Learning to Take Up Space
Most people who come to me for assertiveness work are not pushovers or people pleasers. They are thoughtful, empathic, and deeply attuned to the people around them. They know how to read a room and keep the peace. And they are exhausted from it.
Some of them know exactly what they would like to say if they could. Others do not have the words yet. Either way, the work is the same. Building the language to say what needs to be said and the permission to say it.
Somewhere along the way, they learned that having needs was selfish. That setting a boundary meant they were being difficult. That saying “no” would cost them the relationship. So, instead, they said yes. Again, and again, and yet again. Until they woke up one day and realized they had built an entire life around other people’s needs and left almost no room for their own.
If that sounds familiar, here is what this assertiveness work looks like.
We start by understanding the pattern. Not just the behaviors, but the motivations and beliefs underneath. Where did you learn that your needs don’t matter? What does it cost you to keep operating that way? How much resentment have you been carrying?
Then we build. Most people hear “assertiveness” and think it means becoming aggressive or confrontational. It does not. Assertiveness is the ability to say what you think, ask for what you need, and hold a boundary, all while treating the other person, and yourself, with respect. If that sounds simple but foreign, you are not alone. Most people have never been taught how to do this.
We work through it gradually. We start with low-stakes situations and build toward the ones that feel impossible. We then rehearse and prepare; we talk through what might happen, what you are afraid will happen, and what actually happens when you try. The gap between those things is where the real learning begins.
To be candid, assertiveness work is uncomfortable, scary even. The first time you hold a boundary with someone who is used to you folding, your whole body will tell you to back down. That discomfort is not a sign that you are doing something wrong. It’s what it feels like when you choose yourself for the first time.
But on the other side of that discomfort is something most of my clients describe as freedom. The freedom to stop performing, to stop managing everyone else’s reactions, and to finally take up the space you have been relinquishing your entire life.
Assertiveness is not selfish. It is one of the bravest things you can do. It is the decision to stop abandoning yourself in order to make other people feel comfortable. And it is the beginning of every honest relationship you will ever have, starting with the one you have with yourself.
