Keeping the lights shining

It's the beginning of Hanukkah and Christmas is coming soon. Today, we hosted a really lovely party for NLP practitioners who have trained with us. The party ended just as it was getting dark outside. The darker it got, the brighter the lights on the Christmas tree seemed.

Sometimes clichés work that way. You know it's a cliché, and yet it is also tangible, a reality that catches your eye and your attention.

The lights on the Christmas tree look brighter in the dark. The shining eyes around you shine brighter when times are tense or scary. The flashlight that shows you just one step gets more of your attention than the fluorescent lighting in your office.

Lights shine when it is dark. People shine when we need them.

If we want to see them shine, we must allow ourselves to notice that it's dark out there. And we must notice with more vividness that the people with whom we are really connecting are already shining.

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