Today Astrid would like to speak to that little voice inside of many of you that sometimes wishes to just curl up in a ball and shrink back into a dark corner or closet – maybe even just pull the covers over your head and pretend the world has no idea you exist. Maybe you prefer being invisible sometimes and this can serve well in specific cases, but perhaps you’re holding yourself back out of fear or a deep-seeded experience that leaves you afraid to put yourself out there.

Living so close to, and intimately with, the ground and Earth, rabbits know how to “hide” well, but this can have a two-fold meaning of either having the need to camouflage and blend in or that you have made yourself so small that you are un/under-recognized for who you are and the gifts that you embody.

Rabbits know the importance of awareness and protection, but they are not shy about exhibiting their exuberance and big personalities when they feel the urge to do so. In fact, they will leap with glee when the moment moves them, or rise to the challenge with fierceness, despite being seen as small, timid and fragile creatures.

They are extraordinary sound navigators who know when to seize the moment and “hop” into new territories and experiences. Their ultra-sensitivities create the light when all seems lost and dark.

And this is the place Astrid wants to address for those of you who find yourself feeling lost so much, desire to shrink away, or aren’t even aware that you are diminishing your light when it’s needed the most right now in the world.

Invisibility can definitely be a gift, but it doesn’t serve you or the collective to live in the dark eternally.

Life can’t go on, nor thrive, without light.

Astrid knows there are times she’s been afraid and that she’s needed to regulate her energy so as to find that balance of protection and safety, while also making herself known and asserted.

If she had remained purely in fear by her circumstances and triggers, she would not only not have survived, but not have been recognized for the gifts she has. Marcy of SaveABunny and her staff of volunteers saw her because of the big energy she put out, and of course we know that this is also how she and I made the connection.

We both had to rise to our highest and most whole, to have a meeting of equals merge into partnership and recognition of reflection.

We could easily have missed a beautiful chance if we both stayed small.

How many times might you have missed out on an opportunity because you kept yourself small?

How much of your dreams are you not able to experience because you hesitate to share your gifts?

How much love do you hold back from yourself because you’re scared to show others who you really are or to feel how worthy you are?

Is it disappointment, hurt, anger, or guilt that makes us fear ourselves and our power?

I often wonder why these feelings win out over love over and over again.

Astrid shares that responsibility can play a part in this process we seem to be learning in exercising our gifts and powers.

But she and I both agree that responsibility can can carry its own weight that isn’t always tempered with love, but analyzed and dissected by ego.

So in fact it, too, can lead us astray of going bigger, as it tries to work out every angle to satisfy another excuse not to shine forth.

While we think that hiding serves us well, in most cases it is a reaction to something now or from a “past” that didn’t go the way we hoped. And even though those triggers and experiences are gone, we are still operating as if they are happening right now.

This perpetuates our “staying small” and unable to shine our inner lights, like rabbits do, to navigate us through the dark tunnel labyrinths of experience.

And in some cases, we devise ingenious ways of talking ourselves out of letting our energy out bigger to serve our ego fears and can even find spiritual bypassing ways of describing it and why it makes sense to do so.

Truth is, if you want to find a reason not to do something you can always find one.

And when it comes to our wholeness and embodying our potential, we have all the excuses in the world why not to do that.

Whether or not those excuses are valid is between you and yourself.

Astrid wants to remind you that it’s okay to recognize when camouflage and invisibility can serve us and be a magickal tool in our back pocket to pull out now and then, but “hiding” when rising would benefit you most, is not the healthiest choice to always fall back on.

It’s okay to learn as you go and make instant adjustments along the way. Chances are, you’ve already done years of work so truly, now is about the experiential classroom. This is about being both student and teacher and bringing integrity and humbleness to the process of being.

Now, more then ever your gifts, your light, your essence is needed in the world.

And while you think you may be alone in facing those frightful triggers, experiences, and the things that feel scary in the world, you are not.

More and more souls are finding that the way out of hiding is to actually step out. No one is going to force you out nor pull you out. Only you can make that choice, but it’s a very liberating choice that once made – even in small steps – suddenly helps make sense of an upside down world and brings authentic power to the forefront.

Astrid says, “The more you wear a mask, the less you will ever know yourself. It’s not just others you hide from in doing so, nor whom are robbed of knowing your beauty and experiencing your ripple across the world. You are the one who is hurt the most when your light is kept small.”

Astrid knows how I, too, have kept myself small in the past and straddled timidly between two worlds of fears and hopes.

“And what did that do for you?” she asks me.

“It kept me stuck,” I replied. “Torn and tormented between two worlds warring against each other, rather than teaming together and empowering myself into truly living, rather than merely surviving.”

That reminds me of a favorite line Julia Roberts says in Steel Magnolias, “I’d rather have 30 seconds of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.”

How about you?

If coming out of hiding gave you the most enriching and fulfilling experience you’ve ever known and was better than your wildest dreams, wouldn’t it be worth “going bigger” for, even if it wasn’t forever?

Not that it couldn’t or wouldn’t be forever, but you won’t know it until you try it.

Or is the known feeling of suffering and smallness, more comforting?

“Everyone has the ability to go bigger, no matter what their circumstances are. You are creative beings and therefore have unlimited ways to bring through more of your potential. Feel bigger! Thinking is only half the story, but your heart will guide you past the limits of your mind,” Astrid says.

It’s not easy, I know, and can be quite sticky with layers, but personally I decided that the possibility of that total enrichment far outweighed the illusion of safety in the darkness.

Astrid says, “That safety is an illusion that keeps you away from your truth….away from being who you really are and experiencing what you have available. That illusion is the fix to experiencing the true power within your heart.”

And she’s so right.

We think we stay safe by staying small and hidden, but by making that our “norm” we not only get to experience more of it, but are dying a slow death.

Choosing to go bigger and stop hiding happens for each person at different times in their life or soul journey and in different ways, by different triggers, and timings, so there isn’t just “one” way to get there.

Yet the one thing we all have in common is “potential.”

And the more each of us do our best to rise to that potential, the easier it becomes for others to do the same.

Rather than spend time trying to make others step into their potential, why not utilize our resources to “be” the potential?

Rabbit doesn’t wait for snake to see the “potential” when it threatens her kits rather than finding something else to eat that day. Rabbit rises to her “potential” and becomes the bigger rabbit she knows herself to be and chases off the snake.

Yep, that’s right. There are videos out there that catch mother rabbits fighting off poisonous, deadly snakes to save their babies. It’s incredible, but this is the truth of their wholeness they weave in and out of, as they carry it at their core always.

And I’ve seen this happen not only with people, but myself as well, where we’re put into dire situations and then rise to the occasion.

But wouldn’t it be wonderful to rise always, rather than only when threatened or in our darkest hour?

Those moments demonstrate that we have it in us, but we choose not to always shine the light.

Astrid carries this bigger energy with her always. You can see it and feel it, even if not demonstrated every second, but when she wants to, she does. She’s not afraid to let you know it’s simply who she is, nor is she worried how you might judge her. She knows the truth of who she is will reach the truth of each of us and when truth meets, that’s the most authentic and fulfilling experience, regardless of result. Yet, it also helps reflect and draw to her exactly what she needs and wants to see, while not missing out on what it feels to be alive.

I asked Astrid if she has any advice to offer to someone wanting not to hide anymore, but is too afraid.

She thinks a moment and replies in her own way, “There will never be a perfect moment to wait to do something and tomorrow is not always a promise. We can’t survive alone in the dark forever. Night turns into day and it is your nature to do the same. In and out you weave, but weave you must, or cease to be. Both the Sun and Moon know just when to shine on the Earth or how to allow others the same. Yet they DO and WILL shine in fullness and never cease to shine while others are. They dance in and out, sharing the stage of the grand show. You may not know how stepping forth and being bigger will be embraced, but embrace it for yourself and you will find your place on the horizon amidst the other stars. It’s there that we will meet, heart-to-heart.”

What I’ve learned, and Astrid describes so beautifully, is that the truth of who you are is not something you can hide from forever. It catches up to us, no matter how fast we run away. Just as the Sun’s light keeps shining, despite your only seeing it half the day, so does your light, despite blanketing it in vein.

Eventually, your essence will see its way through, so why not give it a boost out?

“That’s right! Being who you really are is what we need most in the world at this time and is the greatest service to humanity,” concludes Astrid.