Why You Keep Apologising For Taking Up Space

The sorry reflex isn't politeness — it's a nervous system trained to shrink before anyone asks it to. Today we name it, trace it, and start to loosen its grip.

In this episode:

→  Why the apology reflex is a conditioned response, not a personality trait

→  Brené Brown on the shame message most women have been living from

→  What performing smallness actually costs you — and it's cumulative

→  The one-second practice that begins to change everything

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Transcript

0:09

I want you to count how many times you say sorry today. Not for things you've actually done wrong. I mean the other ones. "Sorry, can I just... Sorry to bother you. Sorry, this might be a stupid question. Sorry, I just need a second. Sorry for existing in a space that you are completely entitled to be in." Most women, if they actually counted, would be somewhere between horrified and uninspired. Because we have been apologizing for taking up space since before we knew that's what we were doing. And today, I want to talk about why, and what it's actually costing you. Let's go. Hey, gorgeous. Welcome back to The Good Girl Talks. I'm Sonya Figueiredo, and if you're joining us for the first time, brilliant timing. This is episode two of our very first season, and we are already in deep. Today, we're talking about something that is so woven into the fabric of how women move through the world, that most of us don't even notice it anymore. Why you keep apologizing to take up space. And I want to be really clear upfront, I'm not talking about politeness. I'm not talking about consideration for other people. I'm talking about the automatic, reflexive, nervous system-level flinching that happens when a woman dares to have needs, to have an opinion, to simply exist in a room and take up her fair portion of the air in it. This one is going to sting in the best- Way. Ready? I have a PhD in the preemptive apology. There was a period in my life where I couldn't walk into a room without making myself smaller. Not physically, though women do that too. We tuck ourselves in, Cross our legs, angle our bodies to take up less space. But energetically, I'd have an opinion in a meeting, and I would actually feel my chest tighten before I spoke, like there was some internal alarm system going, "Are you sure? Is this worth it? What if they disagree? What if you're wrong? What if you think you're too much?" And I'd speak, but I would wrap whatever I was about to say in so much softening language that by the time the actual thought came out, it was almost unrecognizable. This might be completely off-base, but I was just wondering if maybe we could possibly consider... And then some genuinely solid idea buried in all that apology. And I watched other people, other men, let's be honest, say the same thing directly. No qualifiers, no sorrys, no preemptive shrinking, and they were heard. Of course, they were heard. And here's the thing I had to reckon with eventually. I wasn't being humble. I wasn't being considerate. I was performing small because I had learned somewhere very early that a woman who takes up too much space becomes a problem. I was sorry for existing at full volume. And I know I'm not alone in that because if you're listening to this show- Chances are you know exactly what I mean. So let's name this clearly. The sorry reflex, the preemptive shrink, the constant exhausting management of how much space you're allowed to take up. This is not a personality quirk. This is a conditioned response. Here's how it happens. Girls from a very young age receive messages, both explicit and implicit, that the desirable version of a woman is one who is agreeable, accommodating, soft, and under-demanding. The girl who speaks up too loudly, takes up too much room, or asks for too much is frequently, not always, but frequently corrected, labeled, called difficult. So she learns, because she's smart, and learning is what smart children do. She learned that making herself smaller keeps things smooth. It keeps people happy. It keeps her safe from the discomfort of being too much. And here's what nobody tells the capable woman: that learned smallness doesn't stay in the meeting room. It doesn't stay in the conversation with your mother. It seeps into everything. It becomes the lens through which you see your own entitlement to exist at full volume in your own life. Brené Brown research on shame shows up something crucial here, and I want to be specific because this matters. The core shame message most women have received is not, "You did something bad," it's, "You are too much," or conversely, "You are not enough." And often Somehow both at once. That's an impossible place to live from. And you most women, and yet most women are living from exactly there. The cost of the sorry reflex is not just that you're unheard in meetings. The cost is that you have practiced for years, possibly decades, treating your own needs and thoughts and presence as less important than other people's comfort. And that practice has a cumulative effect on how you see yourself. You stop expecting to be heard. You stop asking for what you need. You stop believing you're entitled to the full portion of space in your own life. That's an enormous cost. And it happens so quietly. So here's what I want to offer you today. What if the apology isn't actually about politeness? What if every time you say sorry before you speak, every time you shrink before you're asked to, you're making a small but cumulative decision that your presence requires justification? And what if it doesn't? What if you're allowed to exist in rooms, in relationships, in conversations at full volume without it earning it, without earning it first? I know that sounds simple. I also know it doesn't feel simple, because the nervous system that learned to shrink is not going to unlearn it in one podcast episode. I'm not going to insult you by suggesting it will. But here's your one thing for this week, and it's small, deliberately. Notice the next sorry before it leaves your mouth. Just notice it. You don't have to stop yourself saying it. You don't have to perform confidence you don't feel yet. Just pause for one second and ask, "Is this an apology or is this a flinch?" That one second of awareness is the beginning of a very different relationship with your own presence in the world. You are not too much. You have just been surrounded by people who were not quite enough. The sorry reflex? This is exactly the kind of pattern I unpack in The Good Girl Gone. Not just naming it, but actually tracing it back. Where did it start? What was the moment the little girl learned she was too much? The book goes there The link is in the show notes. And if you want to do this in a room with other women who get it, come to my Good Girl Unmasked webinars. We actually do the work there live together. No performing, no shrinking. You will leave that two hours feeling like you took up some space just by showing up. Which, to be clear, is the whole point. Here's my question for you this week. Where in your life are you currently performing smallness? In your relationship? At work? In the friendship group where you somehow become the one who never has an opinion? At the dinner table with your family? I want to know. Slide into my DMs on Instagram or drop a comment wherever you're listening. Tell me where you shrink. I read everything. And if this episode gave you even a flicker of recognition, please share it with one woman in your life who needs permission to take up more space. That woman exists in your contact list. You know who she is. Hit subscribe. It costs you nothing and it means everything. You are not put on this earth to be convenient. You are put here to be fully, entirely, unapologetically yourself. And that woman at full volume is not too much. She's just been waiting for permission that was always hers to give. That's it from me, gorgeous. Until next time, stay messy, stay real, and remember, the good girl has left the building. I'm Sonia Figueiredo. This is The Good Girl Talks, and you, you're right on time.