Take Up Your Space

Don’t be afraid to take up your space.  

This was a new concept to me that I first truly heard and understood while taking part in an Alexander Technique class at a summer opera program. And while the opera program itself left me mentally scarred for years (emotional abuse can run high in situations like this and sadly, it did in my case), this was the most important lesson that I learned in this otherwise demeaning program.  

I’ve always been tall and I’ve always been curvy. From a young age, I felt pressure to be smaller. It is honestly still an issue for me that I’m not the ‘perfectly cute petite daughter’ that I wrongly assumed my parents always dreamed of. It’s a struggle that I know has come from societal and peer pressures and I am constantly working against it.  

I like to joke that I’m built for hard labor. With my heritage it makes sense. I come from a heartly line of laborers and baby makers. But that’s just not me.  

I physically shrunk down. I tried to disappear. I didn’t want to be noticed. I only wore black (can we just agree that that’s a trick that doesn’t actually work!?). I slouched. I did everything that I could to make myself smaller.  

Until that class. Until I truly felt what it was to take up the space that I deserve, unapologetically. As I started working out, I unconsciously built postural muscles that I didn’t even know I was missing – and I started standing taller. I actually gave myself another inch. I went from being 5’8 to 5’9.  

I started physically taking up the space that I needed to in order to be comfortable. Not in an obnoxious ‘man spreading’ kind of way, but just in an unapologetic, true to myself, kind of way. And as I physically did this, I began to take up the emotional space that I needed as well.  

I’m not sure that it’s something that a lot of us think about. But we are allowed to say no to people. We are allowed to cry. We are allowed to be angry. We are allowed to show emotions that are often deemed as ugly. To ME, that is a way of taking up your space. But we can also take up our emotional space by laughing. Joking. Beaming with happiness. I encountered this unapologetic joy once when a friend took me with him to see a classical music concert. He laughed, he sighed, he felt the music to his very core. And while I don’t remember anything about the concert itself, I remember him unabashedly taking up his space. And I was forever changed.  

For me, this concept goes into the well tossed around quote that ‘it’s okay not to be okay’. This. This is taking up emotional space. And it’s okay. And it’s beautiful. It’s ugly. And it might hurt. But if you allow yourself to feel, to see, to search, to ask questions, to BE – you will start to take up your space in a glorious way that will help you to slowly stand taller. Be more confident. Stand up for yourself more, should you need to. To truly feel fulfilled from other people and situations.  

So I say it again. Don’t be afraid to take up your space. Trust me. It’s worth it.