Getting Bigger and Softening Edges: Becoming Myself Without Judging Others

(Working Outline)

1. Opening: The paradox of expansion Begin from a visceral moment — the body sensation of taking up more space. Maybe you’re speaking more truth, setting boundaries, or simply standing still while someone else’s discomfort rises. Reflect on how “getting bigger” once meant “being too much,” and how softening the edges means staying open even as you claim your full outline.

2. The old compact: belonging through smallness Explore the learned pattern: shrinking to stay safe, to keep others comfortable, to avoid being labeled difficult. Bring in personal anecdotes — times you noticed your instinct to contract when someone else reacted.

3. Power without opposition Introduce the idea that power doesn’t have to be against. In a culture that equates force with dominance, expansion can look like aggression. Reframe “getting bigger” as allowing more aliveness, not taking more territory. The energy grows but the intent softens.

4. Judgment as a defense Show how judging others (or yourself) often sneaks in when boundaries feel porous — judgment is a quick way to separate, to reassert control. Discuss the shift from judgment to discernment: seeing clearly without needing to condemn.

5. Practices for holding both expansion and softness

• Body practice: noticing tension when you feel yourself “getting big” and inviting breath into it.
• Relational practice: staying with another’s discomfort without shrinking or pushing back.
• Reflective practice: journaling or meditating on where “too much” came from — whose comfort was being preserved?

6. Closing: living as invitation End with an image of the self as porous but coherent — boundaries like skin, not armor. “Getting bigger” becomes an act of love: you model what it means to live in full presence without requiring others to do the same.