It’s Okay to Take Up Space

When was the last time you felt like you were too much? Too emotional, too loud, too needy, too complicated? When was the last time you made yourself smaller to fit where you thought you belonged?

At Televero Health, we meet people every day who’ve been telling themselves to take up less space. People who apologize for their feelings, who swallow their words, who shrink themselves to avoid being inconvenient. People who’ve gotten so good at making themselves small that they’ve lost touch with how much room they actually need to breathe.

If you’ve been folding yourself into smaller and smaller spaces, this is for you.

How We Learn to Make Ourselves Small

We don’t start out thinking we should be invisible. We learn it slowly, through a hundred small lessons:

When our big feelings were met with “Stop overreacting.”

When we were praised for being “low maintenance” or “easy.”

When we saw how people responded to others who took up space.

When we were told directly or indirectly that our needs were too much.

Over time, these experiences teach us to edit ourselves. To quiet our voices. To hide our emotions. To make our needs small enough that they don’t bother anyone.

And it works, in a way. When we make ourselves small, we often do avoid certain kinds of conflict or rejection. But at what cost?

The Price of Staying Small

Making yourself small might keep you safe in some ways, but it creates other kinds of pain:

Disconnection from your own needs and feelings.

Relationships where you’re never fully seen or known.

Resentment that builds over time as your needs go unmet.

Physical tension from holding yourself in.

Anxiety about accidentally taking up too much space.

A nagging sense that you’re living a partial life.

The strategies that once protected you start to confine you. The smallness that felt safe becomes its own kind of pain.

You Were Born to Take Up Space

Here’s the thing: you were never meant to be small. You were born with a voice, with feelings, with needs. You were born to take up space in this world.

Your emotions — all of them — are information, not inconveniences.

Your needs are valid, not burdens.

Your thoughts and perspectives deserve to be expressed.

Your physical body deserves the space it occupies.

At Televero Health, we see how transformative it is when people start reclaiming their right to exist fully. When they stop apologizing for their feelings. When they begin expressing needs they’ve denied for years. When they allow themselves to be seen, heard, and known.

Small Steps Toward Being Fully Present

Reclaiming your space doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a gradual process of remembering that you have a right to be here, fully and without apology.

It might look like:

Expressing a feeling without minimizing it. (“I’m really disappointed” instead of “It’s not a big deal.”)

Stating a need directly. (“I need some alone time” instead of hinting or hoping someone notices.)

Taking a deep breath and letting your body relax into its natural posture.

Speaking at your natural volume instead of making your voice small.

Setting a boundary without over-explaining or apologizing.

Each time you do this, you’re telling yourself and the world that you deserve to be here, as you are. That your existence doesn’t require justification.

The World Needs Your Full Self

Making yourself small doesn’t serve anyone — not you, not the people who care about you, not the world that needs your unique voice and perspective.

When you shrink yourself, you withhold the gifts that only you can bring. You silence the insights that might help someone else feel less alone. You hide parts of yourself that deserve to be seen and celebrated.

Taking up space isn’t selfish. It’s necessary — not just for your well-being, but for the authenticity of every relationship in your life. Real connection can only happen when we show up as we truly are, not as we think others want us to be.

So take a deep breath. Let your shoulders drop. Feel the space your body naturally wants to occupy. And remember: you don’t need permission to exist fully. You were born with that right.

Ready to reclaim your space in the world? Start here.