Taking Up Space

What does it mean to take up space and why is it so hard for so many women to do it?
Well, in a nutshell taking up space can mean where ever a person is at, they physically or psychologically occupy space. Having such a strong sense of self-importance, a person commands attention and authority. 
To understand why women struggle with taking up space, you really have to look at human history. However, this post isn’t about analyzing the patriarchal structures, systems and institutions built over the last several thousand years that have oppressed women, but rather it is to see how those pervasive hierarchical societal structures, despite many advances toward gender equality, continue to live inside the minds and spirits of today’s women, to the point that they still feel safest diminishing themselves, even shrinking to the point of disappearing for some. Others, can’t help but take up space, its simply in their nature to do so, but spend their lives apologizing, or belittling themselves by beating others to the punch and labeling themselves as “pushy”, “bossy”, “aggressive or assertive” and “strong-willed”. This behavior is just the other side of the coin or disappearing. Both are coping mechanisms.  Both are meant to make a woman feel safe in a world that doesn’t want her taking up any space.  A world that largely still preys on our core fears of survival.
For the most part, however, the majority of girls are conditioned to take up as little space as possible.  This happens through family and culture. First, our psychological needs don’t get fully met in childhood, especially the need to feel worthy and like we matter.  Taking up healthy space requires a healthy sense of Self, but most of us don’t experience such reinforcement from our parents. Our parents, of course, do the best that they can at the level of consciousness they are at at the time they’re raising us. But, at the end of the day, we all enter adulthood with a fractured sense of Self, and deep wounds, traumas and unprocessed pain that reinforce the beliefs that we formed as children, that we are unworthy and don’t matter. We are also perpetually seeking the answer to a hugely important question no one was able to give us growing up:   Who Am I? 
Without knowing who we are or why we’re here, we rely on our coping and defense mechanisms to get us by and keep us safe.  And for women, this by and large means shrinking ourselves to fit into a world that prefers us to play it small at all times and in every setting, even when giving birth.  Which is actually a time when a woman should be taking up ALL of the space in the room. Every square inch of it.
This is what Echkart Tolle calls “the collective female pain body” and we each carry a part of this with us. Thousands of years of oppression, persecution and forced submission have left psychic wounds on our entire gender. Only to be reinforced in our childhoods by family and culture. I don’t know one woman that isn’t affected. Not one. 
 The only way out of the cycle, to let go of the limiting beliefs and heal the childhood and generational trauma is to witness and transcend it.  I have personally been doing my fair share of this these past 3 years, in addition to working with many of my female clients on this very issue, so I know it’s possible. Its difficult and painful, and at times feels almost too scary to face, but when compassionately held while you confront it, anything, and I mean ANYTHING, is overcome-able.  And let me tell you, incredibly liberating and downright blissful.
Xoxo,
Carrie

​Because feeling worthy to take up space is SUCH an important part of a woman’s awakening path, and as a birth professional, something a woman should unapologetically be able to do as she ushers new life into this world, please enjoy this FREE guided meditation on “Take Up Space”.  

IMPORTANT: 
For all guided meditations and hypnosis audio tracks, never listen while driving or operating machinery.  Only listen when you are in a fully supported position in a comfortable chair, or the bed, or the floor, so that you you can rest and relax for the entirety of the track.  Please also only listen when you are sure you will not be disturbed for the entirety of the track.
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