When I was little my dad would ask, “Would you rather be the prettiest girl in the class or the smartest?” I knew he thought I was smart, and I liked the attention I got for it. I always answered, “The smartest.” For most of my life I’ve never thought I was pretty or beautiful. I was born with crossed eyes which were repaired in an operation at 9 months, but had a lazy eye for years. I had horribly buck teeth. My mom got me braces. My brother made fun of my legs and compared them to a “metal bar” – as in formless and straight.
So when I met my future husband, and he thought I was so beautiful and liked my legs, I never quite believed him. I chalked it up to “love is blind.” He was seeing what he wanted to see.
It wasn’t until I was in my forties that I began to be interested in feeling beautiful. I got in shape, took Carol Tuttle’s Dressing Your Truth course, and people began to comment about my attractiveness. A back-of-mind vanity warning fired occasionally, but overall I’m enjoying myself. I feel great when I’m in shape, and I enjoy looking nice. I don’t do it for others. I dress, fix my hair and put on makeup most days because it makes me feel good. I do it for me.
As time progressed, I began noticing in my meditations with the Lord, He would tell me that I am beautiful. My husband will occasionally ask, “Why are you so beautiful?” Still, I wasn’t owning it. I figured, I’m a 46-year-old woman who’s in shape, maybe that makes me stand out or something. Besides, I know beauty fades with time. We all can’t stay young and beautiful. But I look at my mother who is 80, and to me she is the most beautiful woman in the world. She has always been beautiful, but she improves with age because the beauty comes from within her. It radiates from her soul, through her eyes, and a warm glow surrounds her.
She walks into a room and love enters with her. That’s the kind of beauty that endures.
Yesterday I was on my Create a WOW Book Mentoring call, and prepped to do some energy shifting around money mindset. I had my list of affirmations handy and was ready to shift that energy for the folks on the call – using the method in which I’ve been certified.
I’d written a blog that morning, “Yep, I’ve Been Terrified to Share My Message Too” and sent it to my mentoring group earlier in the day. I began the call by asking them if they’d read it and what, if anything, stood out to them.
This started a conversation about scarcity (which would lead very well into the money mindset material I intended to cover). But the conversation was so great, that for the full hour we discussed two main themes – scarcity and what to do with outer/inner criticism. I never covered the material I had on my lap. The participants shared their brilliant insights. Many of them are energy-shifters themselves and discussed their modalities, their ideas. People were opening up and sharing brilliant ideas and epiphanies. The hour passed seamlessly. Behind the scenes, I quietly cleared blocks I saw coming up for the group.
I directed the conversation a few times, chimed in with a few of my thoughts here and there. But for the most part, the call was a beautiful example of Quantum Collaboration and co-creation. Yet why was I so unsettled at the end of the call? I felt as if I’d done something “wrong.”
This morning I decided to meditate, ponder, and pray a bit about this. Why had the call made me feel uneasy? I think it boiled down to the fact that I felt like I didn’t “do” anything. It wasn’t me being the wise one imparting knowledge or the energy shifter making things happen. Would my mentoring group realize I hadn’t “done” anything and go away?
Yet, I had played an important role. If I hadn’t, none of it would have happened. I set the stage, offered insightful talking points, and chimed in when I felt like I should. This is what I do:
1) I attract good-hearted, amazingly brilliant people.
2) I bring them together in ways that they can interact with each other in a safe loving environment where they are valued.
3) I am able to reduce or eliminate judgment and criticism.
4) I share a bit of wisdom, set talking points, get out of the way and let the infinite flow through the group.
Result: Quantum collaboration happens and the sum is far greater than the parts.
There’s an analogy I love that portrays the power of unconscious collaboration:
“Honeybees are driven to pollinate, gather nectar, and condense the nectar into honey. It is their magnificent obsession imprinted into their genetic makeup by our Creator. It is estimated that to produce just one pound (0.45 kg) of honey, the average hive of 20,000 to 60,000 bees must collectively visit millions of flowers and travel the equivalent of two times around the world. Over its short lifetime of just a few weeks to four months, a single honeybee’s contribution of honey to its hive is a mere one-twelfth of one teaspoon.
Though seemingly insignificant when compared to the total, each bee’s one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey is vital to the life of the hive. The bees depend on each other. Work that would be overwhelming for a few bees to do becomes lighter because all of the bees faithfully do their part.” (M. Russel Ballard, “Be Anxiously Engaged,” Ensign, November 2012)
Pondering upon the honeybee reveals that we are all going about our lives, engaged in our own “magnificent obsessions,” oblivious to the collective impact we’re making on the world. The honeybee certainly doesn’t know he’s creating honey that will be drizzled on your biscuit one morning. He is clueless to the rippling impact of his actions. And so are we!
Studying this analogy, I realized I’ve been measuring my value as if I’m a honeybee – busily working to gather pollen and make a tangible product – honey. But I am NOT the honeybee in this analogy. I am the flower. It’s my job to be beautiful, to attract beautiful people, and to set the stage. My pollen is talking points, bits of wisdom. As my friend Phil Davis says, it’s my “Marnie-ness.” My job is simply to be beautiful, to be me!
What an amazing paradigm shift for me! This word, “beauty” (that I never knew what to do with) is who I was born to be. Those compliments of “you’re beautiful” that I continuously deflected are truly what I am and why I am here. From now on I’m “owning it.” It’s not about vanity. It’s about being who God created me to be – a flower who attracts beautiful people and sets the stage for magnificent obsessions to play out in quantum collaboration. Rippling impacts for good result in the world when I show up and be me. WOW! I love it!
If this post resonates with you, you might want to find out where you are in the Light Bearer Process. You may take my Light Bearer Assessment here. It’s fast and free!
About Marnie Pehrson Kuhns
Marnie Pehrson Kuhns is a Certified SimplyAlign Practitioner™ who uses music and creativity to mentor you past barriers, fears and doubts to discover, create, align with, and deliver your soul’s song (the mission, message or purpose you are on this earth to live). Marnie is a best-selling author with 31 fiction and nonfiction titles. If you'd like Marnie and her husband Dave to work with you personally on Your Great Reinvention, get a FREE 20-minute strategy session with Marnie here.
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