I felt inspired to share a message with you today that I’m hoping will touch something in your heart. As I’m sharing with you, it’s impossible to ignore the events in my home country, the U.S. That’s part of why I’m writing. What has become very clear to me is that the world needs your self-expression. The world needs your love. The world needs your goodness in its fullest form. No holding back.

If you have felt nervous about being visible, I want to assure you of something. It takes tremendous energy to repress and hold back as opposed to expressing who we are and being that light in the world. That takes no effort whatsoever.

I was just thinking about my home state of California. I love the Big Trees National Park. I used to go there frequently as a kid and see the giant redwood trees.

And I was thinking to myself, “How much effort would it take for one of those giant trees to stop itself from growing past, say, twelve inches in height? How much energy would it have to expend to keep itself from growing and expanding into its fullest form? Can we even imagine the force that would be required to repress and repress and repress its fullest expression?”

We Create Ripple Effects

If a single tree somehow decided that it was going to try to hold itself back from being what it is, what kind of ripple effects might that have around the planet and into the universe? What I have come to understand about human beings is that when we hold back, when we listen to that “but …” and obey what comes after it, that has ripple effects, because we are not in this alone. What I do affects you; what you do affects me. We’re all interconnected. This pandemic, for one, has really shown us how connected we are.

So when I say that the world needs you, needs your love, needs your goodness, needs your expression, I’m really speaking selfishly because I need you.

How much effort would it take for one of those giant trees to stop itself from growing? Image: Dave Hoefler

I need you to listen to what is speaking to your heart to put out there with your voice, with your persona, with your writing; whatever form it takes doesn’t matter. It’s simply your amazing self becoming visible to everyone. That is what is so needed.

That is our one job as human beings: to express ourselves. And through that self-expression, we can experience the deepest happiness and joy available to us because it’s through that self-expression that that feeling of wholeness becomes palpable. That is what we are designed to do.

Let Go of Self-Repression

I spent many years repressing myself and engaging in major struggle and stress and feelings of smallness and contraction. I was exhausted. I had major physical problems. I had incredible emotional pain every single day.

At one point a few years ago now, I realized that I was doing that to myself. I was listening to the call of suffering and struggle and answering that when, instead, there was another call that I could answer. I could turn away from struggle, from stress, from anxiety, from fear, from all those things — I could turn away from that and I could choose self-expression, happiness and joy.

Ever since then, whenever I have this sensation of repression, deprivation, anything like that, I feel that sensation and the power in there. And I say, “No, I’m not using it for that. I’m going to use that power for self-expression because that is what I’m designed for.”

That is what people need in this world.

They do not need me to be engaging in self-deprivation. People do not need my struggle or my stress. It certainly isn’t helpful to me, and it’s not helpful to anyone else. We can take responsibility for ourselves and for our experience and decide we are not going there anymore. That door is closed.

That is our one job as human beings: to express ourselves. Image: Frank McKenna

We’re Free to Live a Life of Joy

We can feel the power that is within us when those kinds of feelings come up, and we can say, “I’m not going to use that power to increase my sense of struggle. I’m going to use this power to generate more goodness in the world, to make myself happy through self-expression.”

The more happy people, the better, right? We can create our own experience, our own world, if you will, that is filled with joy, beauty and generosity. We do not have to live in a state of repression, a state of deprivation. As I have said, there is no virtue in that. There is nothing virtuous about struggling. That’s not going to get us anywhere. And it is certainly not what I need from you. It’s definitely not what you need from you.

What I did was, I took full responsibility for the experience that I was creating, and I shut the door. I shut the door on struggle. I shut the door and said no to repressing myself and staying invisible. I shut the door on anything that seemed like I didn’t have enough, or I couldn’t get enough or whatever it is. I hear this a lot from people related to money. I shut the door on that and said no more. I’m not engaging with that.

I shifted my focus. I turned my attention in the opposite direction and said, “I am going to focus the rest of my life and the rest of my energy, everything I’ve got, on expressing myself; whatever form that takes is whatever form it takes.”

At that point, I didn’t know I was going to be in business for myself. This happens to be the form that it’s in right now. It may change next year, who knows? But right now, my entrepreneurial venture is the expression of myself and it brings me such joy and happiness, I can’t even explain it to you.

I’m really hoping that you’re hearing what I’m saying, which is that you and I have the choice to not engage in complexity, to not engage with worry, to not engage with fear, to not engage with stress. We do not have to engage with struggle.
 We do not have to engage ourselves in martyrdom. We do not have to engage in resentment. We do not have to engage in blame. We do not have to engage in smallness because that is not who we are.

My entrepreneurial venture is the expression of myself and it brings me such joy and happiness. Image: Richard Jaimes

We are the redwood that has been given everything for self-expression and can grow into itself by simply living as it is meant to. The moment you decide to stop repressing who you are, your experience of life will shift so profoundly, you won’t recognize it. The beautiful thing is, we can continue down this path forever. In every step, we can have a new experience of expansion, a new experience of magnificence, growth and exploration and more levels of joy, peace and happiness. It’s never-ending.

It Needs to be a Conscious Decision

This is key: It needs to be a conscious decision to say no to all those things that I mentioned: struggle, contraction and so on. That is what is sapping your energy. That is what is creating a world that you don’t necessarily like. And you have the ability, the ease and the power to say no to that and, instead, live from this beautiful place of bringing yourself out into the open and making yourself – your real self – visible.

My biggest hope for you is that you will start to really hear how much I need you and how much other people need you to remove your focus from the struggle and put your attention, your energy and your focus on simply relaxing into yourself and allowing the rest of us to experience that fully.

~

Beloveds,

We’d love to know what was ignited deep in your heart after reading this honest directive to step into the truth of who you really are and how you show up in the world. Let us know in the comments below – be brave. Make a declaration to the Universe so that it circles back to you over and over again.

We need you. We love you.

Team UPLIFT

~

Mary Schiller is a business coach and mentor who gives solopreneurs a safe space in which to express themselves, take steps forward and create a thriving business in the simplest way possible. She has self-published several books, which are all available on Amazon. A native Californian, Mary now resides in Paris, France. Find her on Instagram @maryschiller.