It makes total sense we stay small.

For centuries we needed to conform otherwise we’d be exiled. If we don’t stay small it forces others to face the ways they shrink themselves. So by becoming big we risked offending them; staying small became a survival mechanism.

We stay small because it feels safe.

#still

Note: The operative word in “we stay small because it feels safe” is “feels”. In today’s day and age, the fear of exile feels hella real and may feel very unsafe, but it doesn’t (typically) actually kill us. *insert second essai explaining all the nuances, grey area, and fine print to this statement here*

Now, on some (conscious or not) level we think if we’re weak, not intimidating, less than, quiet, needy even, nice and unassuming, then we HAVE to be loved. But if we become big, worthy, whole, “too much”, aka actually enough, then we could be left.

We fear a loss of love, being rejected, and being alone, so we shrink ourselves and settle to protect others from feeling our power and feeling uncomfortable.

In so many ways this is perpetuated with *cough bullshit cough* stories; “it’s lonely at the top”, to be successful you have to be cutthroat, rich people aren’t nice, Ebenezer Scrooge, etc etc.

And we — people who identify as big-hearted, caring, “good”, values-driven, and while we’re at it, extremely attractive people — don’t want to be bad. We care about people over profit, meaning over milestones, presence over production, to name a few.

But the problem lies in thinking they’re mutually exclusive, as though it’s one or the other. We don’t have the proof of both/and… YET.

Hint: We’re gonna make the proof.

Staying small keeps us codependent to a patriarchal, white supremacist, and capitalist world.

And it’s a catch-22; this hierarchal and either/or world is perpetuated if we don’t claim our bigness, but the reason we don’t claim our bigness is because of the world we live in.

The way the world keeps us small is much simpler though… if we don’t conform, if we don’t stay small and instead become big, then it threatens us with the idea that we’ll be unloved.

So we have stayed small, kept others comfortable, and have been less than we are in order to “be loved”.

LIES. LIES, I SAY.

Let’s be honest — the only thing staying small guarantees is that we won’t ever be loved.

I don’t want humans (you, me, my children) to think we have to stay small in order to be loved.

1. It’s bullshit. Smallness may try to ensure being liked/approved, but it sure as heck doesn’t equate to love. Love requires freedom, independence, truth, wholeness, power.

2. It limits us all from any potential growth and evolution.

I believe this world, more than ever, needs you to be big. And you want, and deserve, big love.

Both mean you need to let yourself be big.

No more holding yourself back and playing it safe.

Feel your power.

Expand the edges of the space you take up.

Push the boundary on what’s expected and allowed of you.

Choose to be true to you instead of true to the world.

Model freedom and courage.

Let them be uncomfortable. And then invite them to rise with you.

We’re here to make the proof that one can be big AND loved.

Now, I have a question for you. Well, two…

What does being big mean to you?

What’s your being big?

Email me at deanne@deannevincent.com and let me know! Or if you’d rather tell me anonymously, answer here! 

I simply, and always, want to hear what you think.

Deanne