What Happens When You Stop Shrinking (Even A Bit)

I didn’t do anything dramatic.

Didn’t change my hair.

Didn’t walk in with a mission.

Didn’t even mean to be noticed.

I just wore the kimono.

Well — it’s not even a full kimono. It’s a cardigan-shaped one.

Half soft rebellion, half “this’ll do.”

I wasn’t trying to make a point.

I just wanted to feel like myself. Comfortable. Clear. Unhidden.

But something happened.

Not in the fabric — in the field.

People started looking at me differently.

Some commented on the kimono. Others said nothing but blinked, slowly.

One person kept glancing at me until the veil of professionalism came back down like a safety net.

You don’t just feel different.

The room feels you differently.

And it’s not because of the outfit.

It’s because you’re no longer dressing around your fear of being seen.

I used to do that all the time.

Shrink a little.

Soften the truth.

Make myself easier to read, easier to manage.

It’s subtle. You don’t always know you’re doing it.

You just find yourself dressing for someone else’s comfort.

Toning down your words so they won’t be misread.

Swallowing the real response because it might be “too much.”

But today? I didn’t do that.

I wore what I wanted.

I sat in my own rhythm.

I felt hot in the office — not anxious-hot, but alive-hot.

And I let myself feel it.

No shutdown. No override. No apologising for existing in my body.

It’s such a small shift.

But when you’ve been trained to disappear —

when your trauma taught you how to be palatable —

when professionalism rewards the parts of you that are most performative —

not shrinking feels radical.

Even in a cardigan.

I didn’t raise my voice.

I didn’t make a speech.

I didn’t demand to be seen.

I just showed up without folding myself up first.

And the room noticed.

Not because I was loud.

But because I was whole.

That’s the thing about becoming safe inside yourself:

you don’t need to broadcast it.

You just sit there, calm, coherent, real —

and the field changes.

It doesn’t feel like confidence.

It feels like space.

Like breath.

Like a body that’s finally allowed to take up its full shape.

I’m not performing regulation anymore.

I am regulated.

I’m not explaining my worth.

I’m embodying it.

And I’m not dressing for approval.

I’m dressing for resonance.

It was just a Tuesday.

And it was everything.

Because I used to shrink by default.

Now I don’t.

Even a bit.

And it’s changing everything.