To compare a person that shines their inner beauty to a person that shines under a spotlight would be to compare a disco ball to the sun.
A person that shines in the light of the attention of others, lives vicariously through their attention and is not free nor independent. It's their coat of varnish that reflects the light of others and without a spotlight they lose their shine.
This desire to sparkle is the result of a lack of (self)love that we try to compensate with a lot of attention, which creates a situation where the source of our strength lies outside of ourselves.
When we shine in this way, we do nothing more than echo the attention and light of other people and when this source of attention dries up or ceases to exist, we are left alone in the dark. Like a falling star, which is in fact a meteorite that plunges towards its own death, the "star" that wants to dazzle will ignite and cause its own combustion, leading to the extinction of its light.
Superficial shine blinds others, it drags people out of their own orbit. By pursuing this kind of sparkle, we enter a vicious cycle: we create our own dependence of other people's attention and the constant flow of attention prevents us from looking for our own source of strength; at the same time the people that are bedazzled by our shine will try to resemble us and copy our behaviour, straying further and further away from their own being. Like the cloud of stardust that follows the falling star, they will plunge into darkness and toward the extinction of their own inner light in the wake of the star.
A person that truly shines, sources this light on the inside. This kind of person shines because their exterior existence is in complete coherence with their internal world. Their actions, creations and words reflect their whole being. They don't have to DO anything in particular, they ARE just themselves, naturally and authentically... and the light we perceive is their sacred fire.
A person automatically becomes a source of light when they are fully connected to their own source, which liberates their inner light. The light one perceives in this case is entirely fuelled by their inner strength, it's the essence of this person that radiates from every part of their being.
People that shine their inner light are not trying to impress or prove anything, they find the meaning of life inside of themselves and they don't need other people's acknowledgment to feel like they exist. Because of this, they don't cultivate admiration or fame, they rather motivate other people to reconnect to their inner truth as well. Because of who they are, their light sparks authenticity wherever they go and they motivate others to find and reignite their inner light as well.
