019: Stop Shrinking: How Taking Up Space Changes Everything

This week's episode is something special — a live talk Rhiannon gave at the Mind Body Wisdom Wellbeing Expo in Derby, shared here in its most authentic, unedited form.

Trigger warning: this episode touches on mental health, body image, and weight loss.

In this talk, Rhiannon explores what it really means to shrink — not just physically, but in our voices, our ambitions, our boundaries, and our authentic selves. She shares her own journey from chasing external validation through fitness to finding a completely different question to ask: does this make me feel more like myself, or less?

This one is honest, emotional, and practical. And it might just give you permission to stop making yourself smaller.

In this episode:

• Why we shrink when the world feels out of control — and why it doesn't make us safer
• Rhiannon's personal fitness journey and the moment she walked away from a system focused on making her disappear
• The "more like myself / less like myself" framework for making aligned decisions
• A story about a client, and a stranger at the gym, that illustrates the ripple effect of refusing to shrink
• Why your expansion is an act of resistance — and why certain industries need you not to know that
• Reflective questions to help you identify where you might be shrinking right now

Chapters

• 00:00 — Introduction & Trigger Warning
• 01:48 — The Impact of Taking Up Space
• 05:41 — Personal Journey: From Shrinking to Expanding
• 09:37 — Empowering Others Through Visibility
• 14:00 — The Ripple Effect of Refusing to Shrink
• 17:54 — Practical Steps for Personal Expansion
• 19:56 — Conclusion 

Ever had a panic attack in the gym car park?

You're not alone. Our complete guide to overcoming gym anxiety reveals why gyms feel so overwhelming for anxious people—and shares 7 proven strategies that actually work.

• The 5 real barriers that make gyms intimidating
• Practical strategies for sensory overload & social anxiety
• Word-for-word gym etiquette scripts
• A realistic 4-week confidence-building plan

Read the Complete Guide HERE

Transcript

0:01

This is a presentation. No, this is a talk that I gave at the Mind Body Wisdom Wellbeing Expo in Derby at the end of March. So I'm not gonna edit it. It's just the version that I did because that's the most authentic thing I can share with you. But it will talk to you as though you're in the room. So you can. Ignore that little bit, but enjoy this episode of the Not So Typical Fitness podcast. I am your host Rhiannon Cooper, a plus size autistic ADHD and qualified personal trainer and someone who wants to inspire change and acceptance in a world which is often full of horrors that we can't control. So The talk is called Stop Shrinking. how taking up space changes everything and I hope you enjoy it. Hello everyone. Hello. Hello. Right. If you do need to leave, please feel free to leave. There is a trigger warning. I do talk about mental health, weight loss and things that can be sensitive. So do leave if you need to leave. And if anyone is visually impaired, I'm a white woman with bright pink hair on the curvy side or fat or whatever word you like to use. There's nothing wrong with saying fat. And I'm wearing a pinky black skirt thing, bright pink rocks and a black top and a leather harness. Well, fake leather. Okay, right. My talk is about how taking up space changes everything. Because I think the world is really overwhelming at the moment. I think there are horrors that are going on that we or I especially can't fully kind of understand. And our brains can't really hold. And it is really heavy and it's really terrifying for a lot of people. And There are lots of these big things happening that we can't control. But what we try to do when we feel like that is control ourselves, something that we can do. But what often happens is we shrink and we make our voices smaller, our bodies smaller, so our voice is quieter. And we take up space, less space. Watch me flip it around. We take up less space and we apologize more. We dim our light so that we don't make other people feel uncomfortable. And we feel if we can just be enough, so small enough, quiet enough, acceptable enough, then maybe we'll finally feel safe or maybe we'll finally feel in control. But when it comes to shrinking yourself, it doesn't make you safer, it just makes you smaller. And the world doesn't really need you smaller. The world needs you fully inhabiting your life. So I'm Riannon Cooper. I'm going to introduce myself. I'm a plus size personal trainer and I'm training for strong women competitions. And I'm someone who spent years trying to shrink myself into acceptability. But when you stop shrinking, everything changes. You change your life, but you also change the lives of people around you. But before I tell you my story, I do want to ask you to have a little look around. I'm not going to do the hands up thing because I hate that myself. How many of you have apologized today for something that wasn't actually your fault? Because I definitely have, yeah. Okay. And how many of you walked into this room or maybe the main room and scanned it immediately to try and work out how to take up as little space as possible? Yeah, some nodding heads. And I wonder how many of you have a dream, a thing, a need, an opinion that you haven't said out loud yet because you're worried it's too much. Because that was me too, for years actually. When I was 30, so for context, I'm 34, so four years ago. I'm 34 in a week, we'll go with it. I was walking in woods with my wife and she was breathless and I wasn't. And I remember feeling a bit smug at first. I thought, well, she's out of breath. I'm not, I'm fitter, this is great. And whilst I may have had a higher base level of fitness, I couldn't remember the last time I had been out of breath. And that's not a fitness flex, it's a red flag. I know from school that your heart and lungs are organs that you need to work. If you don't work them, they're not gonna give you a long happy life. And so I joined a gym, not to become a fitness influencer, although some might say that's where it's going now. and not to prove anything, but just to look after myself for the first time properly. And I did change my life. So I lost over a hundred pounds in around 18 months and I got to a size 12. And it was fine. People celebrated. I remember thinking, I bought these clothes, they were fitted. And thinking I finally get to be a person who wears clothes like that. And then I went to a party, which I don't do anymore because overwhelming. And someone said, you look amazing, what have you done? And it was like this relief rushed through me. Like I'd finally passed the test, I didn't even know I'd been sitting because I'd lost all this weight. And I was tracking everything. So every calorie, every gram. every number on the scales that I weighed myself on three times a day because that first number was never the right one. And I kept getting smaller and people kept being delighted. And I kept waiting to feel like it was enough and it never was. You see, nobody tells you that when you're shrinking, it doesn't really end because the goal post moves. So I had a personal trainer at the time and she said, your next goal, 12 stone. So I remember exactly where I was standing in the gym, which treadmill I was on. And the way she said it, like it was the most natural next step in the world, next goal, 12 stone. And I did the maths, I was 13 and a half. So that was another stone and a half to lose. And I thought, okay, but then what? So when I get to 12, what next? 11, 10. When does that number finally mean I'm enough? And I think it never does. And I think the system... is actually working exactly as it's meant to because I had actually achieved my goals. I was healthier, stronger, more capable, consistent, but that wasn't what everyone else wanted. They wanted me smaller. And it was as though the other people and even my personal trainer, the goal wasn't my health. The goal was my weight and to be acceptable, to make me smaller, quieter, more manageable and less. So I refused and I walked away. And it wasn't because training was bad. I loved weight training, but it was because my whole relationship with it had become about disappearing. And... about being acceptable and about proving I deserve to be here and I didn't want to do that. And when I came back to training, I changed everything, no more shrinking. I basically wanted to ask myself a different question. So what makes me feel aligned? So when I'm training lifting weights, what feels good? And what makes me feel good in my body as it is not acceptable to someone else? And it was a really tough thing because I'd spent so long thinking, what does this look like? That I'd almost lost access to what does this feel like? So I'd start small. Instead of looking at my Apple watch after every session and thinking, how many calories have I burnt? I would ask myself one question. Do I feel more like myself right now or less? And that became this benchmark, more like myself. That's what I want. So deadlifting 100 kgs, more like myself. I feel great. Restricting carbs because someone on the internet said so, not so much. Wearing a crop top to train in is great. I hate it, it's nerve-racking, but I swear a lot, so it's more comfortable. That's great. Weighing myself every morning is less every time. So more like myself and less like myself. It sounds simple and it's not. It's a really tough thing to ask yourself. but it's very clarifying as to whether what you are doing is in alignment with you. And yes, my weight has gone back up. So I am around 40 pounds heavier than I was at my lightest, but I am the happiest, strongest, fittest, most aligned version of me I have ever been. And now in training for strong women competitions, I wear clothes that show my body instead of hiding it. I... If you follow me already on social media, you'll see this. I post photos online and get trolled by people who say a fat person can't be a personal trainer or a fitness professional. And I take up space in gyms, in rooms like this, on stages, places that weren't designed for someone who looks like me. Everything I do is governed by this alignment. Not does this make me feel good? No. Other way around. Not does this make me acceptable, but does this feel good? Does this energy serve me? And does this make me feel alive? When I stopped shrinking my body, I stopped shrinking my voice. I started speaking up for clients who can't advocate for themselves. I started challenging an industry built on this message that you are not good enough. I gave interviews, made videos, and showed up visibly fat and proudly capable. and the whole energy changed. Because you will know, you can feel when someone is aligned, you can feel when someone has stopped performing and started living. And I know that you might be sat here thinking, okay, but how? So I will give you something practical at the end because I don't want this just to be like a nice idea. I want it to be something you can do too. Right, take a breath. So, as a personal trainer, my approach is very different. And it didn't change my experience, just my experience in a gym, it's changed my clients' too. You see, I work with people, the fitness industry has failed. So neurodivergent people, anxious people, anyone who feels that they walk into a gym and they don't belong, they've all got something in common. And I think it's that they've all been taught to shrink. So neurodivergent people, myself included, we mask. So we hide our authentic selves, try and fit into neuro-typical expectations. Plus-sized people are literally told their bodies should be smaller. And anxious people make themselves small, quiet, unobtrusive, hoping if they don't take up too much space, then they'll be safe. But when they see me, fat, and I don't believe fat is a bad word, loud, bright pink hair, taking up space, something can change for them because they get permission. So they get permission to stop shrinking themselves, permission to exist fully. I had a client, and I'm not going to use their names, but they do know I'm talking about them, who avoided group exercise classes for years, not because she didn't want to do it or couldn't. because she had learned to make herself invisible. And she worked with me and she got stronger. And one day she was able to advocate for herself when an instructor was pushing a modification she didn't need. She took up space. She used her voice. And that's the ripple effect that can come from seeing somebody showing up unapologetically. A few months ago, so I work in a commercial gym. And that's where I personally train. And a woman came up to me whilst I was on my shift and she is a conventionally attractive woman, slim, and she was crying. And she looked at me and said, how do you do it? How do you be so confident? And how do you wear what you wear and just exist? like that. It was as though she thought that existing must somehow be easier for me. Like I'd somehow, because I'm visibly different, I had found this magic switch that means I don't care what people think. And there's something important here, because this woman, if we think about how society sees health, fitness, beauty, was someone who you would say, it easy. She was slim, she wore the right size. Yet there she was standing in front of me, the fat woman, asking how to exist. And I think when it comes to shrinking, it's not really about bodies. Actually, it never was. So shrinking is about what you do when your full self has been inconvenient to someone. And her full self had been inconvenient to someone. My full self is inconvenient to an industry. And maybe your full self is inconvenient to someone too. It was a really difficult conversation for me to have because I didn't really know what to say. I told her the truth, which is that it's hard every day. Society tells us blend in, stay small, don't stand out. And taking up space or showing up visibly different and refusing to apologize for it is work and practice. And it's choosing yourself again and again and again. I'm a personal trainer, not a therapist, although I maybe need to think about that. But I knew what had happened. She had seen somebody refusing to shrink and that opened something up for her. So she actually started talking, really talking about things that she had never said out loud, about things she was carrying in silence. and about a situation that she had at home that she thought she had to endure in silence. It makes me quite emotional because I didn't realise the impact it has when you can just exist in the world as you and somebody sees it and they feel safe and they feel that they can start to expand in their life. And I didn't fix her life in this moment, but I did give her permission to stop shrinking. and to use her voice and to believe that maybe, just maybe, she deserved to take up space too. Because when you refuse to shrink, it's not just your own life that you change, is everyone around you. And you give them permission to expand into theirs. And it's not about doing what I'm doing and standing here and talking to you. It is just about showing up fully in front of somebody who needed to see it was possible. And every kind of thing I'm saying, for me, as a personal trainer, people hear the word shrink and they think it means weight loss. And it doesn't. It is what we do in our minds. And I'm not talking just about bodies. I'm talking about speaking up when you see injustice instead of staying silent, pursuing what you actually want instead of what's sensible. setting boundaries instead of people pleasing yourself into exhaustion, and being visibly different instead of performing normal. And I believe that every time you refuse to shrink, you challenge the very system that profits from keeping us small, scared and spending money trying to fix ourselves. think the world doesn't want us to know that our expansion is threatening. Because if you take a second and think about the fitness industry or the wellness industry, the beauty industry, hundreds of billions of pounds globally every year, built on one message, you are not enough as you are. And that message needs you to believe it because it needs you to stay in this cycle of feel bad, buy fix, feel temporarily better, feel bad again. And a person who loves their body, like fully loves it, not performs it, but fully inhabits it, doesn't spend 80 pounds a month to fix what isn't broken. And you opting out of that cycle is an act of economic and political resistance. And that is not an exaggeration, that's just maths. You see, a person who trusts their intuition doesn't need constant external validation. And a community of people who refuse to shrink is powerful. There's this deep rot in how we're taught to relate to ourselves, this constant message that we are not good enough and that we need to be smaller, quieter and less demanding. And we can't fix all of the horrors in the world. We can't control politics or systems or everything that's broken. but we can refuse to participate in our own diminishment. Because when you live in alignment and when your energy is true, you become a lighthouse. People are drawn to it. They feel it. And they start questioning their own shrinking. And that's how change happens. It's not top down. It's body to body, person to person, one act of expansion at a time. So I want to ask you, where are you shrinking yourself right now? Is it your body, your mind, your voice, your ambitions, your authentic self? What would happen if you stopped? What would you say if you weren't worried about being too much? what would you wear if you weren't trying to hide? What would you pursue if you weren't waiting to feel ready enough? You don't need to be smaller to be worthy. You don't need to shrink to belong. The world needs you fully, all of you. The messy, loud, imperfect, expansive version of you that takes up space and refuses to apologise for it. And when you take up space, you create space for others. And that's not selfish, that's revolutionary. I think about that walk in the woods with my wife sometimes and how she was breathless and I wasn't. That's the moment that kickstarted my health and fitness journey. But I realized it actually wasn't improving my health and it was about disappearing. And now I deadlift, I compete, I take up space and stages and these rooms that weren't built for someone who looks like me and I am out of breath. properly, beautifully out of breath all of the time, because that's what taking up space looks like. And it is worth it. And you are worth it too. Now did say I'll give you something practical. So if you do want to have some kind of reflective prompts to help you think about your life and where you might be shrinking, I have made a guide and there is a QR code here, which you may scan if you would like it. But it's just an opportunity for you to think about your life in a way that perhaps you haven't and to do one simple act of expansion this week. And if it has landed, the talk, I have a table which is like almost the furthest one from here before you're in the other room. Come and talk to me. Ignore my face because I often look like I want to kill someone. It's just my face. It's the neurodivergence. But please come and talk to me because actually like This is so important in a world that is, I'm struggling in the world right now with everything that goes on. Talking to people who are trying to make change, make good, feel good in this world is so important. And I promise the moment you say, no, I smile, so it's okay. But that is it. That's it. So you may. Yes. You mentioned that obviously you were going down the slimming route because somebody said to you obviously you played basketball. Yeah. So what changed in you to then go, actually I don't need to do that? So I was loving lifting weights, loving it. And I didn't really have a goal in mind when it came to being in the gym. I wanted to be healthier. It was always for me about being healthier. And then I loved the weightlifting. And it genuinely was this conversation where my coach said, well, your next goal now needs to be 12 stone. And it felt like all of my progress boiled down to my weight on the scales. And that's not health and fitness. Why couldn't it be, well, you're hip thrusting 100 kgs, let's try and get to 120, or you're, I don't know, lat pull down is this, let's go for this. And she didn't even want a conversation about it. And then two months later, I won an award at my gym for the biggest transformation of the year. And they used my weight statistics for that. And that's not it. It's not about that. There's so much more to it. And it felt like my progress didn't matter. It was just how I look. And that's not what it's about. So that was why I left that personal trainer. And I started to qualify about three months after that because I cannot be the only person who wants to focus on other metrics because there are so many metrics to health. And I only wanted to feel better in myself and live a happier, longer life. I don't have kids, I've got dogs, but I don't want to die before them. And I was heading that way. I was very, very big, very mentally unwell. But for so many personal trainers, not just that one everywhere, they focused on weight. They do an eight week summer shred, or they'll do slim for the wedding, whatever. And it doesn't have to be that. What I found as well is having different metrics means I'm more sustainable with it because it's things I enjoy. and that helps me stay focused. So hopefully that answers that question. Yeah. Does anyone else have a question? No? Okay, fine. That's fine. Cool. Thank you. I was half expecting a dead room, so I'm really pleased. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you.