aren’t meant to shine our light a little. We ARE light! We should be glowing brighter than the sun!! ♪ Goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun. ♫ Sorry, another song for another time.

Big stuff is easy to spot and address. We don’t let overly ridiculous things into our minds, we boot them out the door. What happens is that we are so bombarded with big things being thrown at us (war, drugs, political views, injustices, famine, drastic weather…) that these little things slip right on in without us even realizing it. That is until we step back and notice that we have gotten so worked up about fixing flaws in everyone and everything else, and forgetting that the only flaws we can do anything about are our own.

So we boot out the big things and set out to work on ourselves only to have our mind remind us that we are little. Our light is so small it can barely make a difference. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Our light is magnificently bright and it is our journey to let that brightness shine. Correcting your own flaws (limiting beliefs) allows us to identify and proclaim the abundance and infinite light we are and shine so that others can’t help but see it too.

To rid the world of darkness, you flood the darkness with light and it simply disappears.

This MAGNIFICENT light of mine, I am going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine! Imagine if we all did this…

Photo by Michael Peligro is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0