What Happens When You Stop Shrinking
A song, a ritual menu, and the body's rebellion against a lifetime of being "too much."
The thing about being small is that it hurts your body.
Not metaphorically. Actually hurts. Your shoulders curve inward. Your throat closes. Your breath gets shallow and stays there. Your nervous system learns to live in a constant crouch.
I've been trying to unravel this pattern for months now. The physical cost of good behavior. The way my chest tightens when I edit myself mid-sentence. The way my jaw locks when I smile instead of saying what I actually think.
The way I've been apologizing for taking up space since I was old enough to speak.
There's a specific exhaustion that comes from spending your whole life making other people comfortable. From being the one who absorbs the feeling so everyone else can stay regulated. From shrinking so consistently that you forget what your actual size is.
And honestly? Why?
I wrote a song about it. Not because I wanted to write a song. Because the feeling got too big and I needed somewhere else to put it.
It's called under-feel and it's not pretty. It's the sound of someone who's done making herself nice. Done apologizing for having a nervous system. Done pretending that other people's emotional numbness is somehow her responsibility to fix.
The lyrics came out like an exorcism. "You said I overreact / I say you under-feel." "I'm not your fucking safe space." "You're just used to quiet women."
Not because I wanted to be provocative. Because I was tired. Seriously tired of carrying the weight of everyone else's discomfort with authentic feeling. Tired of being called too much by people who feel too little.
(And tired of pretending that's not what's happening.)
The song is live now - but I built something else around it. A small ritual menu. Because this isn't just a track you stream and forget. It's a nervous system intervention. A practice in un-shrinking.
Things like "Knife Work" – body rituals for when the feeling needs somewhere to go. "Eating Your Words" – voice practices for all the things stuck in your throat. "Leftovers" – prompts for the stuff you can't say to anyone but yourself.
Not self-help. Not healing. Just... space. For the full size of what you're actually carrying.
Because the toll of being small isn't just emotional. It lives in your body. In your breath. In the way you move through the world like you're perpetually in someone else's way.
And maybe the antidote isn't learning to feel less. Maybe it's demanding that everyone else feel more.
Maybe it's just being done with the whole performance.
The menu is live now.
Start wherever your body tells you to.
This is what happens when you stop apologizing for taking up space. Even if that space is just three minutes and thirty seconds of someone else's day.
Even if they roll their eyes.
Especially if they roll their eyes.
—Melissa