Opening to our magnificence

I have a new coaching client, who has come to me with a not-so-everyday issue. She is terrified of the power and beauty of her own being. And any time she comes anywhere near to facing or contemplating it, she gets the shakes and becomes unable to function.It's hardly a coincidence, methinks, that she's found her way to me. Unknown to her, I had the very same issue - and am perhaps still working through a layer of it, else I would not have 'attracted her into my life'.And it often seems to be the way, doesn't it? Until we've transformed an issue in our lives, we keep attracting in 'mirrors' to reflect back to us that unhealed aspect of ourselves.Anyway, it feels like a true blessing - to be helping someone to consciously unfold into the magnificence and majesty of their being. And it reminds me of that passage from Marianne Williamson, which I must have quoted a hundred times now (I would have thought of something original to say on the subject but couldn't find anything more apt): “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."I had a phase of looking in the mirror and being freaked out by what I saw: effectively the limitless nature of my own soul. And for a moment I'd quake in my boots - and 'close down' to myself - until I discovered that it was OK - OK to breathe; OK to 'stay in my body' and embrace (though I have my reservations about that word) a broader, deeper, not-instantly-recognisable version of myself... the me that I was becoming.My sense is that it's something that we all must do at some point on our journey: open fully, not just to our 'shadow side', but also to our brilliance - our majesty... our magnificence and our power. For we are all those things. But we cannot embrace one without fully embracing the other: after all, the purest water lily arises from the centre of the thickest, blackest mud!