For a long time, I believed the problem was me.
I believed it because I was told—sometimes gently, sometimes cruelly—that I was too much. Too intense. Too emotional. Too driven. Too honest. I was told my presence made others feel inadequate, as if my light was something I should dim so they could feel comfortable standing beside me.
So I tried to become less.
I learned how to fold my needs inward. I learned how to quiet my excitement, temper my grief, soften my truth. I learned how to carry other people’s discomfort as if it were my responsibility. If someone felt small, I assumed I had taken up too much space.
Looking back, I see how deeply that shaped me.
In those relationships, I confused love with self-erasure. I confused compromise with disappearance. I thought being “easy to be with” meant abandoning the parts of myself that were inconvenient, powerful, or messy.
But growth has a way of revealing the cost.
Every time I made myself smaller, something in me went cold. The flame didn’t go out—it just learned to hide. And the crow, that inner voice that knows truth, grew quieter each time I ignored it in favor of keeping the peace.
What I’m learning now is this:
Someone else’s inadequacy is not proof of my excess.
My depth is not a flaw. My passion is not an attack. My healing, my ambition, my self-awareness do not exist to make anyone else feel less than. If my wholeness threatens a relationship, it was never asking me to be myself—it was asking me to be manageable.
Not making myself small doesn’t mean I stop caring about others. It means I stop betraying myself for their comfort. It means I choose honesty over harmony when harmony requires my silence.
I am allowed to take up space in my relationships.
I am allowed to grow, even if others do not.
I am allowed to outgrow people who only loved me when I was diminished.
This is not bitterness. This is clarity.
The crow does not pluck its feathers to soothe another bird’s insecurity.
The flame does not apologize for its heat.
So I am learning to stand in my full shape. To let my voice carry. To let my presence be what it is—neither sharpened nor softened for approval.
If that makes me “too much,” then perhaps I was never meant for small spaces.
And I am finally brave enough to choose spaces that can hold me.
Crow and Flame 