Own Your Glow: Trailblazing in Our Darkness to Ignite the Light

When I was little, growing up in Northern California, I loved to play outside barefoot. I loved to collect feathers and rocks, and to spin in circles and lie in the grass, gazing up at the cobalt sky peppered with cotton-ball clouds. Mother Nature recognized my potency, and I was fascinated with her rhythms. Blooming flowers stood tall in my presence, and oak trees told me secrets. I would chase butterflies and rainbows and jump-rope lightly so as not to disturb the earthworms. The ambient landscape was my playground, and it was expansive with possibility.

When I was little, Granny said I had a twinkle in my eye. I thought the “twinkle in my eye” meant there was an actual star in my eye looking back at another star up high, gazing in wonder and admiration at its own reflection. The moon followed my every move at dusk, and the sun rose for my benefit at dawn. I believed I was made of stardust.

When I grew older, I learned about nebulae, which often appear like the iris of one’s eye. They are interstellar nurseries for baby stars, planets, star systems, and galaxies. Their gigantic collections of space particles and gases spin furiously, resulting in creation vibration, giving shape to the expanding universe. Scientists say that about a teaspoon of the spinning gas and cosmic matter that made up the first stars in the galaxy lives within each of us today. So, I was right: We really are made of stardust after all…

That divine dance of cosmic energies swirling within each of us combines with our unique femininity to produce our creative edge, a force that awakens and amplifies the ability to draw unto ourselves what we most desire—to create the life we want, with every dream, thought, and intention. We are alchemists. We have the ability to take what life has handed us and transform it into something new, something greater than even we could imagine. That innate creative force within all women—cosmic-creation vibration, that potent instinctual energy that awakens within us, plus fierce femininity—is what I call glow power.

Welcome to the glow! This movement is about taking that cosmic dance inward, aligning with your internal galaxy, and being attuned to your own divine glow. You are a walking miracle, a divine piece of work! There was none before you, and there will never be another you once you’re gone. This is your time to touch everything in your midst with your divine light, to imprint the world with your unique brand of magic, and to recognize that divine light emanates from deep within us—from the darkness. We need to remember that darkness gives birth to all things manifest.

In the recesses of darkness lie our shadow aspects, things we want to disassociate from or may even be unconscious of, things we don’t want others to see or know about us. The dark underbelly of the moon. The shadow reflects some of the negative aspects of ourselves and our behaviors. Darkness is also a portal for growth…everywhere—all things grow in the dark. The shadow provides a profound opportunity for us to unearth our patterning and examine our relationship with our growing edge. This means we can heal wounds. In order to really shine in the world, it’s critical to dig deep and excavate your darkness. It’s not bad, it’s obscured. You’re not meant to tuck it further away, you need to own it. Open it up, see what’s inside, make it beautiful, and integrate it. Acknowledge that your shadow aspects can hold you back.

We want to bring to light and begin to release the behaviors that perpetuate these patterns of playing small, negative self-dialogue, putting our priorities on the back burner, and stewing in circumstances that are not working in our favor. What truths are you ready to see about yourself now?

We as women have been taught to fear our power, our darkness, our mysterious pull. To be ashamed of the very things that make us uniquely ourselves. We are afraid of the dark; we associate it with what’s bad. I remember learning in elementary-school science class that black is the absence of light. Along the visible spectrum, white reflects light and is the presence of all colors, but black absorbs light and is the absence of color. That struck me, because science was negating what my soul knew—that blackness is the light of the world. It’s in the darkness that we find immense power and grace. The dark, dank soil nourishes root systems and gives rise to plant life. In the darkness of the womb, new life is spun into being. The dark night sky allows us to dream at night. It is a whole and necessary part of the cosmic order; darkness is divine.

Own Your Glow is about trailblazing in our darkness to ignite the light around us and reclaiming every aspect of ourselves in spirit and in flesh. We must collectively plant seeds of confidence and conviction, and weed out the messages undermining our power, beauty, radiance, and resilience. I’m inviting you to celebrate the aspects of yourself that you may have turned away from long ago, the dark places you are afraid to go within yourself. Bring them into the light so you can become your most powerful self and lure anything you want into your path. I’m inviting you to your initiation, my sister.

There is an ethereal glow that is maintained with each of us when we are in constant reverence of the divine source of creative energy flowing through us. That is the glow I am talking about and what I want to illuminate in you. We all have glow power. That light inside of you is relentless. Everything it touches in its path is graced. Now is the time to explore key lifestyle practices to ignite that inner light and keep it sparked, to make us irresistible in the boardroom, in the bedroom, and in the mirror. If you’re at a crossroads in your life right now—if you’re ready to leave your job, ready to find your life partner, or ready to make that baby—and if you are holding parts of yourself back out of fear, judgment, or self-doubt, then this journey is for you.

Think of Own Your Glow as your complete support system for confidently stepping into luminous living and into your grace. It’s a recipe for uncovering and focusing on the life changes you seek, embracing your unique feminine edge, exploring your strengths, swan-diving into your passions, and indulging in radical self-care to create a glow-rious life. There is a sensual, textured, prescriptive, grown-ass-woman-ness that laces this book. It’s a calling to all women to awaken the divine and tap into our power source. Own Your Glow is an elixir, a formula for standing in your truth and using your feminine edge to design a life worthy of YOU.

GLOW, to me, is more than something you possess or carry within you; it is an actual vibration that you emanate. This movement is about finding your own creative edge, your sexy sauce, and unabashedly crowning yourself, blossoming into leadership, nurturing your own nebula, and moving from the darkness into your explosive glow power, which will light up the universe. If we can connect to that creative center—listen to it, feed it, nurture it—we can grow in ourselves something much bigger than our own journeys and offer it up to the world.

When you transform, everything around you will, too.

Creating anything takes patience, courage, faith, and an ideal environment for growth. When you step into your fullest self, the best iteration of yourself, you will boost your creative process, your confidence, and your glow power as you birth the life of your dreams. What is it that makes you want to get up every day? What inspires you? What makes you tick? What makes you lift your head with pride? When do you feel crowned inside?

Here’s to the twinkle in your eye, my dear Glow Gazer. Let’s spark the light and grow your glow to its full potential.

Join me in my new book: OWN YOUR GLOW: A SOULFUL GUIDE TO LUMINOUS LIVING AND CROWNING THE QUEEN WITHIN