“Walk in your greatness for the doors to open, stop being what others want you to be and just be yourself.  Have the courage to be yourself—unapologetically.  Walk in your greatness,” Aletha Crimmins.  I think we need this reminder right now.  This world is in the midst of so much change and upheaval, and we need to learn to focus on what is good.  We need to focus on the good in ourselves, in our lives, in each other.  It isn’t for narcissistic or selfish purposes—it’s so we can develop who we are and become a tool for good in this world.  We need to walk in our light, in the greatness of who we are so that we can share it.  I like Crimmin’s point regarding having the courage to be ourselves.  Over time we have consistently lost the ability to feel comfortable being who we are.  We wear masks, we behave how we are expected to behave, we know the norm.  As we develop our skills at self-acceptance, we learn to see more and more of what we can do.

The universe surprises us at times.  Just when we think things will never be the same, suddenly they all work in our favor.  Or suddenly that one step we needed is clear, the one piece falls into place.  It’s easy in a society that moves too quickly and that has lost the ability to see true value to devalue ourselves.  It’s easy to see where we don’t fit in over the space we can create. We see value in how we fit rather than in how we move and how we shape.  In order for doors to open that fit who we are, sometimes we have to build them to suit.  This life isn’t supposed to be one size fits all—we are supposed to know who we are and the world we create comes from within. I think over time we’ve built these boxes because we’ve misconstrued what greatness is—we’ve also misconstrued what we do with the power of greatness. We must find who we are not to lord over people, but to help them advance as well.

Walking in our greatness with awareness of who we are and what our goals means we have self-possessed power, not power over others.  We don’t need to make a safe space for people to tolerate us or to understand who we are.  We need space to break free and be who we are.  Not everyone will fit in that space, nor will they be comfortable or understand it.  Our space isn’t meant for other people’s comfort—it is meant to be representative of who we are and what we do.  We do our best for others when we do our best for ourselves.  Others don’t need to hold the door for us—sometimes we open the door for ourselves to find that the space we had been looking for was simply waiting for us as the key.  And instead of trying to find what makes us feel worthy enough for someone to open a door or even trying to be strong enough, we learn that there is another the magic—when we are truly, fully ourselves, the doors open all on their own.  Get close to your heart and listen—it knows the way.