On Not Dimming Your Light✨
Source for image of Teyana Taylor holding her much-deserved Golden Globe award.
Some moments feel like reminders instead of announcements. Watching Teyana Taylor accept her award and speak directly to little brown girls…telling them not to dim their light, to take up space, to go after what they dream about, felt like one of those moments.
Not loud. Not performative. Just simple and true words that resonate with us all!
As a Black woman, much of our lives are spent learning how to shrink ourselves. To make ourselves easier to digest. Be quieter. Smaller. Don’t do too much, girl! Be more agreeable.
Somewhere along the way, we confuse humility with hiding.
But the light that lives within all of us was never meant to be managed.
Light doesn’t need permission to shine — it just needs space to be.
What stayed with me wasn’t just what she said, but speaking to the next generation. As a girl mom who is on the cusp of raising the world’s next up-and-coming teens of the world, this moment gave validation to what I’m teaching my girls every single day: to shine every day! This moment also validates the girls watching who are at the age where it’s easy to blend in, so we can fit in. The ones learning, early on, whether the world has room for their full expression and if it’s safe to share that light.
I believe our light is internal. It’s already there. And when we stop dimming it, when we allow ourselves to be seen, fully and honestly, others are permitted to do the same.
Some will be drawn to it.
Some will be warmed by it.
Some will recognize their own light for the first time.
And that’s enough.