Quiet Clarity is a 2x/week newsletter and podcast for people who want to build a life of presence, depth, and deliberate intention.
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What If the Light Has Been Inside You All Along?
We spend our whole lives chasing.
We think:
The next achievement will complete us.
The next relationship will save us.
The next milestone will finally prove we're enough.
But what if we've been looking in the wrong direction?
What if everything we're desperately seeking in the world... has been burning inside us this entire time?
What if the real work isn't to find the light, but to stop hiding it?
Where It Showed Up in My Life
For years, I lived behind a carefully constructed mask.
I'd write a post, then delete it, worried what people would think.
I'd feel deep appreciation for friends and family but swallow the words.
I'd have ideas that excited me but keep them locked inside.
Not because I didn't feel deeply.
But because feeling deeply felt dangerous.
"Don't be too much." "Don't be cringe." "Don't be vulnerable."
These weren't just thoughts—they were prison bars.
And I was both the prisoner and the guard.
Then one day, exhausted from performing a watered-down version of myself, I asked: What am I so afraid of?
The answer hit like lightning: I was afraid that if people saw my real light, they'd reject it.
But here's what I didn't realize: by dimming my light, I was rejecting it first.
What the Wisdom Reveals
The Persian poet Hafiz spent his life trying to wake people up to one truth. He wrote:
"I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being."
But here's what stops us: We think our light is too bright or too much.
So we dim it, filter it or say sorry for it.
We become walking apologies for our own existence.
Hafiz knew something we forget: your light isn't just for you.
When you hide it, you rob the world of something it desperately needs.
Because here's the paradox: The very thing you're afraid makes you "too much" is exactly what the world is starving for.
Your specific frequency of light is medicine someone needs.
How I'm Trying to Live Now
These days, when I feel that pull—to share something real, to tell someone they matter, to express what's actually moving through me—I've stopped negotiating with it.
Last week, I almost didn't post about my struggles with the identity of my old self.
"Is this too much?," my mind said.
I posted anyway. And got the deepest message from somebody I knew.
Last week, I told a new friend exactly how much our friendship meant to me.
It felt strange saying it to someone I just met, but his response made our friendship that much deeper.
Every time I choose to shine instead of hide, the universe responds with a wink: "Finally. There you are."
And just by shining your light, you’ll find your real life (friends, opportunities, work) show up.
And I’m not saying you need to perform brightness so that you get something. If you don’t feel the need to do something, you don’t have to.
But, you just... no longer apologize for living.
We've been taught backwards.
We think we need to:
Achieve our way to worthiness.
Accomplish our way to acceptance.
Earn our way to love.
But what if you're already the light?
What if every achievement you're chasing is just life’s way of trying to trick you into expressing what you already are?
The promotion won't make you valuable, it's an excuse to finally act valuable.
The relationship won't complete you, it's an invitation to share your completeness.
The success won't prove you matter, it's permission to finally believe you always did.
Stop waiting for external validation to unleash your internal illumination.
The world doesn't need another person pretending to be less than they are.
It needs someone who steps into their greatness.
Your light isn't too much. It's exactly enough.
And someone, somewhere, is sitting in darkness, waiting for exactly the frequency of light you carry.
Don't make them wait any longer.
Illuminate.
