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How Much of Yourself Have You Shrunk to Fit In? · Just Julia

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So think about walking onto a really crowded elevator.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone instantly tenses up.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Without anyone even saying a single word, we all just instantly pull our elbows in.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you tuck your bags away.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We make ourselves physically smaller just so everyone else fits.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And today's deep dive is actually about what happens when you start doing that
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: with your entire personality.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Which is such a fascinating concept.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: We are exploring this brilliant...
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Highly observant eso, it's called How Much of Yourself Have You Shrunk to Fit In?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: From the Just Julia Substack, written by Julia Callas.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right, and our mission today with this deep dive is to really uncover the subtle
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: and honestly often totally unconscious ways we compress ourselves.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Compress our bodies, our accomplishments, our joy.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, all of it, simply to make the people around us feel, you know, a bit more comfortable.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a look into the invisible mechanics of self-erasure.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And just to set the table for you listening right now,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: this isn't like some generic self-help seminar we're unpacking today.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: There are no 10 easy steps to confidence here.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Julia isn't presenting herself as this guru with all the answers.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she is a woman approaching 40 who is just pausing to question her own lifelong patterns.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: She's just observing herself.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: She's inviting you to audit your own life alongside hers.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And she starts with this habit that began for her in a very literal, physical way.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: So the foundation of this pattern for Julia started in childhood when she was
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: about 10 years old, I think.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: She was the tallest girl in her class.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Taller than almost everyone, right?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Girls and boys alike.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if we look at the standard architecture of a school day,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: the system constantly highlights those physical differences.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever the class had to walk somewhere,
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: the teachers would line the students up strictly by height.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Shortest at the front, tallest at the back.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I remember doing that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Which means she received this daily physical reminder of exactly
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: where her dimensions placed her in the social hierarchy.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: The very end of the lines.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: And she hated that placement.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she was growing rapidly and her closest friends were significantly shorter than her.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So how did she handle that?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, her response to that height disparity was to unconsciously adapt.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: When she walked beside her friends, she would...
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Lower her head.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she would curve her shoulders forward and physically bend down to speak to them.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just to be at their eye level.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: She was literally contorting her skeletal structure just to bridge that physical gap.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, it is heartbreaking to picture a 10-year-old doing that, you know?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: But what strikes me is that she wasn't doing it out of, like, self-loathing.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: She just genuinely wanted to be closer to her peers.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was an active connection.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right, an active connection that just sort of mutated into a habit of contraction.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: That distinction is so vital,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: though, because a 10-year-old, its primary psychological drive is peer attachment.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: You want to mirror your tribe.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just want to fit in.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of think of it like a large plant trying to grow inside a really cramped box,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a great way to put it.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: like it just contorts its own stems and bends in on itself just to avoid brushing up
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: against the sides.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It really makes you wonder, like,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: how quickly do we learn to treat our own natural dimensions as a problem
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: to be solved?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: So quickly.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the danger is that the physical consequence of her mirroring was terrible posture.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Which her mom noticed, right?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, her mother noticed this rapidly changing body just folding in on itself.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And her intervention was fascinating.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because she didn't just tell her to stop slouching.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Rather than just verbally nagging her daughter to stand up straight,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: she actually changed her physical environment.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: She enrolled Julia in classical ballet.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Which is brilliant.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Julia assumed her mom was just like trying to fix her back.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: She thought it was just a medical thing almost.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: But when you actually look at the mechanics of what ballet demands from
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: a human body, it's such a profound countermeasure.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: It really is because ballet is a rigorous, repetitive, somatic practice.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And by somatic you mean...
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it actively rewires the communication between the brain and
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: the physical nervous system.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Ballet doesn't just ask you to move.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: It dictates exactly how you occupy space.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: It forced her body to repeatedly execute
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: the exact physical posture she had been avoiding for years.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Shoulders back, spine straight.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Neck long, eyes up.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother basically outsourced the correction to an environment
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: where taking up maximum room wasn't just allowed.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was the fundamental requirement of being there.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: She had to take her full height hour after hour, year after year.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: She was essentially using the architecture of classical dance to overwrite
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: a neurological habit of shrinking.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is so smart.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: that childhood muscle memory creates this really fascinating cognitive dissonance
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: when your environment suddenly flips later in life.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can train the posture of the body,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: but the mind's narrative takes much longer to catch up.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually, Julia grows into an adult.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: She is 1.77 meters tall, which is about 5 foot 9, definitely taller than average for a woman.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then she moves to Italy.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And crossing that border completely strips away all of her assumed cultural norms.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: In Italy, she encounters this local expression she had never heard before.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Italian phrase.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Altezza e mezza bellezza.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Which translates to?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: It means height is half of beauty.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is just, it really highlights how arbitrary our insecurities can be.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You literally just crossed an invisible geographic line and this physical trait
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: that you spent your formative years hunting over to hide is suddenly declared
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: a massive cultural advantage.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you were literally told that half the job of being beautiful is already done for you.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: If a perceived physical flaw can instantly become a standard of beauty just
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: by crossing a border, I mean,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: how much of our self-consciousness is entirely fabricated by our immediate zip code?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: That is exactly the question it forces us to ask.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: We evaluate ourselves based on the median average of our immediate surroundings.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Which is just human nature, I guess.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's an evolutionary instinct.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: In a tribal setting,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: standing out too much could mean exile or predation,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: so we naturally seek the median.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you are the tallest in your immediate group,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system actually registers that as a vulnerability.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then you move to a culture where that height is celebrated and
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: the vulnerability just vanishes.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because the length of her femurs didn't change at all.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Only the story projected onto them changed.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Only the story changed.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But here is the really tricky part that Julia points out.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just realizing your height is an asset doesn't magically erase the reflex
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: to accommodate other people.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, unfortunately it doesn't.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: She admits that even now, as a,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: confident adult,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: if she's walking beside a shorter friend,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: she will still occasionally catch herself dropping her shoulders
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: and lowering her stance.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that lingering physical reflex is so stubborn.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually serves as the bridge to the most complex part of her essay.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: The emotional stuff.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: She begins to notice that she doesn't merely bend her knees or drop her shoulders
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: to match the people around her.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: She does it with her emotional life, too.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the emotional audit she describes here is so universally recognizable.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've done it a hundred times.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So she outlines the scenario.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say you are having just a fantastic week.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Your relationship is thriving.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Work is deeply fulfilling.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: You are genuinely, truly happy.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then you sit down for coffee with a friend who is just in the absolute trenches.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Their life is falling apart.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is going right for them.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you sit down,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: you listen to their struggles,
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: and your brain immediately perceives this stark contrast in your emotional states.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Huge contrast.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you do?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: You instinctively begin scouring your own recent experiences for something negative to offer.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: You literally desperately search for a complaint.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: You find yourself saying,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: well, I'm just so exhausted lately or things are really stressful for me too.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: You try to match their energy.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: You don't outright lie because there is always something to complain about,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: but you deliberately curate your reality because looking at a struggling friend
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: and saying, I am actually profoundly happy right now, suddenly feels polite to hide.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: It feels offensive to say you're happy.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: You shrink your joy so it fits more comfortably into the room.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're just attempting to mitigate the disparity.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: You fear that your brightness will somehow make their darkness feel heavier.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I really want to push back on this a little bit or at least examine it closely.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: OK, yeah.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Where does empathy actually end and shrinking begin?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because reading the room feels like basic social intelligence, right?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: If my friend is crying over a divorce and I come in blasting the news
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: about my perfect romantic weekend, I am lacking basic compassion.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, of course.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is a really sharp distinction.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when you shrink your joy to appease their sorrow, you aren't practicing empathy anymore.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're managing your own anxiety about the contrast.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, so it's about my discomfort, not theirs.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're trying to engineer the emotional environment so that you don't feel guilty for thriving.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: True empathy is a bridge of connection,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: but emotional shrinking, that's a defense mechanism disguised as politeness.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, it's like being a biological thermostat
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: that is constantly just exhaustingly recalibrating itself to match the temperature
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: of whatever room it is placed in.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem with being that thermostat is the sheer amount of energy it requires.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: The drain on your energy is immense.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Over time,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: if you constantly slide your own emotional faders down to accommodate others,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: you lose access to your own upper register.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: You literally forget how to be happy out loud.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: You forget how to inhabit your own success without immediately,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know, appending an apology or a caveat to it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that exhaustion isn't just a metaphor.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: There is a physiological reason why managing other people's comfort drains your battery so much.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Which Julia discovers when she looks into behavioral science.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: She brings up the work of Vanessa Van Edwards here.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Vanessa Van Edwards is this brilliant behavioral researcher who studies
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: the physical cues of human emotion.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically what our bodies do under stress, right?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Under stress or insecurity.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And her findings give a biological framework to Julia's childhood habits.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: How so?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Van Edwards notes that when humans feel insecure,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: threatened,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: or out of place,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: our shoulders naturally creep upward toward our ears and our necks retract.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: We physically collapse the distance between our head and our torso.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: But like, why specifically the neck?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that our bodies go to move when we just feel socially uncomfortable?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: It is a primal evolutionary reflex.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Exposing your neck,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: which houses the jugular vein,
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: the carotid artery,
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: the windpipe that requires a state of profound psychological safety.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's so exposed.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is the most vulnerable part of the human anatomy.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: When your nervous system detects a threat,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Even if that threat is purely social awkwardness at a coffee shop.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't know the difference.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: It triggers a protective physical contraction.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Turtling,
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: as it's often called,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: is your biology attempting to shield your vital organs from a perceived predator.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Which instantly brings this entire concept full circle right back to classical ballet.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it does.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because the absolute baseline posture of ballet is shoulders pushed firmly down,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: neck elongated, head lifted high, and the throat exposed.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Ballet demands the physiological opposite of insecurity.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: It forces the body to signal complete vulnerability and absolute dominance
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: of space simultaneously.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: That completely reframes what we're doing when we emotionally shrink.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: If physical turtling is our body's way of protecting the neck,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: then emotional shrinking is how we try to protect our social standing.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly it.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me wonder,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: is something like upspeak where women raise their pitch at the end of a sentence
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: to make a statement sound like a question?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is that just the vocal equivalent of a hunched shoulder?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that is a phenomenal parallel.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Upspeak, vocal fry, or prefacing an opinion with like, I could be wrong, but.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: We hear that all the time.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: All the time.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all auditory forms of turtling.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: They are preemptive apologies for taking up auditory space.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Julia outlines this broad spectrum of shrinking beautifully.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: It radiates so far beyond physical height.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: It infects everything.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: It really does.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: She notes how women in particular will shrink their opinions to avoid being labeled
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: as difficult.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or they shrink their professional ambitions so they don't sound ridiculous or overly aggressive.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And they shrink their intelligence,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: especially if they are communicating in a second language out of fear of making
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: an error and drawing negative attention.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And like we discussed, they shrink their good news because someone else is struggling.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: We are just so culturally conditioned to smooth out the social friction
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: that we start emotionally slouching before we even cross the threshold of a room.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: We really do.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: We become whatever shape the room requires rather than the shape we actually are.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And returning to that thermostat analogy,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: operating that way requires a constant output of energy.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, taking up your natural space shouldn't require effort.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's a constant modulation, the constant shrinking that drains your battery.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: But because we have practiced this contraction for decades,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: standing at our full height feels dangerously exposed.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Which brings us to the deeply resonant conclusion of Julia's life essay.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, looking back over 30 years,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: from the 10 year old girl at the back of the line to a woman approaching 40,
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: analyzing her own emotional reflexes, she arrives at this really powerful mandate.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: She does.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: She writes that perhaps every woman should experience a ballet class.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And she explicitly notes that this has nothing to do with learning how to dance, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: The choreography is totally irrelevant.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Purely irrelevant.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: It is purely about the physical mandate of the room.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Every woman deserves to experience what it feels like
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: to spend one hour being explicitly instructed to take her full height.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: To physically open her chest rather than contracting it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: To lift her eyes away from the floor.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And to stop apologizing,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: whether with her words or her posture,
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: for the sheer volume of space she occupies in the world.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is a stunning reframing of her mother's intervention.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the time it was just about, you know, fixing a young girl's spine.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: But decades later, it reveals itself as a masterclass in holding your ground.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Stand up.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Drop your shoulders.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lengthen your neck.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lift your eyes.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Claim the height you were given.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Claim the height you were given.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: At 10 years old, her body needed to teach her to manually remind her how to do that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: At 40, she is realizing she has to actively remind her own mind.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because the alternative is spending the next half
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: of your life continually modifying your own dimensions
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: to ensure you never accidentally brush up against someone else's comfort zone.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that is just an exhausting way to live.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: It truly is.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is an essay that demands to be read in its entirety because
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: the nuance Julia captures here is just remarkable.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to explore it for yourself,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: definitely search for how much of yourself have you shrunk to fit in?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: It will genuinely change how you walk into your next conversation.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: It really is a masterclass in using self-observation to unravel a societal habit.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So as we close out this deep dive, let's think beyond just ourselves and our own habits.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about the physical toll,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: the emotional exhaustion, and the behavioral science of making ourselves smaller.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to leave you with a different angle to mull over as you go about your week.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a parent, an aunt, an uncle, or a mentor, consider this.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: The children in our lives don't just inherit our genetics, they inherit our posture.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: When you subconsciously shrink your joy to appease a room,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: or when you physically turtle your shoulders because you feel intimidated,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: who is watching you do it?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And by making yourself smaller,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: what are you silently giving them permission to do to themselves?