For a long time, I could not grasp conversations about the Light. Your light, “She shines so bright”. “Your presence lights up the room”. “She brings the light.” “She’s so bright”, and so on. What I used say about myself instead was: “I bring the party!” I never thought of myself as someone who brings the light. People would often talk about this concept with me and I had no idea what the light meant. It would make me feel uncomfortable; I thought they knew something I should know and I just didn’t. I would get frustrated – not angry really, just uncomfortable. However, I really had no clue about what the light meant.
I was used to hearing priests, vicars, and people of the clergy speak about the light and I’ve read about the light in the Bible. I always thought the light was something that only people who were deeply religious experienced. But I started to rethink my ideas when I started to hear it being said to me.
I was embarrassed because I did not really consider myself a “good person”. I was the girl that always got into trouble in school. I was the sneaky, giggly girl with my conniving face, always cracking jokes. I became the girl who was known to be a distraction. Only good people or good girls had the light, people that could focus, pay attention and follow rules. Not me. I loved to giggle and laugh and I attracted (and distracted) many people in my desire for fun.
I now understand that everyone has the light and everyone is here to shine their light. It is the Godly, spirit light; no matter what you believe in, it still shines. “You have a light”, I’d hear from complete strangers, people I just met, people I worked with – all kinds of people clued me in on this. I’ve also heard you have a light that shines all over the place. In the beginning of my understanding, I would think: “what the hell” they are talking about? To be honest, I was uncomfortable because I knew intuitively that the light came with some kind of responsibility that I did not know and I didn’t want to take on. I also knew I would find out and have to deal with it eventually. It made my stomach hurt, triggering congestion in my solar plexus. I wanted to throw up but never could, and luckily the feeling would eventually pass. Writing this article and sharing about the light, I feel vulnerable and exposed and still want to throw up to this day.
In life, sometimes understanding takes a (colloquial) minute for things to register – by register, I mean grow into a full understanding where it goes from theory to practice and then assimilation. I soon started to realize what the light truly meant.
I have a light. I started to own my light, fully embrace its power and build my confidence. I started to do the things that were important to me, no matter what it looked like. Honing my truth was not easy, and I had to take risks and be willing to fail, to feel hurt. I did not and still do not want to feel hurt, disappointed or rejected. I had to be willing to experience these lessons, and as a Personal Life Coach, I had to be a model for who I was teaching through my work. Now don’t get me wrong here – I have my own unique journey, and as a Personal Life Coach, I respect that people each have their own journey. I didn’t want to be like everyone else – knowing that I am just like everyone else, it is like fashion, we want something new and unique only to realize that everyone else is wearing NY black, we all have the ability to choose and make choices, take risks and fail.
I’ve seen the light in babies, I feel the light in people and I know that all people have this light somewhere inside themselves. My clients learn to harness this energy by doing the things that expand their life and light when they work with me on their goals and partner with me as their Personal Life Coach. I started to experience my own light and feel it, when I let go of my fears and concerns about things I could not control. I started to understand and learn how to build my light. It is built by the good, positive energy that we give to the world through our thoughts, actions and deeds. I started to understand how to gain light. I did so by focusing on my work, coaching clients, saying generous compliments, sending out positive energy, loving myself and enjoying my work. All of these actions honor both my clients and my own gifts. I see the light when I am happy and even when I am not as happy, and I know this light will never disappear.
I love when I have experiences which I now celebrate and call “Kiss Noreen Day”. One Wednesday morning, at the Business Networking International Group (BNI), I was awarded the Golden Microphone by one of my colleagues after he had won it the prior year. He awarded it to me for supporting him in an area of his life that was affecting his business and impacting his confidence. I was truly honored and this was another opportunity to build even more light. I appreciate love and light, I appreciate that he was able to accept my coaching, hear my suggestions and take necessary action to transform his life and business. For me, making a difference as a Personal Life Coach is what I dedicate all of myself to. I love it.
Today, I honor the gift of being a Personal Life Coach. I honor my light profoundly, and because of this discovery, I can fully honor the light in my clients and everyone around me. I love my clients and encourage people to see their own light and grow it. Being fearless, forgiving others (and themselves) and displaying strength helps them expand their confidence and self-esteem. I love the light, and I honor the light so that the light will honor me.
Here are parts of the past that we love to dwell on and sometimes wallow in. The present is where life exists; it’s what is happening now and is alive. The future is what we pray, hope and desire to live in and get to.
The past has teeth – or maybe dentures
The past has really strong teeth. The bite of the past can be one that is either relished or resisted. The bite depends on whether your teeth are real, or if they are dentures. The strength of the past is clever, as it works with all human emotions. It also works with our perceptions of the world – not the way things truly are but the way we see it or believe it. If we are stronger than the bite of the past, we display the courage to let go of the past and cut off the supply of nutrients it requires to feed off our memory. Doing so will then lead us to making more realistic, workable choices. Our minds automatically use only the parts of the past that it thinks are valuable and rarely allows us to play in the now. Before we realize it, we take the same small steps into the future we have always taken, which rapidly become our past again.
The past can resemble an elderly person who has lived life from a place of complete joy, or it can look like a place of pure sadness. One of these pictures is happy and full of life, able to see things in a new way that brings continued happiness and joy. On the other hand, the person who has chosen to live an unhappy, distressed life sees everything as a burden, where every day is heavy and they are depressed, angry and don’t want to transform their situation; they are dying inside and out. They aren’t willing to attempt anything new or see life as a series of opportunities. The past runs their life and they cease to grow.
The present is full of possibilities
Life in the present is spontaneous, open and full of possibilities. The past is worthless and has no real place in the present. The past thinks it needs to be there in order to “protect” us. In many ways, this is a good thing, because otherwise we would get run over, or fall down the stairs, etc. The present, however, is committed to the things that bring us joy, and moves life forward step by step, moment by moment. The present is full of endless possibilities and where issues are forgiven and put aside; when a lesson is learned, what results from that situation can always be useful. There is never any right or wrong answers; there is only what actually happened. The present allows us to live our lives from a very powerful place, with a deep sense of awareness that creates a life of creativity, imagination and wow! The present makes room for trusting our intuitions, and is a place where many doors are always open in the now. It is place where we can live with a fresh outlook. In the now, all issues become relatively easy and accessible to us, helping us to achieve our goals that much faster.
The future makes no promises
The future makes no promises; it merely depends on one’s perceptions of life. Its view depends on how one holds onto that gentle glimmer of hope. The future has lots of different textures. Some are soft and smooth, and others are hard and rough. The textures of the future are like the textures of life. It all depends on the ones that one wants or feels attached to. The future also can be held in the grip of fear – fear of the past. Fear of repeating past mistakes. The future makes no promises that your goals will be met, and it is always met in the now.
The future is patient; it allows for one step at a time in the now. It likes the structure of making plans. However, it is more likely to work out when a plan is flexible, yet unwavering in its commitment, and dedicated to being free from any type of attachment. This is no easy task!
The future likes when you are clear about your requests and do not operate from a perspective of complaints. In combination with the present and the universe (life unfolding moment by moment), such a way of operating can only bring what is desired. It is required that you monitor your thoughts and remain present, free of doubt and fear, meticulous and present to negativity that enters your thoughts. Being free of all concerns is truly an impossibility – what is possible is noticing that you have doubts (or fears, concerns or considerations) and put them off to one side (do not operate from those concerns/considerations) because this is how you sustain your power. This means you can just be human and be superhuman at the same time. To be both though means that you must be able to catch yourself when you do (or think) the things that don’t work for you.
The more authentic you are, the more you become aware of the powers of the past and what is in your now; only then can you feel the present clearly. The future will take care of itself because of the observations and declarations you make in the now. You will see that the trio will be obedient to your wishes; keep in mind though that the past is always poised to infiltrate into whichever way you choose to go.
The past, present and future all hold incredible power. By using your mind to catch yourself, you can learn discipline and work consistently in the now! The key is working only in the NOW, as everything else is either in the past or the future. These are places where you have absolutely no control, so there is no need to be concerned about the past or the future at all!
Noreen Sumpter
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