There Is Power in Your Smallness

I want to tell you about a time when I was really struggling. During this time, I found that there was this ongoing desire to make myself as energetically tiny as possible.

I would close my eyes and imagine that I was the tiniest speck of existence.

I would see myself nestled in the dirt under a blade of grass. I would see myself perched on the nook in between the ribs the person I was talking to. I would enjoy the feeling of imagining myself in the crook of a high branch of a tree nearby.

As I found new places to imagine my tiny speck of existence, I found that I could energetically start to “land” anywhere. I would put myself on the shoulder of the person walking by me, on the back of the bird flying overhead, and in the crease of the book my daughter was reading.

But, out of all the places, being nestled under a blade of grass in the warm dirt was my favorite.

It was so comforting and safe to be so absolutely microscopic. No one knew where I was when I did this. It was so wonderfully secret.

I would contract into this pin-prick size Janelle whenever something felt overwhelming, I didn’t like the conversation in front of me, or I felt negativity coming my way.

It almost felt like a superpower.

And, yet I felt such dissonance when I did this….like I was “wrong” for doing so because wasn’t I supposed to be “big”, “expansive”, “fully-visible”, “out there”, and “taking up space” as a cutting-edge woman?

I brought this up in a conversation with a wise counselor and he brilliantly surprised me with the message that this capacity to be small is the twin power of the capacity to be expansive and fill up space energetically. The inverse of my capacity to be small is in direct proportion of my capacity to be magnificent.

Not only would I be able to fill the space around me with my presence of love, but eventually my true capacity would be to extend a loving presence into the world – and (whether I believed it or not) – into the universe itself.

I loved this idea, and yet felt scared to tap into the twin of my expansiveness.

Even so, I could still feel a nudging to step into this expansion on the edge my tininess.

And this nudging…this whisper to know that the seed of the power to roar with fiery love into the world around me was embedded on the periphery of my smallness sent a wave of exhilaration in me I had not felt in a long, long time.

It was there…when I was ready.

I share this with you today, because I have been talking to many who feel fatigued. There is a depletion and the result is that there is such comfort to contract inward right now.

On top of this, there is a layer of pressure to “get out of it”, to “shake it off” and in a frenetic – almost self-abusive kind of way - there is a berating to “get going” and “do something for God’s sake!”.

I want to suggest that there might be an alternative benefit to rest into the smallness you are feeling, to enjoy the ability to do so, to nestle in and feel the comfort.

And in that space where all pressure to “get out of it” and “show up” you, too, might be able to find that little secret inside of your hiddenness that is your twin power to expand and fill the world around you with a powerful love and presence when you are ready.