How to Take Up Space When You Were Taught to Shrink
What if the biggest threat to your ability to take up space confidently isn’t other people’s judgment – but your own need to be liked?
We often stop our own voices before anyone else has the chance to.
You’re probably doing this right now:
- Having thoughts and immediately adding “but maybe I’m wrong.”
- Starting sentences with “Sorry, but…”
- Nodding along whilst your internal voice screams the opposite.
- Not knowing your own preferences because you’ve spent so long adapting to others.
Women who confidently take up space have a completely different identity – they see themselves as women whose voices matter.
This is your un-shrinking guide – to reclaim your voice, step into your power, and finally take up space as the woman you were always meant to be.
This isn’t about changing your behaviour. It’s about changing who you believe you are at the deepest level.
Start uncovering these beliefs in my FREE Becoming Her Toolkit.
Step 1: Understand Your Shrinking Story
Before we fix this, you need to understand how you got here. Because I guarantee you weren’t born apologizing for taking up space – this shit was taught to you.
Stop thinking “I’m naturally quiet and considerate” and start believing “I learned to be small to survive my environment.”
Think back.
Who taught you that your voice was “too much”?
Maybe it was someone who said
- “don’t show off” when you got excited about an achievement.
Or told you to
- “tone it down” when you were passionate about something.
Perhaps you were praised for being
- “such a good girl” when you stayed quiet and didn’t make a fuss.
You absorbed these messages like a sponge:
- ‘Be nice,’
- ‘Make sure others like you,’
- ‘Don’t rock the boat.’
Each comment chipped away at your natural confidence until you moulded yourself into a smaller, quieter version.
Your brain formed a belief that it’s safer to stay quiet than risk others not liking you or getting mad at you. So you developed an inner critic and internal censor that edits everything before it leaves your mouth. You learned to protect yourself by silencing yourself.
According to UCLA research (Eisenberger, Lieberman & Williams, 2003), social rejection activates the same brain region as physical pain. The study found that being excluded triggers increased activity in a specific region in the brain – a region also associated with the emotional experience of physical pain. This helps explain why speaking up or facing potential rejection can feel genuinely threatening to your nervous system.
Your action step: Write down the earliest memory you have of being told you were “too much” in some way. Who said it? What were you doing? How did it make you feel? Then list three messages you received growing up about how “good girls” should behave. Answer this final question about all your answers: “Is this true?” The answer is NO!
This programming runs deep because it’s stored in your subconscious mind – the part that controls 95% of your daily behaviours. When you reprogram the subconscious beliefs to take up space, you’ll naturally start expressing yourself more – no shrinking, hiding, or apologizing.
How much longer will you let these false beliefs rob you of missed promotions and relationships where you feel invisible?
Grab my Free Becoming Her Toolkit to help you find the gaps and beliefs keeping you from your next level self.
Step 2: Recognise Your Shrinking Patterns
Here’s the truth nobody talks about:
You’ve become so bloody good at shrinking that you don’t even notice you’re doing it anymore.
It’s like breathing – completely automatic and absolutely essential for survival, or so your nervous system thinks.
You’re probably doing this right now without realising, feeding that imposter syndrome feeling…
- Lowering your voice the second someone looks slightly annoyed.
- Adding question marks to perfectly valid statements because “I think we should do X?” sounds less threatening than “I think we should do X.”
Stop thinking “I need to monitor how everyone else sees me” and start believing “What I have to say is valid and it’s safe for me to express myself.”
Your action step: Keep a shrinking journal for one week. Every time you catch yourself minimizing, apologizing unnecessarily, or swallowing your words, write it down. No judgment, just awareness. You’ll be shocked at how often it happens.
Here’s why most women struggle to change these patterns: they’re trying to shift behaviours without addressing the underlying identity programming. Your subconscious mind will always pull you back to who it thinks you are. That’s why traditional confidence tips don’t work – they’re fighting against your core identity.
Your nervous system learned that speaking up = social rejection.
Having a different viewpoint or opinion to others = social rejection.
Usually from childhood experiences where expressing yourself led to criticism, dismissal, or conflict. Your brain is literally trying to keep you safe by keeping you small.
You’re trading your authentic self for the illusion of safety, but this is actually isolating you from the life you really want.
The shrinking patterns you’ve just identified are all symptoms of an outdated identity program. In ‘Be Her Now, The Identity Rebrand™ For The Woman Done Hiding And Ready To Rise In Her Power’, you’ll discover how to rewrite these programs and step into the identity of a woman who takes up space unapologetically.
Step 3: Build Your Courage to Be Disliked
This is where the real work begins.
You’re not just changing behaviors – you’re becoming a completely different version of yourself. A woman who sees herself as someone whose presence is valuable, whose opinions matter, and who belongs in every room she enters.
Stop thinking “I need everyone to like me to be safe” and start believing “I am a woman whose voice matters more than getting approval.”
This isn’t about being aggressive or rude; it’s about embodying your right to speak up.
You’re building your self-advocacy muscle through small daily acts of authenticity, then working up to bigger moments.
- Share an unpopular opinion in a low-stakes conversation.
- Disagree with someone without immediately backtracking.
- Share a preference instead of saying “I don’t mind” when you do mind.
Each time you choose authenticity over approval, you’re strengthening that muscle.
And here’s where it gets revolutionary: you need to get comfortable with disapproval – different opinions can coexist without one being wrong.
Not everyone will like the real you, and that’s okay.
Your action step: Choose one area of your life this week where you’ll practice being authentically yourself, even if it risks disapproval. Notice the urge to shrink, apologize, or say nothing, and resist it. Track how it feels to prioritize your own approval over others’.
Like any muscle, it gets stronger with practice.
You’re rewiring decades of programming that made you believe that being liked equals being safe. Your nervous system will protest loudly when you stop performing for approval. But on the other side of that discomfort is the woman you’ve always been – just waiting to be unleashed.
The courage to be disliked requires a complete identity shift from ‘people-pleaser who stays safe’ to ‘woman whose voice matters.’ This isn’t about willpower – it’s about becoming her at the cellular level through subconscious reprogramming.
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about taking up space – the people who matter will love you more for it.
You might be thinking…
But I’ve tried affirmations and mindset work before, and nothing stuck.
Affirmations and surface-level mindset work, work on the conscious mind, but your patterns live in the subconscious mind.
It’s like trying to change a computer’s operating system by typing commands into a word document!!
You need to access the subconscious programming directly through specific identity rebrand techniques.
This isn’t about becoming loud – it’s about remembering your voice, and that your voice matters.
You weren’t born to shrink; you were conditioned to.
The women who confidently express themselves aren’t fundamentally different from you – they’ve just done the identity work to remember who they really are. This isn’t about fixing broken behaviour – it’s about reclaiming your birthright to take up space in your own life.
Read More
For deeper understanding of how identity reprogramming works, check out:
The Identity Rebrand™ Method: How Powerful Women Stop Shrinking and Start Leading
Ready to make this real?
1. Be Her Now – The complete method to reprogram your subconscious, close the identity gap, and become Her permanently. 5-step roadmap + guided subconscious reprogramming audio + embodiment toolkit. £27. Get instant access.
2. Free Becoming Her: Vision Board & Identity Toolkit – Finally become her (not just visualize her). The complete method: vision board template + identity gap discovery + daily practices to embody her energy.
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