🌍 The Sacred Right to Take Up Space

You were not created to be small.
You were not born to be a whisper in someone else’s legacy.
You are not furniture in someone else’s story —
You are the story.
You are the center.

They will call it arrogance.
They will call it attitude.
They will call it inappropriate, ungrateful, angry, difficult.

But let us be clear — what they fear is your freedom.

✊🏽 Womanist Truth: Our Bodies, Our Minds, Our Voices Deserve to Breathe Fully

From the time we are little girls, Black women are taught to shrink:

• Shrink our tone.

• Shrink our needs.

• Shrink our beauty to avoid envy.

• Shrink our brilliance to avoid backlash.

• Shrink our pain to make others comfortable.

But enough.
Enough of swallowing truth.
Enough of making ourselves digestible to systems that still spit us out.

We are not here to decorate the world.
We are here to move it.

🔥 You Deserve to Take Up Space:

• In rooms you were told you weren’t “qualified” for.

• In movements that try to erase your labor.

• In relationships that want your love but not your limits.

• In healing circles that only speak from one lens.

• In your body. In your culture. In your power.

🔥 Affirmations: I Take Up Space Because I Belong Everywhere I Am

Say these aloud. Daily. Fiercely. Without apology.

1. I am not “too much.” I am exactly who I was born to be.

2. My body is not a burden. It is a map of survival and divinity.

3. I am allowed to take up space — in my voice, in my truth, in my healing.

4. I do not shrink for systems that would rather digest me than protect me.

5. My joy is revolutionary. My boundaries are holy.

6. I do not owe anyone softness, silence, or smallness to be worthy of life.

7. My existence is not for debate — it is a declaration.

8. I belong wherever my spirit dares to rise.

9. The room doesn’t make me valid. I bring the room to life.

10. I am the answer to a prayer my ancestors whispered. I will not shrink.

✊🏽 Quotes

“I am not afraid to be seen. I will not hide my Blackness, my womanhood, or my brilliance for anyone’s comfort.”
— Toni Morrison

“I came as one, but I stand as ten thousand.”
— Maya Angelou

“Your silence will not protect you.”
— Audre Lorde

“I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified… Because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves.”
— Audre Lorde

“Even in silence, I am not small. I am sacred.”
— Tonya GJ Prince

“I stand. I speak. I stay. I take up space. I will not apologize for my presence.”
— Nikki Giovanni

🌿 Say This With Your Chest:

I will not apologize for my size, my sorrow, or my sound.
I will not shave down my brilliance to make it more palatable.
I was never “too much.”
I was more than they were ready for.

✨ Benediction for the Journey: On Taking Up Space

May your hips swing wider with pride.
May your words stretch out and settle where truth lives.
May your presence linger long after you’ve left the room.
May your very breath declare:
I am not here to fit in.
I am here to fill in what was missing before I arrived.