What’s keeping you small?
You’re designed to expand and light up the world.
A strobe light in the universe’s most exclusive Earth club.
But somewhere along the way, you forgot your bigness, your true nature.
You forgot you’ve been expanding, like the universe, since your parents’ big bang.
You shriveled and shrank, grapes in the sun, fingers in the bath, under the weight of inherited stories and circumstances.
You might have kept yourself small as a survival or coping mechanism.
Or decided it’s safer here, in this contracted space.
Sophisticated mechanisms you developed a long time ago.
Small might have kept you safe
So, let's take a moment to thank little you (I'll wait).
The one who was capable and clever for their age, the one who helped you survive, paving the way for who you are today.
I’m sure it - the story, the mechanism - served you at some point.
But it no longer does.
What worked for you then, what got you here, will not take you THERE.
The way to shift into your innate bigness?
Recognize where you are keeping yourself small. Become aware of what’s holding you back.
Invite in wild curiosity and compassion.
It’s not finding what’s wrong. It’s feeling into what no longer fits.
Then designing what does.
You know it fits when it feels like being unlocked, released, in flight.
We're all born with wings, but we either:
Get them clipped (or clip them ourselves)
Lose sight of the big blue sky
Forget how to fly (no space to practice)
I can relate.
When I was a kid, I decided survival meant pushing forward, fighting, defying the odds, making whatever space I was operating in work.
I bet my bottom dollar on tomorrow, and that kept me going in a chaotic family life, through multiple moves, my mother’s addictions, and uncertainty.
I moved forward.
I got used to being able to survive, and sometimes thrive, in any environment.
As an adult, I forgot I could choose the space.
I don’t have to make small, tight, or difficult spaces work. I have a choice.
What helped me survive now keeps me small.
It stops me from enjoying the present moment, from feeling a deep sense of ease right here, right now.
It’s something I’m working on (and I'm not doing this work alone).
Learning how to inhabit a new space takes practice.
I move into ease and 'being' and return to 'doing', to forward movement.
The more time I spend in ease, the more I train my nervous system it’s safe here.
Until slowly, that inner feeling, that space, will end up being my primary residence.
I use the forward, driving energy instead of it using me.
Success is more than cash money (although that’s a wonderful by-product)
It is being at ease and trusting myself, life, and having real freedom.
It’s the feeling of looking at the mountains from the porch of my adobe house, a cup of tea in my hand, my published book next to me.
And feeling so damn present and such ease, joy, and trust in this moment. Right here.
That’s success. I can feel the dream of being on the porch in the South West right now in my apartment in Copenhagen.
It lives both here and there.
Because it doesn’t come from out there, but in here 🫵🏽
Hard truth?
You're keeping yourself small.
So only you can expand into your limitless nature, that big starry sky brightness.
That’s where self-awareness comes in.
Understanding where you’re keeping yourself small and reclaiming your big power releases you into your own expansive wild.
It’s easy to blame circumstance or other people.
When you take back your power, you become an agent of your own change, your growth.
You are the grand designer of your experience.
So why play small when you are so beautifully BIG?
FIELDWORK
✦ COACHING MOMENT ✦
What's keeping you small?
What stops you from building, flying, expressing?
What fears have a hold on you?
What outdated mechanisms are you ready to release?
What comes up when you ask yourself these questions?
Write the fear or mechanism you are ready to release on a piece of paper.
Burn it 🔥
✦ DOSE OF CREATIVITY ✦
Who are you when you’re playing BIG?
Set a timer to 2 minutes
Brainstorm + list everything you could do to play big
Remember: Quantity > Quality
Pick the juiciest actions and start doing them
Find a song that exemplifies this - dance to it or sing it daily 🤘🏽
✦ NOTE TO SELF ✦
What got you here won’t get you there.
