We all start off life as an open book.
Is that true?
More than a century of developmental psychology and research suggests that babies begin life with fewer learned inhibitions. Through their associations with other human beings, they begin to navigate what they learn—and what they are conditioned to understand—as acceptable behaviour. Watch this video
We start out fearless. No filters. In many ways, we are our purest light shining.
As we discover, learn, and communicate, regardless of our personalities, we begin making choices. Some of these choices can become almost like oaths we make—our modus operandi for life.
Our upbringing and the subcultures of our families, neighbourhoods, communities, and the places where we find belonging influence our choices and behaviours. We learn what is safe and what is not.
Just as our bodies have the ability to feel pain to protect us from physical harm, our minds learn and create boundaries to help us navigate the world around us.
We know people who seem fearless, comfortable taking risks and going on adventures. We know people who seem to have no shame about being seen and are perfectly comfortable being the centre of attention.
Maybe you are like me—the reflective thinker type.
But that is not the only thing that defines me.
I am a creative. I am a doer. I love adventure.
The degree to which I live out these different parts of who I am varies from day to day and through different seasons of my life.
Over the last decade or so, I realized I had stopped giving myself permission to be my fullest self.
I began to see myself like that frog in the old Looney Tunes cartoon—the one who comes out, sings, dances, and completely shines, but then suddenly hides when someone else is watching. Watch the cartoon
It also reminds me of the lyrics and imagery in BANNERS’ song Half Light. Listen to “Half Light”
For a while, it felt as though only half of my light was being illuminated.
Don’t get me wrong. I have not always been this way.
I have had to make choices because of changes in work, responsibility, family life, and COVID. I have learned a lot through all of it.
However, life eventually took me to a place where my body began to react.
My battle with allergies became worse than it had ever been. It affected my work. It affected my vision. Something had to change.
Thank God for help.
My family, friends, advisors, naturopath, consultants, and coaches became mirrors for me during months of trying to understand what was happening.
In hindsight, I learned that some of the choices I made to recover financially from the effects of COVID helped pay the bills—but they also came at a cost to my body.
Taking on work that I was good at was not a bad thing.
However, my modus operandi of overworking and overdelivering was not coming from a healthy place.
It took me many months to recognize that I had been making choices from a scarcity mentality. My over-helpfulness toward others and my clients sometimes came from a place where I was no longer honouring my true self.
I was like a flashlight running on half its battery power.
I was not living in my full light.
That brings me to the story of how I finally attended the Performer’s Mastery course led by Henry Mah and Linda Darlow.
It had been six years since I first received an invitation to attend.
Finally, the timing was right.
More importantly, I was finally in a place where I was okay investing in myself and doing something simply because I wanted to do it.
Not for my business.
Not for generating work.
For me.
Henry and Linda are acting coaches and life coaches who have been running this workshop for years.
Meanwhile, I had been gigging (teaching film, media, screenwriting, and acting to college students in a film program) while running my company.
Years ago, I had made a deliberate choice not to become absorbed in the traditional film-industry machine. Instead, I worked in marketing, branding, education, and media so I could see my family and be present for my daughter.
Now, as my daughter was about to enter her final year of high school, I decided to do the workshop.
I arrived with a question:
“Am I good enough to be in front of the camera?”
For years I had been behind it—directing films, documentaries, and video projects. I loved coaching my students, workshopping scenes with them, and occasionally doing cold readings alongside them.
But I came into the workshop wondering whether I belonged on the other side of the lens.
I left realizing that question did not matter nearly as much anymore.
Instead, I left with a new question:
“Will I be my own light and embody my bigness?”
I think, for a long time, my body had been pulling me toward exactly that.
And it was not really about acting.
It was about allowing myself to make choices without fearing my own light and power.
I had spent years making vows that I would not become like the narcissists I had encountered or the abusive leaders I had rubbed shoulders with.
I made vows to be kind.
To care for people.
To help.
But somewhere along the way, I also stopped allowing myself to acknowledge when I had been wronged. I did not always give myself permission to create clear boundaries.
The funny thing is that there have been seasons of my life when I was living happily as my full self—living fully in my light.
Yet there were still parts of me that remained hidden.
Parts that needed to be exposed, understood, and explored.
One thing I am learning now is how to give myself permission to step back and make choices from a place where I honour myself first.
It is like the oxygen-mask instruction on an airplane.
Before I can help someone else, I must put my own oxygen mask on first.
I love championing other people and their stories.
I am learning that I also need to champion myself.
Being in my full light means being okay with making mistakes, learning from them, and understanding that I am not responsible for everyone else’s reactions or responses.
Being big means showing up as I am.
No masks.
Clear boundaries.
Acknowledging everything I have to offer—not someday, not when I have everything figured out, but as I am, with the story I carry today.
I need to keep pressing into the words of Marianne Williamson:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ … We are all meant to shine, as children do. … It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” See full quote
Maybe leadership begins there.
Not with having all the answers. Not with being the loudest person in the room. Not with proving ourselves. But with having the courage to stop shrinking, to stop hiding, and to fully inhabit who we are.
For me, embracing my light and my bigness means giving myself permission to take up the space I am meant to take up. It means trusting what I know, honouring what I need, setting boundaries, making mistakes, learning, creating, leading, and showing up without apologizing for being fully alive.
It also means remembering that my light is not in competition with anyone else’s. Shining does not mean making someone else smaller. In fact, I am learning that when we are willing to stand fully in who we are, we can give others permission to do the same.
Leadership is not always about leading others first. Sometimes it is about learning to lead ourselves.
To listen to our bodies.
To pay attention to what is no longer working.
To make different choices.
To stop abandoning ourselves in order to be accepted, needed, or useful.
It does not matter what age you are or where you are in your life. We can keep discovering parts of ourselves that have been hidden, silenced, or made smaller. We can choose again.
So, I am choosing to practice being in my full light.
Not perfectly. Not fearlessly. But more honestly.
I am choosing not to shrink.
How are you practicing letting your light shine?
Where are you still making yourself smaller?
And what might become possible if you gave yourself permission to be powerful beyond measure?
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Leadership Means Embracing Your Light, Your Bigness
by Kenton MacDonald-Lin Published September 8, 2027
