Pocketful of Mojo
Pocketful of Mojo
Scooch Over: The Art of Taking Up Space Without Apology
Have you ever caught yourself shrinking to keep the peace? Bite your tongue when your gut is screaming otherwise? Maybe you've been told to tone down your shine or smooth out your edges. That stops now.
This episode is your permission slip to blow the walls out of that tiny box you were never meant to fit in. I'm sharing my own turning point – standing in my kitchen, paralyzed with anxiety over cleaning a tea infuser, when my higher self essentially said, "Oh hell no, we did not come here for this." That moment sparked my transformation from invisible people-pleaser to authentically taking up space.
Let's get real: people pleasing isn't about kindness – it's about control. It's a survival strategy where we manage how others perceive us to create safety. Neurologically, your brain interprets potential rejection as threat, triggering cortisol and adrenaline. But peace at the expense of your values isn't peace – it's performance. Taking up space means existing fully without apology. It's saying no without a PowerPoint presentation justifying your decision. It's asking for what you need without guilt. It's sharing your ideas even when your voice shakes.
Through neuroplasticity, you can literally rewire your response to discomfort. Each empowered choice creates a new neural pathway, turning once-overgrown trails of self-doubt into superhighways of confidence. Start small: voice preferences instead of defaulting to "whatever's fine," eliminate apology language, practice mirror affirmations, and embrace the qualities others have called "too much." Remember this mantra: "I am not too much. I'm not a burden. I take up space like I was born to."
Share this episode with someone still living small. Subscribe, leave a review, and join me next week to learn about stopping the negotiation of our non-negotiables. Keep your head high, your boundaries higher, and your pockets full of mojo.
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Hey, hey, and welcome back to Pocketful of Mojo, and this is your friendly reminder that shrinking for other people's comfort was never in your soul's contract. I'm your host, steph, your Mojo Maven, and today's episode is a straight-up pep talk, and I'm going to be digging into the signals that you may be playing small and what to do about it, with a side of science and a whole lot of mojo. This episode is all me, unmuted, just as source intended. So if you've ever caught yourself shrinking or biting your tongue in the name of keeping the peace, if your default mode is quiet compliance, even when your gut is screaming otherwise, if you've been taught to stop shining so bright or been asked to smooth out your edges, or your mantra's been it's fine even when it's not, then maybe this episode is your permission slip to blow the walls out of that tiny box you were never meant to fit in, because today we're talking about taking up space like you pay rent on it on an episode that I'm calling Scooch Over. I'm Expanding, let's go. This is the part where we get tuned in, tapped in and turned on. Welcome, my friend. It's me, steph, your Mojo Maven, recovering people pleaser, president of doing whatever I want, and I'm really happy that you're here, because once upon a time, before Mojo Mastery, there had to be this crystallizing moment, the turning point that gave birth to all this Mojo, and for me, that moment was when I was in my kitchen this would be about five years ago and I stood there for what was certainly far too long, staring at a tea infuser and talking myself around in circles on how to clean this tea infuser without causing any drama or conflict.
Speaker 1:That was the point that my life had come to, and it was in that moment and it was like I left my body and I saw myself there, terrified to do the wrong thing. And was the wrong thing to clean it wrong? Was the wrong thing to avoid the conflict and override my inherent self-worth? And, oh my God, circles, I tell you. And it was like, as I separated from my own body and looked down, it was my higher self watching all this go down and said, oh hell, no, we did not come here for this. We did not come all this way and have all the incredible gifts that we have, just to be invisible and subservient to someone else while forgetting our own greatness. No, ma'am, and that was when this caterpillar started building a cocoon, and at the time I was living in France.
Speaker 1:So the conditions were ripe for me to disappear just a little bit at a time Language barriers, culture shock, endless opportunities to people, please under the guise of feeling seen or fitting in, or even to be acknowledged, and I was starving for it. But during the course of the immigration I became this amalgamation of everything that proved to be palatable. Who was I? Whatever you wanted me to be, I could match your energy, as long as it kept the peace and kept me just on the other side of invisible. And that was fine and it kind of worked. But as it turns out, we are not meant to stay in that state. It's fine temporarily, while you get your bearings and figure out what's going on, but without the shift back into intention and alignment with my values.
Speaker 1:Who I was? Became invisible and so quiet that no one could hear me. It was the Webster's Dictionary definition of people pleasing and it was a survival strategy. Let me say that again People pleasing is a survival strategy. We don't come out of the womb afraid to take up space. It's something that we learned. We learned that silence was safer and maybe in your home. Being easy was what got you love, and maybe at school, going unnoticed kept you out of trouble, or maybe in your job or your culture or your relationships. Well, they rewarded you for being less, less loud, less needy, less you, and it was adaptive until it became a cage. Because here's the truth most people don't want to say out loud People pleasing isn't about kindness, it's about control, and not in like a malicious way, but in a let me manage how others feel about me so I can feel safe kind of way, and not really a hot take here.
Speaker 1:But chaos is fucking scary. So wanting to control what you can control is a super normal reaction. And I don't know if you've been out in the world lately, but things feel a scooch chaotic recently, am I right? And if your behavior is frequently peace-seeking, then I totally get it and like, okay, so nerd alert. So, neurologically speaking, this is again that amygdala doing its job. When you perceive conflict or rejection, your brain is going to go into threat mode. Cue the cortisol and the adrenaline, because the body says fix it, smooth. It say yes, hey, look over there. If you can't be invisible, just get smaller, shrink, and supposedly that's the recipe to bring you peace, but peace at the expense of who you are and your own values, thoughts and ideas. That's not peace, that's just performance. That's the act as if, and putting that mask on and off all the time is exhausting and, honestly, it sells you short because you don't get to be you.
Speaker 1:So what does it mean to take up space? Well, let's dig into that. Taking up space isn't about being loud or dominating the room. The world doesn't need every room to be filled with no offense theater kids grabbing for every opportunity for an audience okay, or people who can't read a room and barrel through with their agenda without considering any context Like this, isn't that? This is just about existing fully, unapologetically and with intention, and it just looks like saying no without a follow-up PowerPoint presentation that outlines your entire philosophy on why you can't do the thing. It means asking for what you need without any guilt, and this is something that I want to get really good at.
Speaker 1:And taking up space just means sharing your ideas, even if your voice shakes, and this often comes up in professional context, but it's often a blind spot sometimes in our personal relationships, because, you know, not all friendships can handle the deep stuff. But when you have that bond that trust, you can really say what you feel and know that the true you always is going to have a soft place to land, no matter what. And sometimes the space is there. We just leave it unoccupied because maybe we're a little unpracticed. So it can be small stuff and big stuff, you know, it can mean wearing the red lipstick or leaving the toxic group chat or declaring your boundaries out loud, even if it's to yourself in the car. You know like. Just make sure there's a period at the end.
Speaker 1:Practice taking up space and say I belong here and my means matter and my presence counts, and say it until that little ick of discomfort goes away. It's spiritual, it's rebellious and it's deeply healing. Bring it into your practice. But we don't just magically show up where we want to go. We got to pivot right. So you don't go from ghost mode to Beyonce overnight.
Speaker 1:In my experience and observation, you shift in moments. So here's what you want to look for Look for that moment that you bite your tongue in a meeting. Look for that pause before you say, sure, whatever works for you, there's magic in that pause, there's an opinion in that pause. You want to look for that tiny, sacred second where your body knows that you're shrinking. That's your pivot point. Your job in that moment is not to perform confidence, it's to pause, breathe and choose differently, even a little, just like hit the pause button and ask yourself like what do I actually want here? What would I say if I wasn't afraid of being judged or too much? Because first comes awareness, always engaging with your own mind, paying attention, and you'll notice those silent urges to speak or that gut punch when you get spoken over or interrupted. Again. This first part, this awareness. You can think of it like a dress rehearsal for the next time that it happens. Like what would you say? How would you respond? Because in your imagination it's a safe place where there's no mistakes and no consequences. You're just exploring the possibilities consciously.
Speaker 1:And once again the neuroscience gives us something really beautiful here. It's called neuroplasty, which means that you can literally rewire your response to discomfort. Think about a forest and you're trailblazing it. That's how your thoughts are created. So the first time you walk through the forest and it's super dense and there's woods, that's a new thought. And it's hard and you're pushing past branches and stepping over roots and you're not even sure you're going the right way. But the more you walk that path over and over again, choosing that new thought, that new reaction, that new belief, the clearer it becomes, the more packed down things are, the smoother the track and eventually that once overgrown trail becomes a well-worn path, and then it becomes a dirt road, and then it becomes a neural superhighway. And the old paths, the ones of self-doubt or fear, or people pleasing, they just grow over, they go unused, they fade. You are literally re-landscaping your mind. That's kind of a major thread throughout Mojo. They fade. You are literally re-landscaping your mind. That's kind of a major thread throughout Mojo. And we do this one conscious, intentional, loving step at a time.
Speaker 1:Now I have to add the disclaimer that the forest is for metaphor purposes only. Stay out of the fucking woods. The woods are creepy, bad things happen there, and if you do go, never, ever go, at night. Anyway, stay out of the forest, keep the one in your mind, but the real one, scary, okay. So, yeah, remember, each time you make an empowered choice, you are reinforcing a new pattern and over time, taking up space becomes your new autopilot. That mojo is your baseline and you can get there from right where you are, one step at a time. So how do you start? Jeez, you don't need to shout to take up space. Here's how to start reclaiming your real estate.
Speaker 1:Number one you got gotta voice your preferences. I want you to tell me what you want, what you really really want. Start with small things. What do you actually want to eat? No more whatever's good for me. That's frustrating. Make a decision, have some preferences. Check in with yourself. What do you feel like? What music do you like? Let yourself choose. Have some opinions, have some preferences and practice sharing them. No more it's all good, whatever's fine. Start small, have fun with it and then start observing other people voice their opinions and their preferences and then try it on. It feels good.
Speaker 1:Number two you got to unlearn the apology language. It's time to cut the fluff. You got to tune in and really listen to yourself and really pay attention to when you use the words sorry, sorry, just and whatever or fine. That's another one, okay, so there's four. Absolutely. Here are two common examples of apology language, and people pleasers are often known to use this language as it's in the handbook. They'll say sorry, can I just say something real quick? And what you're doing here is you're already minimizing your voice and your presence. Before you've even spoken, before you've said the thing that you want to say, you can swap it for something empowering, like I'd like to add something here, or here's my take on this. Number two, and you've heard this before and I cringe every time. I hope this isn't a stupid question, but okay. So what you're doing there is you're pre-apologizing for your curiosity or your uncertainty and that just undermines your intelligence. My friend, I've always said we are our own PR. So what you've done there is you've put out a press release that you ask stupid questions and you hope nobody notices. So swap it for something empowering. Here's a question I've been thinking about. Or let me ask this another way, and all of that will be much easier after you practice.
Speaker 1:Number three, and that is the famous mirror talk. And you know what, if you do it, nobody's going to know. Nobody's going to know, nobody's going to know. Do it, look your, look your fine self in the mirror and say I take up space like I pay rent on it and I belong here. Say it daily, say it at church, say it in the club, say it in the shopping mall bathroom. Look at yourself in the eye and say I take up space like I pay rent on it, I belong here, and let your nervous system get used to that truth. And then there's option B. If that's not your jam, you could. For all my fellow Ted Lasso lovers out there, you know what I'm talking about? That thing that Rebecca does in the mirror when she starts real small and then she makes herself real big and she brings her arms up and she makes her eyes wide and she opens her mouth and sticks her tongue out. And if you know, you know, and if you don't stop sleeping on Ted Lasso, it's exactly what the world needs more of right now. So get on it.
Speaker 1:Rant over Number four. Write a too much list. Think about all the times that you've been called too much. Maybe you're too loud or too sensitive or too ambitious. Write them all down, get an inventory and that is your roadmap. Be all of it, not out of spite, but because what these people have actually been saying, if you take the judginess out of it, is that this is who you are when you're you. Unapologetically Be that.
Speaker 1:Now I want to tell you about a client of mine. We'll call her Jess. So Jess had a gift for making people feel comfortable, and while she loved that quality about herself, she wanted in on it. She wanted to feel seen herself and felt like there was nobody really around who made her feel that way. And she came to me burnt out and bitter and confused because she was doing everything right. She got all the gold stars, she was agreeable, she was helpful, she was low maintenance and invisible and exhausted because trust and belief, people who always try and do the right thing get really fucking tired of doing the right thing in the wrong environment. And resentment is a dick, and I'm basically paraphrasing what Jess said when she was going through her mojo work and all this stuff started bubbling up. So I asked her what was the turning point. She said her patience wore thin when she started prioritizing herself. She wanted more for herself. When she started treating herself better, she said she stopped saying yes to projects that she didn't want. She said she spoke up in a team meeting and felt like a superhero for like three days and she said her voice shook the first few times she was presenting, but then it didn't. And then now she's like she's leading and she got this promotion and she's resting and she's got like these fierce boundaries that I wish I had, and she's really rising. And what happened there was that Jess didn't change who she was. She stopped editing who she was, she stopped showing up as someone she wasn't.
Speaker 1:That's what taking up space looks like. That's what taking up space looks like. Now, let's seal this with a mantra I'm not too much, I'm not a burden. I take up space like I was born to Say it again Let it land, let it ring. I am not too much, I'm not a burden. I take up space like I was born to. So with this hit home, my friend, I want you to share it with someone who's still living small. Maybe they need your nudge, maybe they need to feel seen, they need to know that there's someone else who knows what it's like to have more to give and you never know who's light you'll help switch back on.
Speaker 1:And hey, if you loved this episode, do me faves. Follow the show, subscribe, leave a five-star review. You know it means the world and remember your presence is not a problem. Your voice is not noise. Take up space like you pay rent on it Too much. Nah, we're just getting started. So until next time, keep your head high, your boundaries higher and your pockets full of mojo. That's it for me. I'll catch you next week when we learn about how to stop negotiating our non-negotiables. It's going to be good stuff, so we'll see you next time. Ciao for now. Love you, bye you.
