Have you ever been told that you are too much?

Too loud.
Too emotional.
Too spiritual.
Too ambitious.

Maybe you heard it enough times that eventually you started believing the story.

That in order to fit into this world, you needed to tone yourself down.

To dim your light.

I have always found that phrase interesting.

What does it actually mean to dim your light?

Growing up I was constantly reminded to lower my voice, be quieter, not be so boisterous in public.

What I heard as a child was something very different.

“You are too much.”

“If you want to be accepted, make yourself smaller.”

“Be less visible.”

So I did.

Rudi dimmed his light.

A lot.

I spent almost forty years molding, adjusting, and becoming more palatable depending on the room I was in.

And then something changed.

I began to accept a deeper truth about who I believe we are.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

And I believe we come here to express something uniquely ours. A life force. A truth. A light that is connected to our Creator and meant to move through us into the world.

Your light will not look like mine.

It was never supposed to.

It is uniquely yours.

The problem is that many of us learned very early to block it.

Be quieter.
Do not make people uncomfortable.
Do not stand out too much.
Do not say that.
Do not be that.

Eventually, we become incredibly skilled at editing ourselves.

I did.

And I would guess there are places in your life where you are still doing it too.

I want to share something personal with you, recently, someone told me that the spiritual side of me was “too much.”

Years ago, that comment would have landed very differently.

I would have questioned myself.
Pulled back.
Softened the message.
Retreated into the version of me that felt safer.

This time, I smiled.

Not arrogantly. Not dismissively.

I simply realized that I no longer need everyone to understand my light in order for me to shine it.

That was freeing.

Because light is meant to illuminate.

And sometimes when you show up fully as yourself, it will touch something in another person that they are not ready to accept, do not understand, or simply do not resonate with.

That does not automatically mean you are wrong.

It may simply mean you are not for them. Yet.

And that is okay.

Not every room will understand you.
Not every person will choose you.
Not everyone will resonate with what you believe or how you express it.

Your job is not to become acceptable to everyone.

Your job is to become honest enough with yourself that you stop abandoning who you are for approval.

That is the work I am committed to now.

Every morning, I strengthen my connection to my Creator.

I ask to become a clearer vessel.

To receive and hold more light.

And then to take that light wherever God places me that day.

Not forcing it.

Not proving it.

Not needing everyone to applaud it.

Just allowing it to move through me.

Receive.
Shine.
Let go.

So let me ask you this today:

Where are you still dimming yourself to make someone else more comfortable?

And what might change if you stopped?