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Ep 87 | Don’t Dim Your Light to Make Others Feel Better

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Have you ever been told you’re just “too much”? Maybe you’ve felt the sting of being judged—whether it was your energy, boldness, or the simple act of stepping into a room with confidence. If you’ve ever felt the pressure to dim your light just to make others comfortable, you’re not alone. It’s a struggle many of us (especially women) know all too well.

In a recent episode of the She Finds Joy podcast, happiness coach and speaker Kim Strobel dives deep into this exact experience. After a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, Kim returns with a fiery passion to help others ditch outdated expectations, claim their confidence, and unapologetically take up space in the world.

Why We Dim Our Light—and Why We Shouldn’t

Kim shares raw, real-life stories of being judged for everything from running marathons to simply wearing a dress she loves. The criticism wasn’t just from the outside world—it often came from within her community, even colleagues. “Your light will always trigger those who are afraid to shine their own,” Kim says, highlighting the uncomfortable truth that many are taught to shrink themselves for the comfort of others.

From being asked to wear pants because others complained about her legs, to being accused (absurdly!) of flirting with a colleague’s child, Kim experienced firsthand the costs of standing out. But these experiences became turning points. Rather than giving up, she began advocating for herself—and, in turn, started inspiring others to do the same.

The Cost of Playing Small

Too often, especially in professional environments, we’re encouraged to shrink ourselves. It’s a reality women know across the board—from schools to corporations and everywhere in between. But as Kim’s story proves: shrinking doesn’t serve anyone. When we downplay our strengths or hide our true selves, we not only rob ourselves of joy—we deny others the light they need to find their own way.

Leadership isn’t arrogance. Confidence isn’t a character flaw. Owning your ambition isn’t “too much.” And when we choose to show up boldly, we give others permission to do the same.

Professional Development that Celebrates Strength

The workplace—and our lives—need more individuals willing to own their power and stand in their light. That’s where Onsite PD and Live/Virtual Workshops come in. Imagine your team embracing their authentic selves, engaging in open discussions about real challenges, and leaving with practical, actionable steps for both personal and professional growth.

Does your team need a boost of authenticity, confidence, and connection? That’s exactly what these workshops are designed to provide. Through a blend of evidence-based happiness strategies and real-world storytelling, participants learn to:

  • Reframe criticism and self-doubt into growth
  • Build resilience against negativity and “keyboard warriors”
  • Create an inclusive environment where everyone’s light can shine
  • Embrace bold leadership without apology
  • Develop actionable strategies to foster happiness, regardless of adversity

Ready to Uplevel Your Team? Here’s Your Next Step

Onsite Professional Development (PD) Sessions: Bring the energy, inspiration, and science-backed tools directly to your school, organization, or leadership team with an in-person PD experience led by a seasoned happiness coach.

Live/Virtual Workshops: Prefer connecting online? No problem! Interactive virtual workshops deliver the same dynamic experience, reaching teams wherever they are—no travel required.

Whether in person or online, these sessions offer more than just “feel good” moments. They create tangible action plans and bring practical, zero-fluff guidance to help you and your colleagues thrive.

Why Now?

Now is the perfect time. After years of stress, uncertainty, and change, people are craving connection, meaning, and a workplace where they’re empowered—not diminished.

As Kim Strobel says,

“The world does not need more women who shrink themselves to fit outdated expectations. The world needs your boldness. It needs your confidence. And it needs ambitious men and women who are willing to take up space…”

Make the Shift—For Yourself and Your Organization

Imagine the impact if every person in your community or team felt empowered to step fully into their light. Not only would you see increased confidence and morale, but you’d foster an environment of true innovation, happiness, and collaboration.

Let’s create a ripple effect—where boldness, joy, and authentic leadership become the norm, not the exception.

Ready to bring this transformation to your organization?

You have the power to create a happier, more empowered environment. Don’t dim your light—let it shine, and watch how others’ lights grow brighter, too.

SHOWNOTES

After a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, Kim Strobel returns to the She Finds Joy podcast with renewed energy, ready to share personal insights and practical advice for embracing your authentic self. In this shorter, heart-to-heart episode, Kim opens up about her own struggles with criticism, judgment, and the societal pressure—especially on women—to “dim their light.” She tackles the common experience of being labeled as “too much” and shares raw stories from her teaching career, highlighting how she’s learned (sometimes the hard way) to refuse to shrink herself for others’ comfort.

Kim draws on messages from Rebecca Campbell’s book, Light is the New Black, and encourages listeners to reflect on how they might be holding themselves back. The episode offers empowering mindset shifts, a big dose of real talk, and plenty of encouragement to show up boldly, unapologetically, and let your light shine.

 

What’s in the episode:

  • Why Kim took a podcasting sabbatical—and what inspired her return
  • The societal and workplace pressures (especially for women) to play small or dim your light
  • Personal stories of criticism and judgment Kim has faced for being confident, positive, and authentic
  • The importance of not shrinking to make others comfortable
  • Insights from Light is the New Black and the message that your light may trigger others who are afraid to shine
  • The transformational moment when Kim decided never to make herself small for others again
  • How embracing your boldness and light actually empowers others to do the same

 

“The world does not need more women who shrink themselves to fit outdated expectations. The world needs your boldness.”

 

If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review here or at kimstrobel.com/review, and share the show with someone who could use a little encouragement.

You can also subscribe to never miss an episode. Thank you for being here and showing up.

 

Keep shining—because when you do, you give others the courage to shine their light, too.

 

For more encouragement and real talk, follow Kim Strobel and She Finds Joy! Produced with love and realness, dogs barking included. 🐾

 

 


TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Podcast Resumes: Joyful Insights

06:07 Toxic Work Culture Challenges

09:31 “Confronting Confidence Issues Publicly”

11:11 “Shine Bright, Embrace Your Light”

13:45 Embrace Your Light, Empower Others

17:02 “Explore KimTrouble.com Review”

TRANSCRIPT

Kim Strobel:

Hi everyone, I am back after a two and a half year hiatus from podcasting. Back in October 2022 I was feeling really overwhelmed with all the content creation and I decided to take a sabbatical from podcasting. But it’s with renewed energy that I am back on the She Finds Joy podcast and I have so much I want to talk about. I feel this great inspiring inside of me to share a lot of what I’ve been learning. And so these next episodes I think are going to be about 15 minutes long. I’m going to make them a lot shorter than what the others were. These are just going to be fun little tidbits for you. Maybe you’re driving to work, you’re taking a 15 minute walk, short snippets, little bitty things that we can do to up level our life, to feel fully alive in our life, to feel more happiness, more joy, to be more bold, more authentic, more real. And so I’m back and I’m excited for the first episode from our my hiatus and so welcome back.

And what I want to do today is I really want to have a real conversation around something that I know so many of us have experienced. And it’s this idea of being told that we’re simply too much. And I feel like this is especially prevalent in women. And in fact, women get bullied more by women than they do by men many times when it comes to just really being all that you are. And whether you are energetic, whether you are opinionated, whether you are bold, brave, ambitious, outspoken, assertive, all of these things that are the magic of who we are. Others do not want us to shine that brightly. They want us to dim our light so that we can make them feel comfortable.

And I will tell you about a couple of incidents in this episode, but I really do feel like I’m one of those women who I’ve been highly judged and highly criticized and highly labeled my entire life. I don’t quite know what it is, but I do know that I could tell you 17 stories right now about a time in my life when people judged me harshly. I mean, right now I get judged because I’m a runner. I’ve always been a runner. I usually run about 40 miles a week. And like, people literally judge me because I’m a runner and I have good legs. I mean, it’s crazy. Okay, look, I got other problems, but I’ve got really good legs. And it’s because I run 40 miles a week, but yet I get judged for that.

What I have noticed is that every single time that I try to up level in my life, every time I try to step into a bigger version of myself, that’s when the, the haters, the keyboard warriors, the negative nellies, the trolls, the criticism came. But here’s what I have learned. Your light will always trigger those who are afraid to shine their own. And I’m going to say that one more time. Your light will always trigger those who are afraid to shine their own.

And I think that part of the reason I’m feeling really inspired to show back up on this platform is I have been reading Rebecca Campbell’s book, Light is the New Black. And in that, my counselor is the one that told me about it. And in that, she’s really saying, look, you were given a God given light. You are supposed to shine that light. You’re supposed to hold your light, own your light. You’re supposed to walk in your truth. And we have to push back on those old societal scripts that tell us that we must shrink ourselves in order to make other people feel comfortable.

And so I want to share just a few examples of just my own personal journey with criticism. Like I said, I’ve probably got 27 different ones. But my whole life I’ve been told, you smile too much, Kim. Or when I was a classroom teacher, I was told I dressed too nice. They wanted me to wear khakis and the red polo every day. And I liked to wear cute dresses. I liked to wear skirts. And so that really rubbed some, some teachers in the school building the wrong way. I love clothes. I love dressing up. It made me feel good.

I’ve been told I’m arrogant, right? No. Now you know what that’s actually called? Confidence. And I fought really hard for confidence in my life. Or sometimes I’ve been told that I’m opinionated or that I’m assertive, but in fact, that’s what we call leadership. And so it still kind of blows my mind when, when I think back to the times in my life when I’ve really had to play small and I really tried to dim my own light because I knew that my light simply made other people feel uncomfortable.

And as women, you know, this was modeled behavior to us from our own mothers and grandmothers who actually had to dim their light in order to play it safe. I mean, I think it wasn’t until 1974 or something that a woman was even allowed to own her own home. Craziness. But, you know, in my own life, I. I can tell you that I’ve worked in even, you know, somewhat toxic work cultures where my shiny, happy, positive outlook some of the time this light that I emulated made me a culprit for other people attacking me. And I’ll give you an example of that. At my school, we were told that we could wear skirts, but that there was a rule of knee length skirts. I knew that the women in my school were going to administration and constantly complaining about my legs. Now because of that, I always Wore My skirts 2 inches below the knee because I already knew that people had an issue with my legs. So I was going to go above and beyond the rule and make sure I was super safe. It did not matter. There were a certain group of women who were constantly going to administration complaining about my legs. And so I was asked by the administration if I would just simply start wearing pants. I kid you not, Kim, can you just wear pants? Because I’m tired of dealing with these people coming into my office and complaining about your legs. Now, I love the administration and they were somewhat new in their career and in all reality, we know exactly how they should have handled that. But what I did is I started wearing pants so that, that I could take the light off of me and I could have less criticism coming my way, which, as we all know, is absolutely crazy. But I was young. I didn’t want the unnecessary attention, so I simply wore pants.

Then a second episode happened. At the same school. There was one particular teacher who just really despised me. She was about my age. Life hadn’t gone well for her. She was raising a child on her own. There was no dad in the picture. Well, she had, I think, a lot of help from her parents, but life was just. She was just, you know, unhappy in life. And she kept attacking me on the back end. And it really came to blows when she accused me of flirting with her third grade son because her third great son would Come in from recess, and I was the. The atrium hall monitor. And he was so sweet. And he would always come up to me, and he would look up at me, and he would just smile, and he would just talk. And I would tell this particular teacher, oh, you know, your son is delightful. He just looks up at me and bats his eyes. He’s so sweet. I just love talking to him every day. Well, she started a rumor that I was flirting with her son. Okay, this is after she’s. She’s done several things, so I’ve had it. I called in the union. I called in the cta. I said, I’m not doing this anymore. This is ridicul. This is defamation for you to even say something that is this outrageous. It’s sick. This is sick behavior. So I called her in, got the cta, state representative in, met in the library. And within three minutes, she starts crying, and she starts saying, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s just that, Kim, you go down the hallways and you always have a smile on your face, and you just seem so happy, and you’re so confident. And I’m going to tell you what I did. I started to expose my own vulnerabilities to this particular woman, who one had not earned the right to hear my story. And I started explaining to her that I had been in a car accident. My nose had been broken, my teeth were botched, I’m in braces. I look in the mirror and don’t always like what I see. I have confidence issues. And I found myself lowering myself down to her level so that I could make her feel more comfortable. And as I was doing it, I had this sickening feeling inside of myself knowing, why are you doing this, Kim? But I couldn’t stop myself. And her response to me saying that was, you know, I just really feel that at the next faculty meeting, if you could stand up in front of the whole crowd and tell them that you, too, have confidence issues, that you two don’t always like the way you look. I just think that it would really make the rest of us feel better.

And I will tell you all that in that moment, I. I was like. It was like a lightning bolt from God who struck me down. And I remember getting up from that table, walking out of the room, looking straight up at the doorway as I walked out and said, never again, God, will I lower myself to make someone else feel better about themselves. Never again will I make myself self small so someone else can feel good in their own life. Like, I finally Got the message. And I. I told myself, from here on out, I’m going to let my light shine. And I’m playing the game of big. I’m playing the game of be Kim Strobel. Be who you are. Let your light shine. Yes, you have vulnerabilities. Yes, certain people have earned the right to hear those vulnerabilities. And yes, you can be all that you want to be.

And this really changed my life. Because you know what? We are all born to shine big and bright. You are born to light up every room you walk in. You are allowed to let yourself be seen. And if others don’t want to be around you, it’s probably because you trigger them or you make them uncomfortable with your light. Because your brightness reminds them that they are dimming their own light, that they are playing small in their own life. And by you choosing to shine bright one, you might inspire them to realize that they are allowed to shine their light, too. And if not? If not, then allow that person to no longer be a part of your life, because you’re probably not an energetic match for them anyway.

I truly feel that the world does not need more women who shrink themselves to fit outdated expectations. The world needs your boldness. It needs your confidence. And it needs ambitious men and women who are willing to take up space, who own their power and refuse to apologize for being and having the light within us. And I feel like that’s really the goal, folks, to get closer and closer to owning our own authentic self, to learning to feel comfortable in our skin, in all our weirdness, all our quirks, all our imperfections, but also within all of our light.

I remember in grade school, at my Catholic school, in church, we would sing that little song, you know, this Little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine I’m gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine. And that is exactly what we’re meant to do. We are meant to shine.

And so I really want you to think about this. You know, Rebecca Campbell writes that. That so many women have an unconscious fear of being seen, that we worry that if we fully show up confidently, boldly, and unapologetically, that people will judge us. And guess what? They will. They will. But remember what’s happening. And I’ll say this again. When someone criticizes you for being too much for shining your light, they are truly often reacting to their own fear of shining. Because your light reminds them that they have been playing small. Your boldness reminds them that of all the risk they haven’t taken so if someone is uncomfortable with your confidence, that is their work to do, not yours. Your only job is to continue being the fullest, brightest version of who you are, because when you do, you give other people the permission to shine theirs. And the world needs more light.

And so I want you to walk in every room like you belong. I want you to speak your truth without apologizing for it. And I want you to stand in your confidence even when it makes others uncomfortable. And so I want you to ask yourself, as we begin to end this episode, where are you holding yourself back? Where are you playing small in your life because you don’t want to ruffle somebody else’s feathers? And can you challenge yourself to stop dimming your own light and start taking up space in this world?

And now, let me also say this to the people who criticize, to the people who judge, and to the people who wait for others to fail. And let me also tell you that there’s a judgy part of Kim’s trouble that she needs to work on, too. But if you’re somebody who’s constantly attacking people, if that’s you, if you find yourself tap dancing, tapping your foot, waiting for someone else to stumble, I want us to challenge ourselves to stop. Stop looking for other people’s failures so that you can feel better about your life. Stop judging women who stand in their own confidence. Sorry, that’s the beauty of podcasting. I’ve got three dogs right here who are going crazy because they think someone pulled up in the driveway. And I’m not going to cut it because I’m just being real with you. This is real life. But really, stop judging women for standing in their confidence. Because the truth is, the more you tear others down, the more you judge others, the more you keep yourself stuck in a life that feels small. And so instead, when you see another woman shining, celebrate her. Because when you do, you’re not just lifting her up. You’re allowing yourself to step into your own greatness, too. And so decide right now that you will no longer play small, that you will continue to show up and push yourself to let your light shine. Because the world needs your light. And the moment you stop dimming it, you give others the courage to shine, too.

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for showing up. Until next time, my friends. I want you to keep shining.

SHOWNOTES

After a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, Kim Strobel returns to the She Finds Joy podcast with renewed energy, ready to share personal insights and practical advice for embracing your authentic self. In this shorter, heart-to-heart episode, Kim opens up about her own struggles with criticism, judgment, and the societal pressure—especially on women—to “dim their light.” She tackles the common experience of being labeled as “too much” and shares raw stories from her teaching career, highlighting how she’s learned (sometimes the hard way) to refuse to shrink herself for others’ comfort.

Kim draws on messages from Rebecca Campbell’s book, Light is the New Black, and encourages listeners to reflect on how they might be holding themselves back. The episode offers empowering mindset shifts, a big dose of real talk, and plenty of encouragement to show up boldly, unapologetically, and let your light shine.

 

What’s in the episode:

  • Why Kim took a podcasting sabbatical—and what inspired her return
  • The societal and workplace pressures (especially for women) to play small or dim your light
  • Personal stories of criticism and judgment Kim has faced for being confident, positive, and authentic
  • The importance of not shrinking to make others comfortable
  • Insights from Light is the New Black and the message that your light may trigger others who are afraid to shine
  • The transformational moment when Kim decided never to make herself small for others again
  • How embracing your boldness and light actually empowers others to do the same

 

“The world does not need more women who shrink themselves to fit outdated expectations. The world needs your boldness.”

 

If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review here or at kimstrobel.com/review, and share the show with someone who could use a little encouragement.

You can also subscribe to never miss an episode. Thank you for being here and showing up.

 

Keep shining—because when you do, you give others the courage to shine their light, too.

 

For more encouragement and real talk, follow Kim Strobel and She Finds Joy! Produced with love and realness, dogs barking included. 🐾

 

 


TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Podcast Resumes: Joyful Insights

06:07 Toxic Work Culture Challenges

09:31 “Confronting Confidence Issues Publicly”

11:11 “Shine Bright, Embrace Your Light”

13:45 Embrace Your Light, Empower Others

17:02 “Explore KimTrouble.com Review”

TRANSCRIPT

Kim Strobel:

Hi everyone, I am back after a two and a half year hiatus from podcasting. Back in October 2022 I was feeling really overwhelmed with all the content creation and I decided to take a sabbatical from podcasting. But it’s with renewed energy that I am back on the She Finds Joy podcast and I have so much I want to talk about. I feel this great inspiring inside of me to share a lot of what I’ve been learning. And so these next episodes I think are going to be about 15 minutes long. I’m going to make them a lot shorter than what the others were. These are just going to be fun little tidbits for you. Maybe you’re driving to work, you’re taking a 15 minute walk, short snippets, little bitty things that we can do to up level our life, to feel fully alive in our life, to feel more happiness, more joy, to be more bold, more authentic, more real. And so I’m back and I’m excited for the first episode from our my hiatus and so welcome back.

And what I want to do today is I really want to have a real conversation around something that I know so many of us have experienced. And it’s this idea of being told that we’re simply too much. And I feel like this is especially prevalent in women. And in fact, women get bullied more by women than they do by men many times when it comes to just really being all that you are. And whether you are energetic, whether you are opinionated, whether you are bold, brave, ambitious, outspoken, assertive, all of these things that are the magic of who we are. Others do not want us to shine that brightly. They want us to dim our light so that we can make them feel comfortable.

And I will tell you about a couple of incidents in this episode, but I really do feel like I’m one of those women who I’ve been highly judged and highly criticized and highly labeled my entire life. I don’t quite know what it is, but I do know that I could tell you 17 stories right now about a time in my life when people judged me harshly. I mean, right now I get judged because I’m a runner. I’ve always been a runner. I usually run about 40 miles a week. And like, people literally judge me because I’m a runner and I have good legs. I mean, it’s crazy. Okay, look, I got other problems, but I’ve got really good legs. And it’s because I run 40 miles a week, but yet I get judged for that.

What I have noticed is that every single time that I try to up level in my life, every time I try to step into a bigger version of myself, that’s when the, the haters, the keyboard warriors, the negative nellies, the trolls, the criticism came. But here’s what I have learned. Your light will always trigger those who are afraid to shine their own. And I’m going to say that one more time. Your light will always trigger those who are afraid to shine their own.

And I think that part of the reason I’m feeling really inspired to show back up on this platform is I have been reading Rebecca Campbell’s book, Light is the New Black. And in that, my counselor is the one that told me about it. And in that, she’s really saying, look, you were given a God given light. You are supposed to shine that light. You’re supposed to hold your light, own your light. You’re supposed to walk in your truth. And we have to push back on those old societal scripts that tell us that we must shrink ourselves in order to make other people feel comfortable.

And so I want to share just a few examples of just my own personal journey with criticism. Like I said, I’ve probably got 27 different ones. But my whole life I’ve been told, you smile too much, Kim. Or when I was a classroom teacher, I was told I dressed too nice. They wanted me to wear khakis and the red polo every day. And I liked to wear cute dresses. I liked to wear skirts. And so that really rubbed some, some teachers in the school building the wrong way. I love clothes. I love dressing up. It made me feel good.

I’ve been told I’m arrogant, right? No. Now you know what that’s actually called? Confidence. And I fought really hard for confidence in my life. Or sometimes I’ve been told that I’m opinionated or that I’m assertive, but in fact, that’s what we call leadership. And so it still kind of blows my mind when, when I think back to the times in my life when I’ve really had to play small and I really tried to dim my own light because I knew that my light simply made other people feel uncomfortable.

And as women, you know, this was modeled behavior to us from our own mothers and grandmothers who actually had to dim their light in order to play it safe. I mean, I think it wasn’t until 1974 or something that a woman was even allowed to own her own home. Craziness. But, you know, in my own life, I. I can tell you that I’ve worked in even, you know, somewhat toxic work cultures where my shiny, happy, positive outlook some of the time this light that I emulated made me a culprit for other people attacking me. And I’ll give you an example of that. At my school, we were told that we could wear skirts, but that there was a rule of knee length skirts. I knew that the women in my school were going to administration and constantly complaining about my legs. Now because of that, I always Wore My skirts 2 inches below the knee because I already knew that people had an issue with my legs. So I was going to go above and beyond the rule and make sure I was super safe. It did not matter. There were a certain group of women who were constantly going to administration complaining about my legs. And so I was asked by the administration if I would just simply start wearing pants. I kid you not, Kim, can you just wear pants? Because I’m tired of dealing with these people coming into my office and complaining about your legs. Now, I love the administration and they were somewhat new in their career and in all reality, we know exactly how they should have handled that. But what I did is I started wearing pants so that, that I could take the light off of me and I could have less criticism coming my way, which, as we all know, is absolutely crazy. But I was young. I didn’t want the unnecessary attention, so I simply wore pants.

Then a second episode happened. At the same school. There was one particular teacher who just really despised me. She was about my age. Life hadn’t gone well for her. She was raising a child on her own. There was no dad in the picture. Well, she had, I think, a lot of help from her parents, but life was just. She was just, you know, unhappy in life. And she kept attacking me on the back end. And it really came to blows when she accused me of flirting with her third grade son because her third great son would Come in from recess, and I was the. The atrium hall monitor. And he was so sweet. And he would always come up to me, and he would look up at me, and he would just smile, and he would just talk. And I would tell this particular teacher, oh, you know, your son is delightful. He just looks up at me and bats his eyes. He’s so sweet. I just love talking to him every day. Well, she started a rumor that I was flirting with her son. Okay, this is after she’s. She’s done several things, so I’ve had it. I called in the union. I called in the cta. I said, I’m not doing this anymore. This is ridicul. This is defamation for you to even say something that is this outrageous. It’s sick. This is sick behavior. So I called her in, got the cta, state representative in, met in the library. And within three minutes, she starts crying, and she starts saying, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s just that, Kim, you go down the hallways and you always have a smile on your face, and you just seem so happy, and you’re so confident. And I’m going to tell you what I did. I started to expose my own vulnerabilities to this particular woman, who one had not earned the right to hear my story. And I started explaining to her that I had been in a car accident. My nose had been broken, my teeth were botched, I’m in braces. I look in the mirror and don’t always like what I see. I have confidence issues. And I found myself lowering myself down to her level so that I could make her feel more comfortable. And as I was doing it, I had this sickening feeling inside of myself knowing, why are you doing this, Kim? But I couldn’t stop myself. And her response to me saying that was, you know, I just really feel that at the next faculty meeting, if you could stand up in front of the whole crowd and tell them that you, too, have confidence issues, that you two don’t always like the way you look. I just think that it would really make the rest of us feel better.

And I will tell you all that in that moment, I. I was like. It was like a lightning bolt from God who struck me down. And I remember getting up from that table, walking out of the room, looking straight up at the doorway as I walked out and said, never again, God, will I lower myself to make someone else feel better about themselves. Never again will I make myself self small so someone else can feel good in their own life. Like, I finally Got the message. And I. I told myself, from here on out, I’m going to let my light shine. And I’m playing the game of big. I’m playing the game of be Kim Strobel. Be who you are. Let your light shine. Yes, you have vulnerabilities. Yes, certain people have earned the right to hear those vulnerabilities. And yes, you can be all that you want to be.

And this really changed my life. Because you know what? We are all born to shine big and bright. You are born to light up every room you walk in. You are allowed to let yourself be seen. And if others don’t want to be around you, it’s probably because you trigger them or you make them uncomfortable with your light. Because your brightness reminds them that they are dimming their own light, that they are playing small in their own life. And by you choosing to shine bright one, you might inspire them to realize that they are allowed to shine their light, too. And if not? If not, then allow that person to no longer be a part of your life, because you’re probably not an energetic match for them anyway.

I truly feel that the world does not need more women who shrink themselves to fit outdated expectations. The world needs your boldness. It needs your confidence. And it needs ambitious men and women who are willing to take up space, who own their power and refuse to apologize for being and having the light within us. And I feel like that’s really the goal, folks, to get closer and closer to owning our own authentic self, to learning to feel comfortable in our skin, in all our weirdness, all our quirks, all our imperfections, but also within all of our light.

I remember in grade school, at my Catholic school, in church, we would sing that little song, you know, this Little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine I’m gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine. And that is exactly what we’re meant to do. We are meant to shine.

And so I really want you to think about this. You know, Rebecca Campbell writes that. That so many women have an unconscious fear of being seen, that we worry that if we fully show up confidently, boldly, and unapologetically, that people will judge us. And guess what? They will. They will. But remember what’s happening. And I’ll say this again. When someone criticizes you for being too much for shining your light, they are truly often reacting to their own fear of shining. Because your light reminds them that they have been playing small. Your boldness reminds them that of all the risk they haven’t taken so if someone is uncomfortable with your confidence, that is their work to do, not yours. Your only job is to continue being the fullest, brightest version of who you are, because when you do, you give other people the permission to shine theirs. And the world needs more light.

And so I want you to walk in every room like you belong. I want you to speak your truth without apologizing for it. And I want you to stand in your confidence even when it makes others uncomfortable. And so I want you to ask yourself, as we begin to end this episode, where are you holding yourself back? Where are you playing small in your life because you don’t want to ruffle somebody else’s feathers? And can you challenge yourself to stop dimming your own light and start taking up space in this world?

And now, let me also say this to the people who criticize, to the people who judge, and to the people who wait for others to fail. And let me also tell you that there’s a judgy part of Kim’s trouble that she needs to work on, too. But if you’re somebody who’s constantly attacking people, if that’s you, if you find yourself tap dancing, tapping your foot, waiting for someone else to stumble, I want us to challenge ourselves to stop. Stop looking for other people’s failures so that you can feel better about your life. Stop judging women who stand in their own confidence. Sorry, that’s the beauty of podcasting. I’ve got three dogs right here who are going crazy because they think someone pulled up in the driveway. And I’m not going to cut it because I’m just being real with you. This is real life. But really, stop judging women for standing in their confidence. Because the truth is, the more you tear others down, the more you judge others, the more you keep yourself stuck in a life that feels small. And so instead, when you see another woman shining, celebrate her. Because when you do, you’re not just lifting her up. You’re allowing yourself to step into your own greatness, too. And so decide right now that you will no longer play small, that you will continue to show up and push yourself to let your light shine. Because the world needs your light. And the moment you stop dimming it, you give others the courage to shine, too.

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for showing up. Until next time, my friends. I want you to keep shining.

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