Stop Making Yourself Smaller So Others Can Feel Bigger
Blame it on my Enneagram (9), or my introversion, or my fear: I’ve always been prone to shrinking.
“You disagree with the article I shared on Facebook? I’m so sorry I offended you, Aunt Sarah. I’ll delete it.”
“You’d rather go to the mall than the zoo next weekend? That’s fine. I don’t really care to see the new orangutan exhibit, anyway.”
“You’re tired of hearing about my promotion at work? I’m sorry for being selfish. Please, tell me about your day instead.”
“You want the last piece of pizza? Go ahead! Take it! I’m not that hungry.”
Have any of these statements tumbled from your lips in a desperate attempt to avoid conflict? Do you also pretend your feelings and desires aren’t valid because they make someone else uncomfortable? Have you allowed someone else to bask in the limelight you deserve?
Was your knee-jerk response to that last question “I don’t deserve the limelight”?
Well, STOP IT.
Like a child requesting a signature for a permission slip, people like you and I tend to seek assurance before we take any major life steps. Consider this article your formal authorization to leap into the spotlight you’ve been toeing around.
Because every time you say “it’s okay” when it’s really not, you train yourself to think it is. Little by little, you chip away at your own value until your self-esteem is in crumbs. With every unwarranted “I’m sorry,” your true self slips further and further into the shadows while others step arms-wide into the light. And when you give the okay for your own mind to beat you up like that, you teach others that they can, too.
Soon enough, you’re refusing to raise your hand in class because you’re afraid your poetry analysis will be criticized. You’re agreeing when a boyfriend tells you English majors are useless, so you might as well surrender your dreams. You’re deciding to take a school trip to one country over another because it’s where your friends want to go; you’re refusing to talk about an internship because it feels like “bragging.” You’re stuffing your opinions and hopes and dreams into a little compression bag and hiding them behind the nubby sweaters in your closet, because that way, no one else has to know they exist.
I mean, why have your own personality when you can let someone else mold one for you?
That paragraph of examples was specific because it was a rundown of personal regrets. Among others, these are the instances that stab me in the middle of the night; they’re the haunting moments that have repercussions, even today. They’re personal choices that convinced me to roll out the red carpet for others before retreating into the crowd. They’re the results of squashed confidence that prevented me from standing up for myself, pursuing dreams, earning recognition, and living.
The thing is, no one else is going to drag that bag of aspirations out of the darkness, because no one else knows they exist. Only you have the voice that can shout, “Hey! I matter, too!” No one else is going to do it for you — why would they? They’ve settled into the comfortable routine of pushing you down so they can stand up, because you let them. You’ve taught everyone around you that you don’t matter as much as they do.
I was wrong. You’re wrong, too.
You are a creation unlike any other on Earth. You were wonderfully and beautifully knitted to be a masterpiece, woven with breathtaking shades of color that cannot be replicated. You only have a certain amount of years in this life to put every inch of your gorgeous self on display. Would you pluck the Mona Lisa off the wall and shove it in the cobwebbed corner of your closet? Obviously not, because it’s priceless artwork and it deserves to be appreciated.
I’m a work of art, too. So are you.
So stand up.
Drag that compression bag out of the darkness.
Unzip it, and spill the contents. Apologize to them, love them, and let them free.
Stop living silently.
Stop saying “it’s okay” when it’s not.
Stop making yourself smaller so others can feel bigger.
