Own Your Space: How I Learned to Stop Making Myself Small

My entire life, I’ve identified as being a “big girl”.

Yes, big. Not just tall, but specifically, big.

In my book How Mommy Got Her Groove Back™ I share a few stories about this came to be.

To sum it up, I had several interactions in which people made comments that made me feel like my height (I’m nearly 6 feet tall) made me intimidating to other people.

And in truth, when you couple my height with my big hair, big mouth, and big personality, it’s true: I’m a bit much.

But if I’m being honest—and when am I not, really—I always felt uncomfortable with my height. I didn’t like towering over the boys in my class when I was in junior high and I hated that I always felt so large and in charge, even as I got older.

I did my best to laugh about it, even going so far as to call my shoe size Sasquatch—as in, “Excuse me, Mrs. Shoe Salesperon, does this style come in Sasquatch size?”—but it was always a bit of a coping mechanism because I really hated standing out physically like I did.

In this week’s video, I share the story of how I came to realize just how much I accommodating for my height by shrinking—in a coaching session, I was made aware of all the ways that I was making myself appear smaller.

No one had ever called me out on it before and it made a lasting impression on me.

You can hear the full details of the story in the video below.

Since sharing the live video, several people have shared their own stories of having difficulty owning their space and in most cases, it wasn't because they, too, were tall.

One of my friends had exactly the oppososite situation—she wants to be taken seriously for her skills and the value she brings to her job but because of smaller stature, she was often treated like a little girl.Another of my clients shared that she had always been painfully shy her entire life. She always felt like she needed to learn how to be more outgoing and that her shyness was somehow holding her back.From my Amazon-woman feelings to my fun-sized friend and my wallflower client, each of our situations is true.I'm tall. My friend is short. My client is shy.

The facts are not the problem.

It's the lie we've come to believe about what the facts might say about us that is the problem.

Just because I’m tall doesn’t automatically make me intimidating.

Just because my friend is short doesn’t mean she’s young and inexperienced.

Just because my client is shy doesn’t mean she’s not likely to be successful in her network marketing business.

These are lies.

We’ve come to believe them over time due to things other people told us or maybe even things we told ourselves but the truth remains—they are lies.

So today, I encourage you to think about the thing in your life that you try to minimize, hide, or dilute.

Is that thing really the problem or somewhere along the line did you start to believe it means something specific about you?

I hope this video made you think the way Clark (watch the video to learn more about this guy) challenged me.

I’m here to listen—join me over in The Groove Seekers Community on Facebook. This is where we share stories like this and help each other carry on.

I hope this story reminds you that you are allowed to take up space. Your specific space. 

Own it, sister. No one else can quite like you.