what’s one dumb thing that you used to believe in?

A few weeks ago, Danielle LaPorte started something that she calls The Burning Question. Each week she asks, and answers, a “burning question.” This week’s question is …

What’s one dumb thing that you used to believe in?

Danielle wrote about how she used to believe in the concept of meeting the “one.” Your pre-destined soulmate. And how she now believes that “The One Is the One because you say they are. It’s the partner you choose, the partner you declare sacred, the partner to whom you vow — in your own way — to love like they’re the only One.”

I answered the question a little wrong, because when I read it on Facebook, it read a little differently. It read:

“What’s the dumbest thing you used to believe in?”

The dumbest thing I used to believe in, is that my voice didn’t matter  (and I was a singer and a writer. duh.)

I believed, deep down, that I didn’t matter. And if I went away, no one would notice.

Sometimes I’d start to talk and then change my mind. No one stopped what they were doing and said to me, “What were you going to say?” I took this as my voice not mattering.

My dad was all about “be seen and not heard” and this was especially true for girls. More than that, from society we had that message “don’t stand out. Blend in and be liked. Be normal.”

You know what’s even worse than believing my voice didn’t matter?

The belief that if I shared my own light, I’d make other people “feel bad” about themselves.

Dumb! Dumb. Dumb.

It’s the other way around – we need everyone to share their voice and their light, and when we share ours, we inspire others and lift them up, inviting them to share theirs, too.

Thanks, Danielle, for inspiring me, and for being brilliant, so I’m inspired to shine a little brighter, too.