Not Everything Is A “Girl, Me Too”: Don’t Dim Your Shine To Make Others Feel Better

I recently saw a reel on Instagram of a woman making homemade Goldfish crackers for her children. A good and positive act of a mother taking the time to craft her children a healthier version of a common snack seemed to cause a stir online. The comment section of the video was filled with negative comments about how unobtainable making homemade Goldfish is and how no mom has the time to do so. I’ve been noticing this sour trend recently. Women who strive to become better and hold themselves to a high standard are being perceived as “unobtainable,” “not realistic,” and “fake.” This got me thinking about how often we minimize our shine so we don’t make others uncomfortable.  

Why would we not root on a mother opting to nourish her children with a healthier version of a common snack? Why would we not congratulate a mother who has taken the extra time to craft a snack from scratch? Should the mother making homemade Goldfish not do that because others can’t? 

Why We Minimize Our Shine

We often minimize our shine in an attempt to appear more relatable to someone or to make them feel less alone. We listen to each other’s problems, and we might be tempted to say “We all feel like that!” or “Girl, me too!” – even when we don’t struggle with that particular thing. We don’t want to be incorrectly perceived as thinking we’re superior or come across as vain. Or we dim our light because we don’t want to come off as “too bright” to those living through cloudy days. 

In actuality, when we dim our shine to make others feel more comfortable, it harms everyone involved. It’s important to honor what we excel in and remember we can help someone by teaching them how to grow. It’s important to remember that it is your light that will help pull others out of their overcast and inspire them to shine brightly as well.  

It’s The Light You Give Off That Makes a Difference

As someone who teaches women how to flourish in their faith and their femininity, I’m asked a lot of questions from women who struggle in certain areas. I wouldn’t be able to give good advice or effectively help other women if I didn’t have confidence in the areas in which I have been given wisdom. It’s like being a coach for a dance team – if the coach isn’t good at dancing, how can she help the team win? Should the coach deny her dancing skills in order not to offend someone who can’t dance? 

We can have compassion and offer advice to those struggling, while still honoring and valuing our confidence, abilities, and shine. We respect ourselves by respecting the work we have put in to get to a place of being good at a certain skill or trait. It’s important to remember that not everything is a “Girl, me too.” Some things are a “Girl, here’s how you do it!” I think if we all recognized this, we would help each other a lot more. We would help others in their place of lack, and they could help us in our place of lack.

Putting another woman down for thriving in an area where you may need work will never be the solution to becoming better yourself.

I remember playing volleyball when I was in middle school. I was one of the weakest players. I recognized that I was bad, and I remember that the stronger players would try to compensate for my weakness. Since this was a team sport, you had to help each other out. If you know one player often misses the ball, someone else has to step up and try to hit it for them. I was thankful for the good players on the team because I knew they would excel where I fell short. If the best players on the team don’t show up, the entire team loses. This is a good example of why it’s so important to show up and shine in the areas where you excel. Imagine if the good players on the team held themselves back because they didn’t want to make me feel bad for being a worse player than them. The end result would be the entire team losing the game. Do you see my point about the necessity of not dimming your shine?

Constantly comparing yourself to another woman prevents you from putting your best foot forward in the areas where you can thrive. Instead of tearing down another woman’s wins because you don’t excel in that area, focus on the areas in which you do excel. In shifting the focus to your wins, you pour energy into your strengths, which in turn helps you thrive even more. 

Becoming Better and Doing Better 

A woman basking in her feminine glow and walking with confidence and purpose is foreign to a modern society where picking yourself apart and having identity issues is the norm.

We should be striving to be the best version of ourselves and work on cultivating the areas in which we thrive. We should be championing and cheering for each other to become better and do better. Putting another woman down for thriving in an area where you may need work will never be the solution to becoming better yourself. We all excel in different areas, and we all have different areas in which we need work. There’s a lot of talk about commonly shared struggles, but it’s important to remember not to devalue the areas of ourselves where abundant light can be found. 

Just as the sun doesn’t stop shining because some people can’t take the heat, we shouldn’t dim our shine to make others feel more comfortable. It’s the light that we give off that will help change the culture and make the world a better place.

Closing Thoughts

It’s important to celebrate and honor our femininity. And part of celebrating and honoring our femininity is celebrating and honoring our unique shine. It’s important to be a witness to the society we live in and show our world what it looks like to be a confident woman who loves herself, her femininity, and her unique skills! We change the culture by ministering to the culture, and we minister to the culture with the light that radiates from us. It’s a beautiful gift to be a woman. It’s something to celebrate, honor, and love, so embrace that which you excel in, go forth, and shine! 

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