When Playing Small Costs Everything
A Rebellious Woman Rediscovering Her Voice
“You can no longer afford to play small; it is costing you everything.”
Brittni Kirkpatrick
Where do I even begin on this subject? Playing small. Whew. I've played small longer than I care to admit. This is probably the most vulnerable piece I've written in a minute. It's long, but I believe it's worth the read for those who resonate.
I've spent so much of my life making sure the people around me felt seen, heard, and supported that I forgot to do the same for myself. I allowed the loudest voices to dominate, while I stayed reserved, hidden, and out of the way. I became the ultimate supporter—championing everyone else's art, reinventions, and celebrations while keeping my own tucked away.
As a self-proclaimed introvert, I convinced myself that being quiet was my default setting. I didn't need the attention. I knew how to process life in isolation. I'd occasionally peek out to take up space, then quickly retreat into my cave for weeks and months at a time. "Another time" became my constant refrain for expressing myself, a time that never seemed to arrive.
I became an expert at nodding, smiling, and encouraging others to walk in their light, pursue their dreams, and embrace authenticity—all while doing the exact opposite for myself. I was more comfortable being the supportive friend, partner, and family member, listening intently while secretly knowing I could never fully show up without being interrupted or overlooked.
As a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman, I spent most of my life avoiding being perceived. Fear of misunderstanding became my protective armor. Battling the ADHD symptom of rejection dysphoria, I got comfortable with doing whatever needed to be done to avoid being rejected or criticized. I got comfortable constricting and shrinking myself as an attempt to control how I was being perceived. Before even entering a room, I'd meticulously map out potential misunderstandings, preemptively molding myself to fit the occasion.
My interactions became a carefully curated performance. With those who felt safe, I'd reveal a measured portion of myself. For everyone else—which was most people—I'd provide just enough to get by, carefully censoring the rest of my true self.
By the age of 8, I’d learned by living with an abusive stepfather that it was best to pay close attention to people and become hypervigilant of their moods. I’d grown used to his quick changing moods, angry outbursts, and being forced to listen to his almost daily aimless rants. I learned it wasn’t safe to be around certain people, so I stayed quiet and agreeable to keep myself from harm. I learned with emotionally immature and unavailable parents that hugs were to be desired but not received. Support and care were lacking and scarce. Kids were to be seen but rarely interacted with. ‘I love you’ and ‘I believe in you’, or ‘Let me read what you wrote’, were phrases I’d never hear. As the eldest child in both my mom’s house, I was to play support system roles, forced to mature and fall victim to the role of parentified child. The fantasy novels, fiction books, and journals tucked next to my bed had become my sources of refuge. I didn’t have the type of parents I could share my hopes and dreams with. They were either undermined or ignored, so I kept them to myself. The imaginative, vibrant, and creative spirit in me learned to pull back the boldest parts of itself to survive and get along. So, I chose comfort and the mirage of safety and acceptance over truly expressing any part of who I was. It was uncomfortable at first, the constricting and shrinking, but I got used to it.
My childhood of flying under the radar, playing the dutiful daughter, quickly transformed into rebellious teen years where I was determined to break free and let my voice be heard. Let's just say, my already-strict mother was not here for it—at all. I missed out on most of the typical high school fun, instead stealing moments of rebellion by sneaking around until our constant conflicts led me to move in with my dad for my final two high school years.
College freedom hit me like a tidal wave. I majored in taking shots and promptly dropped out. My 20s became a blur of survival mode—focused solely on building a home and life for my son. I played small in every sense of the word. I published a book I was proud of but barely promoted it beyond my existing small circle. I played small in relationships, dating men I knew couldn't love me properly. I played small in my career, staying in jobs I could excel in but that never truly challenged me.
Early 30s brought a relationship that mirrored my past traumas. My partner critiqued and picked at my creative spirit, reminiscent of my stepfather's emotional manipulation. I found myself tiptoeing around his ever-changing emotions, my mental and emotional health hanging by a thread. Writing and creating became distant memories. Once again, I was in survival mode—this time, in my own home.
Instead of putting him in his place (that would come later), I did what I knew best: I shrank. I stopped sharing. I stopped producing. Deep down, a young girl still lived inside me—always searching, always waiting for the same level of support I'd so freely given to others. I was desperate for someone to lift me up the way I'd consistently propped up those I loved, helping them see their own potential.
The same themes kept cycling through my life on repeat: survival mode, shrinking, constricting, holding back. People-pleasing. Self-sacrificing. Denying and betraying myself—constantly holding out my hands to relinquish every ounce of my power to those who benefited most from my lack of self-belief and absence of personal standards.
I was living life exactly as I had for decades—that small girl always waiting. Waiting for guidance. Waiting for permission. Waiting for approval. With this came an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame. I felt like I should be so much further along in life. I was completely devoid of understanding, compassion, or grace for myself. I'd become my own harshest critic—I didn't even need the stories others told me about myself anymore. I was doing an exceptional job of judging and misunderstanding myself, repeating that narrative every single day.
I had become a victim—empty, angry, and stuck.
I had things to say but wasn't saying them. I was so consumed with controlling how I was perceived and understood that I'd suffocated myself, my voice, and any potential progression toward my goals. I ignored my gifts. I ignored myself.
When awareness finally crept in about who and what I had become, sadness and grief washed over me. And when those emotions ran their course? Rage took over.
How could I have allowed myself to become so small in my own life?
It wouldn’t be until I left that relationship and pulled my energy back from everyone in my life, going into a deep isolation period that lasted the last 3 years, that I would learn that I was killing myself, betraying myself, denying myself at every turn. I had become vapor. A shell. I was in groundhog mode, waking up daily and reliving the each day as I had the day before. Almost nonexistent in the expression of myself or anything I had to say.
I’d started a YouTube channel where I wanted to share my travels and the life lessons I’d learned, but I was still too afraid to truly be seen and perceived. I posted a few times before abandoning the project altogether. I’d write here and there, but I wasn’t devoted. I’d talk about book ideas but do nothing to start them. I didn’t know where Brittni was or if I would ever hear from her again. The girl that was imaginative, rebellious, hopeful, and creative had forced herself to be quiet one too many times, and I didn’t know how to get her to trust me enough to speak again.
It had all become too much. I would sit down to write and have nothing to say. I wouldn’t even know where to begin – something I loved and that came so naturally to me from the age of 6 had become a stranger because I’d gone so long denying myself, trying to fit in, trying to just keep the peace. When I did write, I wouldn’t go as deep as I wanted to for fear someone close to me would read it and know too much about me. If no one saw me, they would have nothing to say. And I was tired of people always having something to say. I’d turned into this agreeable, people-pleasing, self-sacrificing, self-denying, self-abandoning woman who was so unsure of herself, so insecure, so worried about what other people would think about my story and what I had to say, so exhausted mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically that I was certain that my life was over. I was existing, but I was in no way living fully whatsoever.
Whew! Even writing this right now is a lot.
That young girl who learned to go unseen and unheard, locking herself in her room with her books and disappearing into a fantasy world had carried that ability to disappear into every decade of her life. The introvert. The leaver. The chameleon. The creative so unsure of her own voice that it was easier to want more than it was to have, to search, question, and desire more than to actually do, succeed, and believe in herself.
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35 years it has taken me to learn this lesson: playing small and becoming a whisper of yourself to people-please your way through life doesn’t benefit you in any capacity. Forcing yourself into a box so as not to agitate others in taking up space is one of the worst ways you can betray yourself. But the biggest lesson of all was realizing that I was looking for myself in everything and everyone around me when who I am and the support I need was always here with me. I was searching for myself externally, looking to be saved or reassured by people who were never going to provide that. It’s not enough to walk into rooms being needy out of insecurity, begging others to recognize you before you recognize yourself. You must recognize yourself first. It is imperative! It is that serious! No one is coming to save you. No one is coming to give you permission. No one is coming to tap you on the shoulder or knight you and say, “Ok, it’s your turn now.” You have to change the narrative, change the perspective, come home to yourself and stop telling yourself other people have the right to exist boldly, but you don’t. It was for me to remember who the fuck I am and to walk in it without permission. It wasn’t in the friends, the men, the anyone else – it was always me. I was always the key.
Playing small in your own life is self-denial. You are telling yourself other people get to show up while you are unworthy of doing so. Playing small isn't just about being quiet. It's a complex dance of self-preservation, fear, and learned survival tactics. For many of us, especially those who grew up in chaotic, unsupportive environments, shrinking became our superpower. We learned that being unseen meant being safe.
The Invisible Cost of Dimming Your Light
Let's be real: playing small is exhausting. It's a constant internal negotiation where you trade your authenticity for perceived safety. You meticulously analyze every potential misunderstanding, carefully molding yourself to fit into spaces that were never designed for your true self. You become an expert at understanding others while becoming a stranger to yourself.
This isn't just about personal discomfort. It's about the dreams you've postponed, the opinions you've swallowed, and the potential you've left unexplored. When you play small, you're not just limiting yourself—you're denying the world the unique brilliance only you can offer. You’re denying yourself expression, and days turn into years of a stifled voice left to fester underneath the surface, so long you can barely access it when it’s time. You get to the point where you almost have to beg and coax your creativity out like a snake charmer, because it’s so used to being ignored and denied.
When we shrink and constrict ourselves, what we’re really saying is, ‘This person or thing is more than I am and so I will relinquish my autonomy and experience over to them because surely they have a better grasp on life than I do.’ ‘They deserve to show up and be who they are and because I am inherently flawed, I do not.’ From this belief system, we make decisions and choices from a space of lack and scarcity…often choices and decisions that are in complete contrast from what we claim we want to have and see in our lives. From these projections, we experience a small and limited life.
A Love Letter to the Neurodivergent, the Hesitant, the Silenced
To my fellow overthinkers, my neurodivergent warriors, my quiet rebels: You are not too much. You are not too loud. You are not inconvenient. Your existence is not a burden. You are a gift to yourself and this world.
Stop worrying about making others comfortable at the expense of your own voice. Neurotypical or not, you deserve space. You deserve to be heard. You deserve to take up exactly as much room as you need.
People are showing up as their full selves… why aren’t you? You deserve the same space, respect, acceptance, and knowing. I want to hear what you have to say. I want to see what you’ve delayed creating. I want to know who you are. You go out of your way to make sure the people in your life are seen; you make space for others. It’s time you do the same for yourself. It’s time you become a friend – a true, compassionate, and gentle friend – to yourself in this shift into radical self-acceptance. Stop worrying about how others might be made uncomfortable by you, stop trying to predict how things might go or how someone might misunderstand you; you cannot control that. YOU CANNOT CONTROL HOW YOU ARE RECEIVED OR PERCEIVED. Stop cowering in the face of that. Sit with it if it’s uncomfortable for you. Then, get back to living.
Pause. Can I add one little thing? People are NOT thinking about you as much as you think they are. People are not thinking about every possible scenario you’ve imagined or analyzing your every move you so why are you putting so much effort into placing others on pedestals and allowing them to exist fully while you live a half-life? And, honestly, who cares if they are. Show up. Stop playing out these made-up scenarios and be who you are. Being easily tossed to and fro, taking everything personally, driving yourself crazy with what-if scenarios, and worrying what “they” might be saying behind your back when you leave is so limiting.
Social anxiety is a thing. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve created and scenarios I’ve tried to predict before interacting with people I know and people I don’t. I get it, but you can’t keep that from living. So what if you’re a little quirky? A little quiet? A little reserved? A little silly? Show UP!
You are important. You are worthy. Come out from underneath that rock and stop hiding. Stop silencing yourself before you’ve had the chance to speak up. Stop booing yourself off stage before you’ve had the chance to be experienced. It’s time to expand and welcome a life grounded and rooted in the safety and security you’ve created for yourself. You deserve to stand on solid ground and build a life from that unwavering foundation throughout each future season of your life.
Reclaiming Your Narrative
Breaking free from playing small isn't about becoming brash or aggressive. It's about radical self-acceptance. It's understanding that:
Your wisdom is valid
Your experiences matter
Your perspective is unique
You don't need anyone's permission to live fully. Those who truly value you will celebrate your expansion, not fear it.
If you want to live an expansive life, you cannot afford to play small. You will have to start making big, expansive choices and showing up with big and expansive energy. You will have to decide that you are worthy of an expansive, vibrant life right where you are, as you are. You are going to have to become confident in knowing what you know, saying what you want and have to say, sharing your wisdom, being seen and heard, and showcasing your gifts and talents. If I’m being honest, it is going to take a new level of maturity – children relinquish their power to those they deem smarter, wiser, and more powerful than them. They believe people know more than they do, so they look to those people to lead, guide, and affirm them. As adults, we are no longer in this space. We have to grow up. Even if someone has experienced more than you, they aren’t inherently more powerful or more tapped in than you – you have it well within your power and existence to do more, know more, and tap in with yourself in more expansive ways.
Gone are the days where you watch others ask for things and receive them but keep your mouth shut believing you could never be so bold. They open their mouths and ask because the worst anyone can say is no and they are willing to risk that because they know they are deserving and have no problem advocating for themselves. Gone are the days where you believe they must have something you don’t, thus keeping you mouth shut. It may be cliché to say, but you and I both know closed mouths don’t get fed. It’s time to speak up for yourself. It’s time you advocate for yourself. It’s time you expect more for yourself and align with the energy of receiving those things. Ask for what you need. Express your thoughts and opinions. Get in the mix and hop back into the flow of life. Engage.
When you wake up each day, you make the decision to hop right back into whatever reality you’ve chosen. You are choosing to continue whatever narratives and stories you’ve been believing for days, weeks, months, and in most cases, years. You make choices every moment that confirm your chosen belief system. You stay in that situationship hoping he or she will change, knowing they’ve shown you nothing of the sort, yet you claim to want a healthy relationship. You spend hours on your phone doom scrolling yet claiming you want to learn a new skill or get back to that passion project. You go to bed late but claim you’re going to get that yoga stretch in. You call yourself broke when your money is running low. You tell yourself there’s only way to success and only the lucky get to pursue their dreams. You experience one bad day in pursuit of your new business and decide entrepreneurship isn’t for you, so you quit. You believe others are just more blessed than you, so you accept whatever plight is ailing you in your current reality. You tell yourself you’ll never find love. You believe because you have kids you can’t finish that degree. You believe you’re too old and it’s too late to pivot in your career or start that business. You say you want to write a book but won’t get the first draft out because you’re looking to be perfect and learn everything before you start. You believe money is hard to come by. You believe there is only way to get what you want. Every single one of these things is a belief, a story we are telling ourselves. These beliefs fuel our actions and responses to life.
I’ll be the first to tell you: what you’re experiencing and seeing in your current reality is a result of your perception, your beliefs, the stories you’re choosing, and your choices/decisions.
How are you benefiting from this? How is this serving you?
Aren’t you ready to call back your power? Ready to change the narrative? Ready to close this old book and its weathered pages to open a new one with fresh pages and a new perspective?
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You have been given the ability to co-create in this life, but there has to be an internal and energetic shift; you must choose a new narrative and align your thoughts and decisions with this new story. You must believe you have value, right where you are. You must work through removing the shame from who you’ve been and what you’ve been through, so that you can stop being mean to yourself. Stop being mean to yourself. You have value. You are worthy just because you exist. You get to live this life above this cloudy thunderstorm. Imagine your thoughts and beliefs are a projector. You turn it on, and it starts playing a movie on the screen. What is the theme of this movie you’re watching? What is it about? Is that a movie you want to keep watching every day? Are you enjoying what you see?
You are the screenwriter, director, and producer of said movie.
Ask yourself: Who do I want to be? What do I want to believe moving forward? Challenge yourself to unlock the limits you’ve placed on your imagination and be honest with yourself. If you feel pushback, good. Your mind is challenging the unknown because it thinks it’s protecting you from harm by keeping you in the survival mode of what it already knows. Push past it. There is a realm in which each reality of you exists. The successful one. The healthy one. The grounded one. The one who shows up in her fullness. The sick one. The broke one. The angry one. The victim. The victor. The one who settles. The one who expands. It is up to you to make a conscious decision to choose which story you want to tell now, and then begin infusing energy into that new storyline. Take out a pen and get to composing. Start designing and brainstorming in detail. Once you’ve written down your truths, you must begin putting in the work and feeding your mind new beliefs. Beliefs precede action. What you believe is what you will choose. If you believe there’s lack and scarcity in the world, you will choose to keep playing small and taking small actions. If you believe you are worthy of showing up and expanding, you will choose to show up and expand in aligned action and embodiment. There has to be a flooding of new energy, subconscious rewiring, rewriting of the narrative, and consistent, aligned action that supports this new, more expansive life.
Decide.
There is power in deciding. There is power in making up your mind and sticking to it. Once I decided I was done playing small, I knew I could no longer repeat past stories to myself or anyone else. I had to dodge conversations about old topics. I had to expand past old triggers and responses. This new change requires your energy to be shifted in a new direction. The reality you’ve been experiencing is a physical and energetic manifestation of your previous way of thinking, perceiving, projecting, and being. You will have to begin ignoring it. You are now in the midst of building something new – every response, every action or inaction, every belief, your feelings, emotions, energy, and vibe are now all building your future experience.
Warning: Your mind will test you. It will want to know what the hell you are up to. It will want to protect you by continuing to respond to life as it has been because that’s all it knows. It will be up to you to stand firm and tell it, “No, this is what we’re doing and believing now.” You will have to repeat over and over again until it sticks. This times time. Please understand this before giving up and going back to settling. Do not quit. Do not give up. Do not go back. Do not settle.
When I first started shifting my reality, I had to continue writing, affirming, choosing, deciding, and even going to bed listening to subconscious reprogramming subliminal messages on YouTube. It is that deep when you’re deciding to become someone new, when you’re coming out of the shadows and choosing to no longer engage in the bare minimum of your life. This means an evaluation of relationships, behaviors, responses, habits, how you show up in your creative life, and how you treat yourself. This is the time for establishing new standards for your life that you and everyone else must adhere to.
Get familiar with delay. We don’t talk enough about the delay that comes with change. Yes, we can (at any moment) choose a new life and new narrative but we must remember we will still see residual leftover from what we’ve built so far while telling our new story. These leftovers are from what we have previously believed, decided on, and chosen in the past. This cannot discourage you. This is where you relinquish control and surrender to the unknown, knowing that there is new flowing into your life. This is where devotion, patience, reclaimed power, and faith come into play.
You will be making daily deposits into your new future and taking up space in this world. Where you’d normally cower and hide, you’ll be showing up and speaking up. It requires unwavering belief until you see evidence of your deep knowing, shifting and pouring into this new experience to replace and rewire what you used to know and how you used to move. Kindness, compassion, and being a friend to yourself in this new beginning will go a long way. Know that there is always another way of doing things. You can always wake up and say you know what: “These paradigms, constructs, conditioning, narratives, and stories I’ve been waking up every single day and telling myself don’t have to be true! I don’t have to keep believing this and adding to these beliefs with my actions and choices.” You can say to yourself, “This doesn’t apply to me any longer. I don’t subscribe to this!”
When you want a new job or want to pivot into a new career, you accept that the new role may require new skills if you want better pay or an opportunity to get your foot in the door. You enroll in classes, complete certification programs, finish degrees, polish what you already know, and add new skills to your resume. That is what we are doing now. We’ve decided to stop playing small and insignificant. Now, we put in the effort repeatedly to gain new skills and affirm our new beliefs. With this comes new aligned action and faith in those actions to bring new results and experiences into our lives. This is how we decide ‘I’m ready to elevate in my life’. We say, ‘Let me learn new skills and choose a new paradigm where I can apply these new beliefs to get new results in my life and align with this new existence.’
“Let me reclaim my power and reignite the fire of my life. I am worth it and wholly deserving.”
The Practical Magic of Showing Up
Transformation isn't overnight. It's daily deposits of courage. It's choosing, moment by moment, to:
Speak your truth
Set boundaries
Make decisions aligned with your highest self
Believe in your inherent worthiness
Remember, the universe conspires in favor of those brave enough to step into their power. Your past conditioning doesn't dictate your future potential.
Be open, ready, and willing to see things differently. Surround yourself with people who align with this new version of how you believe and move. The book, ‘A Course in Miracles,’ discusses how miracles are simply a change in perception.You have to be willing and open to experiencing a new perception of your life and how it can be now. It will require you to shed that old conditioning and programming. We’ve all been programmed and conditioned from our families, society, etc. to believe that there is only one way to be in this world that is realistic and logical and any deviation from said plan is a recipe for disaster and failure. ‘Play small and safe and that’s the only way you can thrive.’ This isn’t true unless you want it to continue to be.
You can no longer afford to play small; it is costing you everything. There is magic and power in making a sure decision about yourself and your life, choosing to align with the version of you that shows up, speaks up, expands, and embodies. You are deserving of authentic, truthful living. You are so, so worthy.
A Gentle Reminder: You Are Worthy
You are worthy of the same love, acceptance, and support you so generously give others. Your voice matters. Your dreams are valid. Your existence is not just important—it's essential. You don’t earn this worthiness by playing small and becoming the sacrificial lamb. You don’t earn this worthiness by choosing the world before yourself. You don’t earn this worthiness by denying who you are and who you’ve come to be. You are worthy because you are here. And because you are here, you deserve to experience this lifetime in its fullness.
Come home to yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror and see your value. Connect with your heart once more and open it to your new expansion. The world is waiting for your full, magnificent self to show up.
-B