Have you ever found yourself toning down your talents or muting your achievements to avoid overshadowing others? It's a challenge I've faced repeatedly, and it's what we explore in our latest 10 Minute Thoughts session on Go Ask Sawyer. With the wisdom of Marianne Williamson's "Our Greatest Fear" as a backdrop, I unravel the complexities of why we 'play small' and the profound effect it has on our lives and relationships. This intimate discussion is an invitation to confront the fears that hold us back from shining fully and to consider the paradoxical freedom found in expressing our true selves.
This episode is for anyone who has ever dimmed their light for the sake of comfort—be it in personal dynamics or broader social contexts such as politics and social justice. We examine the societal pressures that nudge us towards silence and the internal battles we wage in the quest for authenticity. By sharing my personal experiences and observations, I hope to offer insights that resonate with your journey towards living boldly and without compromise. Tune in for a conversation that promises to empower and challenge you to step into the brilliance that is authentically yours.
Have you ever found yourself toning down your talents or muting your achievements to avoid overshadowing others? It's a challenge I've faced repeatedly, and it's what we explore in our latest 10 Minute Thoughts session on Go Ask Sawyer. With the wisdom of Marianne Williamson's "Our Greatest Fear" as a backdrop, I unravel the complexities of why we 'play small' and the profound effect it has on our lives and relationships. This intimate discussion is an invitation to confront the fears that hold us back from shining fully and to consider the paradoxical freedom found in expressing our true selves.
This episode is for anyone who has ever dimmed their light for the sake of comfort—be it in personal dynamics or broader social contexts such as politics and social justice. We examine the societal pressures that nudge us towards silence and the internal battles we wage in the quest for authenticity. By sharing my personal experiences and observations, I hope to offer insights that resonate with your journey towards living boldly and without compromise. Tune in for a conversation that promises to empower and challenge you to step into the brilliance that is authentically yours.
Speaker 1:
Hello, hello, hello, welcome back. This is Jamie Sawyer with Go Ask Sawyer for our new series called 10 Minute Thoughts. So each of these podcasts will be 10 minutes, just my thoughts on, usually a subject that seems to be brewing either with inside me or something I have noticed within friends or people that I'm around. So my hope for this series is that, as you're listening for those 10 minutes, something sticks with you throughout the day Maybe some advice you can give other people, maybe things that you've heard, maybe this is a message that you just needed to hear today. So today's 10 minute thoughts is about playing small, something I am very, very well aware of in most relationships and most things in my life, and I've really been working with why I do this, why I get into situations in which I dim my light, in which I play small, and sometimes I've noticed people around me have subconsciously asked me to play small. Sometimes I realize I'm doing it myself. So here are my thoughts on this lovely topic for today.
Speaker 1:
We're going to start out with a poem by Marianne Williamson called Our Greatest Fear. I also saw this poem in some schools that I have been touring as well, and it goes like this Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be? Brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. You were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our own presence automatically liberates others. That really resonated with me, because I feel like, in general, people are drawn to me because I allow them to be themselves, because I create a safe space, because I'm focusing on hearing what you have to say and what you want, and not about telling you who you need to be, and I know that's an authentic part of myself that draws people in, and so I always wonder to myself why then, all of a sudden, is there a shift in relationships that I have in which my authenticity starts to go away and it's usually again to gain love, which if I'm trying to gain love from someone by playing small, then it's not true love. Maybe to gain acceptance, but if I'm trying to gain acceptance, these are not the right people I'm surrounding myself with. Maybe it's to make others feel safe, seen and validated, but if I have to play small on my end to make you feel seen and validated, then I feel like there's a disconnect there.
Speaker 1:
To not call other people, call other people out in their wrongness. Maybe someone is talking in a rude way about people. Maybe people are speaking of racism. Maybe people are speaking of gay people. Maybe people are speaking of racism. Maybe people are speaking of gay people. Maybe people are speaking of a policy that is completely wrong.
Speaker 1:
Even moving into a year of election, everyone gets crazy around this time but we play small to make others feel that their thoughts are okay, even though maybe their thoughts or their beliefs end up attacking you or end up attacking another person. So you play small, you dim your light, you don't talk as loud, which again is another place that you would know. Either A I'm not supposed to be there, or B I should not have to play small. If what these people are feeling, saying or thinking are offending me, are offending friends, are offending just other people in general, um, and if that is going to offend them and upset them, then maybe those again aren't your people. And I've definitely been in those situations, especially the 2020 election, that had me so, so, so frustrated. I don't really want to go back to that time, but just in the way that people that I really loved would just look at me and be so okay with how the world hated on anyone who was not a white, straight person who believed in Christianity, and it just it saddened me because that is not what the world is. But that could be another episode. We play small so that we don't cause problems. We don't cause problems in our relationships, we don't cause problems in our workplace, but again, you're really just making the problem bigger and larger.
Speaker 1:
Some examples that I know I'm playing small are usually when I start to lose myself. So maybe I'm not as goofy. I don't do my weird random happy food dances or my dances in the kitchen. Maybe I even stop listening to the music that I really like, I stop watching shows that I really like, I betray or I go against things that I want. So, for example, let's say I really want to get married someday, but I'm trying to be in this relationship where the other person doesn't want that and all of a sudden I'm like, well, maybe I don't want it either, like that's playing small.
Speaker 1:
If I want something, I need to stand on it, even our needs or how we want to be loved. I want someone to come and hold my hand, I want someone to write me notes, I want someone who says come home, I want someone who I've had a long day and they're like, hey, I'm going to make dinner for you and you just chill. But I end up getting into a relationship where none of that happens and in my head I'm like, well, that's okay, but then I'm just betraying something that I really want Again, dimming my light, playing small, putting down my needs to make the relationship work and I know what you're all thinking. But, jamie, then it's not working. Yeah, I know that, and that's what I'm trying to get to the bottom of why I do this, and I think a lot of it just has to do.
Speaker 1:
I'm reading a book right now called the Mountain Is In you, and there's a part that talks about the different parts of happiness and you get up to a certain point of happiness and you just think that's all there is. You are kind of at that top tier of this, is all happy can really be your upper limit, as Gay Hendricks called it, your upper limit of happiness. And maybe I've just never really experienced what it is like to be in a relationship. And when I say relationship, I'm speaking love, I'm speaking friendship, I'm speaking even jobs, and my friendships have gotten so strong and deep in these recent years that it's not necessarily there, but there are still times where I play small in relationships, friendships, to keep the peace, and that's if we're looking at authenticity. That is not me.
Speaker 1:
If you want big love, what keeps you from going after big love? If you want the job that brings in the money, what is holding back and I know a lot of it is that, like I don't deserve this, or because you've never experienced it, you don't know how to experience it. Maybe I want big love but I don't know how to show up for it. I don't know how to speak on it, I don't know how to ask for my needs and I don't know how to stand on what I want. Meaning? If I want big love, why do I stay in places that doesn't give me that? If I want the job with the money that's going to allow me to travel, why do I stay in places that continue to devalue the work that I do?
Speaker 1:
If I want friendships that allow hard conversations to happen, that are going to have people that see you for who you are, why do I not say the things that need to be said? Why do I not call out issues when it's like that is just not okay? Why do I not say more often don't speak to me that way? Why do I not say more often I would love to have this conversation, but you're not hearing my point and a lot it all zeroes back to if I speak my point, if I speak my mind, they might leave, but then that just comes back to and if they do okay, if they do okay. I keep seeing on Facebook everyone's sharing this little phrase that says let them Speak your mind, but also understand that the person that you're speaking to might not be able to meet you where you're at. The person that you're speaking to might not be able to meet you where you're at. The person that you're speaking to, might not be able to give you what you want, and if that is the case, you have to be able to stand on it and either A leave, b let them know. Hey, then this conversation can't go any further.
Speaker 1:
This job then I got to go find something else. Where is your upper limit? Where are you playing small? Where are the places in your life where you don't speak on what you need to speak on, because you're either afraid to not keep the peace, to lose love, to lose acceptance, any of those things? And if you have no places in your life like that man, that's awesome. Let's connect. Help me, but I'm going to continue working on this. I don't want to play small anymore because I don't think that that's what draws people to me. I actually know that's not what draws people to me at all. So I hope you have a beautiful day. I hope these 10 minute thoughts sit with you, or maybe they don't. Maybe you listened to this today and you're like that poem was cool. I'm not gonna listen anymore, and that's okay too. I'll see you next week. Have a great day, bye.