Why do I want to force myself into spaces that do not want me or do not acknowledge what I offer? It is a question I have had to sit with honestly. The answer is not simple, but it is familiar.
I think I learned early on to earn my place. I learned to adjust, to overextend, to prove. I learned to read the room before I entered it and decide who I needed to be in order to stay. When you grow up feeling slightly outside of something—outside of understanding, outside of protection, outside of ease—you become skilled at squeezing yourself into gaps that were never designed for you.
You convince yourself that if you just try harder, speak clearer, shine brighter, they will finally see you. You tell yourself that being overlooked is temporary, that acknowledgment is just one more effort away. So you offer more. You explain more. You shrink and stretch at the same time.
But there is a quiet exhaustion that comes from constantly auditioning for belonging.
What makes this realization even more striking is that I have experienced the opposite before. My grandmother’s church held me. It stretched me and made space for me. I did not fully understand it at the time, and I do not think I saw it clearly either, but it was there. I was not performing for acceptance. I was simply present. There was room for my voice, my questions, my growing. No one asked me to shrink in order to fit.
I think that is why forcing myself into misaligned spaces feels so heavy now. I have known what it feels like to be welcomed without condition. I have known what it feels like to be seen without having to overexplain myself.
I have done enough forcing growing up. I do not want to do that anymore.
I do not want to sit at tables where my presence is tolerated but not valued. I do not want to share ideas that land in silence. I do not want to question whether I am too much or not enough in rooms that were never aligned with me to begin with.
I want to experience people and places that want me around. I want to feel the difference between being included and being invited. I want to speak and know that someone is genuinely listening, not just waiting for their turn to talk. I want to offer what I can do without attaching a performance to it.
There is a difference between growth and self-abandonment. Growth challenges you, but it does not erase you. The spaces meant for you will stretch you without silencing you. They will recognize your offerings without requiring you to beg for visibility.
The truth is, forcing yourself into the wrong spaces can start to distort your self-perception. If you are repeatedly unseen, you may begin to believe you are invisible. If you are repeatedly unheard, you may start to doubt your voice. But sometimes the issue is not your value. It is the environment.
Not every room is equipped for you. Not every audience is capable of understanding your language. And that is not a personal failure. It is misalignment.
I am learning that walking away from spaces that do not acknowledge me is not rejection. It is discernment. It is choosing reciprocity over performance. It is deciding that my presence is not something I need to convince others to appreciate.
Instead of asking why they do not see me, I am beginning to ask why I keep choosing places that do not. And I am also asking myself where I have already been held before, where I was allowed to unfold naturally.
Maybe the goal is not to force new rooms to make space for me. Maybe the goal is to find, and create, spaces that feel like my grandmother’s church once did—steady, open, and wide enough for who I am becoming.
