How to Unshrink Yourself

There are lots of ways we learn to make ourselves smaller.

Sometimes it is obvious. We stay quiet because we know speaking up will cause an argument. We don’t ask for what we need because we are worried about being demanding. We change how we dress, behave or communicate depending on who is in the room. We learn which parts of ourselves receive approval and which ones seem to make other people uncomfortable.

But often, shrinking is much less obvious than that. It can happen so gradually, and become so embedded in the way we relate to other people, that we stop recognising it as something we are doing at all.

You might automatically say that you don’t mind where you eat, even though you do have a preference. You might rehearse a message several times before sending it because you are worried about sounding difficult. You might minimise something that has hurt you because somebody else has had a worse experience. Perhaps you find yourself carefully managing other people’s feelings before you have even had the opportunity to work out how you feel.

Eventually, making yourself smaller can become less of something you consciously do and more of a way of moving through the world.

And when that happens, “just be yourself” isn’t particularly helpful advice.

Because what if you’re no longer entirely sure which bits are you?

We don’t learn to shrink ourselves for no reason

I think it’s important that conversations about empowerment acknowledge this. There is a tendency to talk about boundaries, confidence and authenticity as though people simply need to decide to become more assertive. If only we could say no more often, stop caring what people think and finally learn to love ourselves, everything would be fine.

Human beings are considerably more complicated than that.

The ways we relate to other people develop in context. We learn through experience what helps us to feel connected, accepted and safe. If expressing anger was met with rejection, we might learn to suppress it. If having needs resulted in criticism, perhaps we learned to need less — or at least to appear as though we did. If achievement brought approval, being impressive may have become particularly important. If being agreeable kept relationships stable, accommodating other people might have become second nature.

Then there are the wider messages we absorb about the kind of person we are supposed to be. Gender, family, culture, religion, relationships, education, social media and countless other influences give us ideas about what is desirable, acceptable and “normal”. Some of those messages are explicit. Many aren’t.

Nobody necessarily has to sit you down and tell you that you’re too much. Sometimes you learn it from the reaction you receive when you take up space.

That is why I don’t think it is particularly useful to look back at the ways we have adapted and judge ourselves for them. Shrinking can serve a purpose. It can protect relationships, reduce conflict and help us belong. At some point, making yourself smaller might genuinely have felt like the safest option available to you.

The difficulty comes when an old adaptation becomes a rule you continue to live by long after the circumstances have changed.

When adapting becomes disappearing

Most of us adapt ourselves to some degree. That’s part of being in relationships with other human beings. We compromise, consider other people’s feelings and recognise that we cannot simply do whatever we want without considering the impact.

Unshrinking isn’t about abandoning any of that.

The distinction I find more useful is whether adaptation still leaves room for you.

Compromise requires two people to have a position in the first place. If one person’s preferences, needs and boundaries repeatedly disappear before the negotiation even begins, that isn’t really compromise.

This can happen in very ordinary ways. Perhaps somebody asks where you’d like to go for dinner and you automatically respond, “Anywhere, I’m easy.” Maybe a partner does something that bothers you and you immediately start constructing reasons why it isn’t a big deal. You might want reassurance but stop yourself asking because you don’t want to be needy. You might disagree with somebody but soften your opinion so extensively that you barely express it at all.

None of those things necessarily means there is a problem in isolation. Context matters.

But if you repeatedly prioritise being acceptable over being known, eventually you may become extremely good at maintaining relationships in which very little of you is actually present.

That can create a strange kind of loneliness. You can be loved, wanted and surrounded by people while quietly wondering whether they would still choose you if you stopped editing yourself.

“What do I want?” can become a surprisingly difficult question

One consequence of spending a long time orientating yourself around other people’s expectations is that you can become exceptionally good at knowing what everybody else wants.

You know what will make your partner happy. You know what your family expects. You know what makes you look successful. You know what you’re supposed to want at your age. You know what a “good” relationship looks like. You know what somebody in your position should probably do next.

Then somebody asks what you want and your mind goes blank.

This is something I think we underestimate. Knowing what we want is not necessarily an innate ability that remains perfectly accessible regardless of our experiences. It is something we need space to notice, explore and sometimes practise.

That is particularly true when our preferences might disappoint somebody else.

If you’ve learned that maintaining connection requires accommodation, having a preference can feel unexpectedly threatening. It isn’t simply, “I’d rather do this.” Somewhere underneath it can feel more like, “If I want something different from you, what happens to us?”

So we default to I don’t mind.

And sometimes we genuinely don’t mind. Other times, “I don’t mind” becomes shorthand for “it feels safer not to find out what I want.”

The rules we carry without realising it

One of my favourite words to become curious about in therapy is should.

I should be more independent.

I shouldn’t need this much reassurance.

I should be further ahead by now.

I should be able to cope with this.

I should want more.

I should want less.

My relationship should look like this.

My body should respond like that.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having expectations for ourselves, but “should” can reveal the standards against which we’re quietly measuring ourselves. Sometimes those standards genuinely reflect our values. Sometimes they have been inherited from somewhere else and have never been questioned.

When you notice a “should”, it can be useful to ask where it came from.

Who taught you that?

Whose approval does following that rule earn?

What do you imagine would happen if you stopped following it?

And perhaps most importantly: do you actually agree with it?

You don’t have to reject every social expectation simply because it is an expectation. The point isn’t to become contrary for the sake of it. Plenty of conventional choices may genuinely make you happy.

The difference is being able to recognise when you are choosing something rather than simply following the script you’ve been given.

Shrinking can follow us into intimacy

Of course, all of this can also appear in our intimate lives.

There are an extraordinary number of expectations surrounding desire, pleasure, bodies and relationships. We receive messages about how often we should want intimacy, what we should enjoy, how we should respond, what makes somebody desirable, what relationships should look like and which desires are acceptable.

When those expectations meet a tendency to shrink ourselves, it can become particularly difficult to distinguish between what we actually want and what we believe we are supposed to want.

You might find yourself concentrating more on whether somebody else is enjoying an experience than whether you are. You might struggle to communicate preferences because you are worried about offending a partner. You might agree to intimacy when you would rather not because saying no feels uncomfortable. Perhaps there are things you’re curious about but the fear of being judged feels stronger than the curiosity.

Or you might simply find yourself asking: Am I normal?

It’s one of the reasons I think curiosity can be so much more useful than judgement.

Instead of immediately asking whether your wants, needs or responses are correct, you can begin with a different question:

Does this actually work for me?

That doesn’t mean every desire needs to be acted upon, that relationships don’t require negotiation or that another person’s boundaries cease to matter. Quite the opposite. Meaningful consent and communication require everyone involved to have enough room to know and express where they actually stand.

You cannot genuinely negotiate two people’s wants if one person has already erased theirs.

So, how do you actually start unshrinking?

Probably not by completely reinventing yourself overnight.

When we’ve spent years behaving in a particular way, demanding an immediate transformation can become yet another standard we fail to meet. Suddenly we are not only judging ourselves for being too much; we’re judging ourselves for not being empowered enough either.

I think a gentler starting point is simply noticing.

Notice when “I don’t mind” comes out automatically. Before changing your answer, ask yourself whether you really don’t mind.

Notice when you’re about to apologise. Have you actually done something that requires an apology, or are you apologising for having a need, taking somebody’s time or occupying space?

Notice when you agree to something. If there were absolutely no consequences for saying no, would your answer still be yes?

Notice when you describe yourself as too emotional, too sensitive, too needy, too intense, too difficult or too much. Too much compared with what? And according to whom?

You don’t necessarily have to do anything differently at first. Awareness itself begins to create a gap between the automatic response and the eventual choice.

And in that gap, you get an opportunity to hear yourself.

Start practising preferences before boundaries

We tend to associate taking up space with the big things: confronting somebody, ending a relationship, establishing a significant boundary or finally saying something we’ve kept quiet for years.

Sometimes those things are necessary. But if you’ve spent a lifetime accommodating other people, starting there can feel enormous.

It can be useful to practise preference in much smaller, lower-stakes ways.

Choose the restaurant sometimes. Admit that you don’t actually like something. Wear the thing you like even if it isn’t what somebody else would choose for you. Say which film you’d prefer to watch. Ask yourself whether you want company or time alone. Notice whether you want affection and, if you do, what kind.

The content of the decision isn’t particularly important.

What you’re practising is the experience of having a preference, expressing it and discovering that the world does not necessarily collapse because somebody else wanted something different.

You can disagree with somebody and remain connected to them.

That sounds obvious written on a page. Emotionally, it can be a much harder lesson.

Other people’s disappointment is not always yours to fix

This is perhaps one of the most uncomfortable parts of unshrinking.

When you change the way you relate to people, they experience that change too.

If you’re usually the person who says yes, somebody may be disappointed when you start saying no. If you’ve always prioritised another person’s needs, they may notice when yours begin taking up more room. If you’re accustomed to smoothing over conflict, allowing disagreement to exist can feel uncomfortable for everyone involved.

It can be tempting to interpret another person’s discomfort as evidence that you’ve done something wrong.

Sometimes, of course, we do get things wrong. Taking up space doesn’t exempt us from considering our impact on other people, apologising when appropriate or being willing to compromise.

But somebody being disappointed with your decision doesn’t automatically make the decision unfair.

Someone disagreeing with your boundary doesn’t automatically invalidate it.

And somebody preferring the version of you who required less from them doesn’t necessarily mean you need to become that version again.

Healthy relationships need enough space for both people to exist, even when that creates friction.

Unshrinking isn’t about becoming louder

I think this is important because “taking up space” can conjure an image of becoming incredibly confident, outspoken and unapologetic.

That isn’t necessarily the goal.

You can be quiet and take up space.

You can be introverted and take up space.

You can be uncertain and still take up space.

You can ask for reassurance and take up space. You can change your mind. You can need time to think. You can decide you don’t want to explain something. You can set a boundary gently. You can admit that you don’t know what you want yet.

Unshrinking is not about becoming the loudest person in the room.

It’s about no longer believing you have to disappear from it.

And it probably won’t feel empowering every time you do it. Sometimes expressing a need will leave you feeling guilty. Sometimes you’ll set a boundary and spend the next three hours wondering whether you were unreasonable. Sometimes you’ll realise after the fact that you’ve agreed to something you didn’t really want.

That doesn’t mean you’re failing.

If shrinking has been practised over years, unshrinking is probably going to require practice too.

Becoming curious about the person underneath

Perhaps this is ultimately what unshrinking is about.

Not transforming yourself into somebody new, but becoming curious about what is already there underneath all the editing.

What do you like?

What do you need?

What do you want?

What don’t you want?

What matters to you?

Which parts of yourself have you labelled unacceptable because somebody else once struggled with them?

Which rules still fit you, and which ones are you following simply because you’ve never realised you could question them?

You may not immediately know the answers. That’s okay.

There can be something unsettling about recognising that parts of the person you thought you were were actually adaptations. But there can also be enormous freedom in realising that an adaptation isn’t an identity. Something you learned to do is not necessarily something you have to keep doing forever.

You don’t need to become fearless before you take up space. You don’t need perfect self-esteem, perfect boundaries or absolute certainty about who you are.

You can start much smaller than that.

Notice where you’ve learned to disappear.

Pause before automatically making yourself easier for somebody else.

Ask yourself what you actually think.

Let yourself have a preference.

Say the thing occasionally.

Allow somebody not to like it.

And gradually, perhaps, the question changes from “How do I make myself acceptable?” to something much more interesting:

“Who am I when I stop making myself smaller?”

Maybe that’s where unshrinking begins.

Let’s unlearn together.