Stop Shrinking. The Permission You've Been Waiting For Was Always Yours with Zara Okafor | E28

Sherry Brooks

Zara — I want to start with a question that might sound simple but I promise it isn't. When you say women shrink themselves, what do you actually mean? Because I think there are a lot of women listening who would say "I'm not afraid to speak up" and still be doing exactly what you're describing without realizing it.

Zara Okafor

That's exactly it. Shrinking isn't always silence. That's the version we notice — the woman who won't speak in the meeting, who won't send the email, who smiles and nods when she wants to say no. But there is a much quieter, much more pervasive version. It's the woman who says something brilliant and then immediately follows it with "but I don't know, maybe I'm wrong." It's the one who deflects every compliment so fast she doesn't even let herself feel it for a second. It's the one who knows the answer but phrases it as a question so nobody is threatened by her knowing. These women are often perceived as confident. They are in the room. They are speaking. And they are still, constantly, managing how much of themselves they allow to land.

Sherry Brooks

Managing how much of themselves they allow to land. That is — okay I need a moment with that. Because I have done that. I have absolutely done that. So where does it come from?

Zara Okafor

It almost always comes from a place that once made complete sense. Somewhere early — in childhood, in a classroom, in a family, in a community — you received a message, spoken or unspoken, that your full size was too much. Too loud. Too ambitious. Too confident for a girl. Too assertive for someone from your background. And you were smart. You adapted. You learned to edit yourself in real time because it kept things safe, kept people comfortable, kept relationships intact. That adaptation was intelligent. It served you. And then you grew up — and the adaptation stayed. It became invisible because it became constant. And now you're a grown woman with a business and a vision and real things to say, still running an editing process in the background that you never consciously installed.

Sherry Brooks

An editing process you never consciously installed. That is one of the most clarifying things I have ever heard on this podcast. So how do you uninstall it?

Zara Okafor

First you have to see it. Which is harder than it sounds because it is so automatic. So I built the Shrink Audit — seven questions that are designed to surface the specific places and people and contexts where you are still running the old program. I'll share a few of them now. The first one: think about the last time you had something to say and didn't say it. Who was in the room? That person or that type of person is telling you something about where your editing process is still active. The second: where do you apologise the most — and is there a pattern in the situations or the people? Over-apologising is one of the clearest signals of shrinking because it is preemptive. You are apologising for your own existence before anyone has even complained about it.