“Taking up space” is an interesting concept.
As we journey through this world, we may hit a wall at some point. We may hit several walls as we walk through the world and there always seems to be someone that will encourage us to keep going, to stay true to ourselves, to remind us who we are. This person might tell us to keep the faith, they might remind us that we are good enough and if we admit our feelings of being lost, insecure or feelings that we want to shrink in some way, then we might be encouraged to take up space.
But how do we do that? How can one “take up space” when one feels so small? We cannot make this so-called space move for us, right? We cannot manipulate time, therefore we cannot manipulate space, don’t you think? So what gives?! Where’s the freaking handbook? Show me the manual for “how to take up space?” Do you need to stretch your hands and arms out to the sky? Do you need to spread your legs out as far as they will stretch?
Do you need to pose as superman? This might help for a moment. Although, your mind might still be babbling, “We need to get small. Be small! We are not superman. I don’t like this! Please let me shrink.”
So, what do you do?
“Take up space” is such a simple statement and it seems like such an easy thing. Although most days it feels like the hardest thing to do. It feels like a complex puzzle that you must solve and as an added challenge you must solve it as your mind, heart and body are screaming at you.
“Be small!” the mind says
“Yes. I feel so lame.” the heart says
“Everything hurts!” the body cries
Meanwhile your friends are saying “Just be yourself. Take up space.”
Those phrases roll around inside you like a sweet but annoying knock at your front door. This knock lasts for months until it turns to a pounding at your front door. This pounding goes on for years as you internally wrestle with yourself and do battle with the encouragement.
Then after a decade or more of exhausting wrestling it hits you…what if you LET yourself take up space?
Let yourself take up space.
Ah. Of course. No wonder there’s no handbook, no manual, no detailed instructions for “how to take up space”!
All one has to do is LET it happen. Let space be space and let you be you in that space. Nothing to figure out. Nothing to tweak, erase, manipulate, or replace.
As effortlessly as the wind blows through the trees we can let ourselves be in space. As easily as the rain falls from the clouds and ripples in a pond below we can take up space.