Learning to Receive Without Shrinking
March 5,2025 Today, something subtle but meaningful unfolded at work.
During a team meeting, I was publicly recognized again acknowledged by both my boss and my peers for my leadership and presence. It felt… good. Like something I’ve earned. But almost immediately, I noticed a ripple inside me. A part of me wanted to downplay it. To redirect the attention elsewhere. To share the light so no one felt left out.
One teammate even said, “She’s such a great leader,” and my instinct was to point the spotlight back toward my boss someone who hadn’t even asked for it but who I felt deserved to be included. It was like I couldn’t fully let myself receive the appreciation without adjusting the energy in the room.
It wasn’t coming from shame or insecurity exactly it was something older. A residual imprint that says: “If you shine too brightly, it might make others uncomfortable.”
But I’m learning that true leadership isn’t about making everyone else comfortable. It’s about standing in my truth while remaining open-hearted. Leadership includes receiving with grace, not just giving with generosity.
And honestly? The recognition I’m receiving feels aligned. It feels deserved. But this pattern, this impulse to dim even just a little reminds me that embodiment is an ongoing refinement. A daily practice of not shrinking, not adjusting, not deflecting.
⧫ Speaking in Multidimensional Currents
Later at lunch, I was reflecting on all of this with my boyfriend, and we touched on another pattern I’m becoming aware of, how I speak. He shared that sometimes he gets overwhelmed when I talk, not because I’m too much, but because my thoughts don’t follow a linear trail. He thinks in bullet points. I speak in webs, spirals, energetic bursts.
It’s like I open five tabs at once, dance through them in layers, and then eventually land the point, but not in the sequence most people are used to.
I laughed because I know this about myself. I speak the way I process: expansively, intuitively, multidimensionally. And while he loves me and isn’t asking me to change, I also recognize that I want to feel more organized in my own expression. Not to suppress it, but to refine it so that my energy doesn’t feel scattered or overwhelming to me or to others.
It’s not about making my expression smaller. It’s about letting all my open tabs close into a single embodied window, one that others can enter with ease, without needing to decode the entire internet of my mind.
This isn’t about changing who I am. It’s about creating a new internal architecture where my energy moves with more coherence. Where all the open tabs don’t weigh me down, but weave into something graceful and clear.
⧫ The Gift of Presence at Work
And amidst all of this, another moment grounded me.
A coworker received difficult news about her mother’s health, and I was able to support her not through advice or platitudes, but by simply being there, mirroring her essence, and letting messages flow through me in the moment. It felt so natural. So right. So much of my leadership isn’t about what I do it’s how I show up. How I hold space. How I let people feel seen, softened, and remembered.
Recognition doesn’t always come through applause. Sometimes, it’s felt in the quiet nods, the tears held in safety, the way someone’s breath deepens when they’re around you. I’m learning to value that, too.
⧫ Integration
Today reminded me: every single day is offering me the opportunity to refine.
Not just what I do but how I be.
How I receive.
How I speak.
How I soften.
How I anchor into myself without contraction.
Leadership isn’t about proving anything anymore. It’s not about perfection or performance. It’s about coherence. It’s about presence. It’s about knowing how to hold both recognition and humility in the same breath and letting both live inside me without distortion.
And as I keep practicing this… I feel myself becoming more streamlined. Not smaller. Not tighter. Just more refined.
Not just in what I create.
But in how I carry it all.
