Leah Haslage

How I stopped shrinking myself to make other people comfortable

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us were told we were “too much.”

Too loud. Too emotional. Too dramatic. Too opinionated. Too ambitious.

That little word “too” does a lot of damage.

Because it doesn’t just say you are something. It says you are something in excess. Like your personality came with the volume knob turned too high.

But here’s the confusing part.

Sometimes the message wasn’t that we were too much. Sometimes it was that we were not enough.

Not confident enough. Not polished enough. Not calm enough. Not impressive enough.

Somehow we were always on the wrong side of the dial. Too big in one moment. Too small in another.

And the really tricky part? Sometimes the exact same qualities that made you “too much” in one room suddenly became the thing people praised you for in another.

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My Voice

One of my earliest memories of this cycle involves my literal voice.

I loved to sing as a kid. Loudly. Dramatically. Probably constantly.

My dad used to joke that I sounded like a dying cat.

You laugh those things off when you’re little because that’s what kids do when adults tease them. But somewhere in the back of your mind, you file it away: maybe my voice is annoying.

Then something confusing happened.

In second grade, I was chosen to sing a solo at church. Suddenly the same voice that had been mocked was being praised. People told me I did a beautiful job. I remember feeling proud, but also a little confused. Like I wasn’t quite sure which version of the feedback I was supposed to believe.

Then came the next solo.

This one was at the mayor’s funeral. I was in second or third grade, in a church full of people, trying to sing while my entire nervous system was basically screaming.

Of course my voice sounded nervous. I was nervous. I was a kid singing at a mayor’s funeral.

But when I got back to school, some kids made fun of me for it.

Kids can be ruthless when they sense someone standing out. Even back then, part of me suspected it was probably jealousy. But that doesn’t mean the comments didn’t stick.

And if I’m being honest, I thought they were a dick for it for a long time.

Still do.

By that point the pattern had already started to form: mocked, praised, mocked again.

When that cycle repeats itself enough times, you start to wonder if maybe the safest option is just… quieter. Not because that’s who you are. But because you start learning that being fully yourself might come with a cost.

That was probably one of the first times I started turning down the volume on myself before anyone else had the chance to.

The Dial Keeps Moving

Here’s the thing about that kind of conditioning — it doesn’t stay in childhood. It grows up with you.

It just shows up in new rooms.

At work. In friendships. In relationships. Online.

Suddenly you’re not being told you’re too loud on a playground anymore. You’re being told you’re too ambitious. Too opinionated. Too visible.

Or the flip side: not confident enough. Not polished enough. Not strategic enough.

The message stays the same: adjust yourself.

And I did. For a long time, I got very good at reading a room. I could feel when my energy was making someone uncomfortable, and I’d instinctively pull back. Tone it down. Soften the edges. Make myself easier to digest.

It becomes a survival skill.

But survival skills are designed to keep you safe, not heard.

The target was always moving. One room thinks you’re perfect. The next barely looks up from the table. One casting director wants exactly what another one rejects. One workplace celebrates enthusiasm; another treats it like a threat.

I spent years trying to calibrate myself to all of them.

It’s exhausting. And the truth is… it never actually works.

Because when you spend your energy constantly adjusting the dial, you slowly lose track of where it naturally sits.

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The Voice That Stayed

Here’s the funny part.

The voice I worried about for so long is now the very thing I use for a living.

Every week I sit behind a microphone and talk to people. Sometimes thousands of listeners.

The thing that once felt like it needed to be toned down became the exact thing that opened doors. Which feels a little poetic, because that voice never actually disappeared. It just needed a room where it didn’t feel judged.

It wasn’t until I was 39, going through a divorce, that I started doing the kind of inner work that forces you to look at yourself honestly. And once I did, I could finally see it — the shrinking, the hesitation, the quiet ways I had been editing myself for years.

Once I saw it, it felt like a fog lifting.

The Better Question

For most of my life, I thought the goal was to figure out how to adjust myself to fit the room.

But the better question isn’t how do I fit here?

The better question is: Does this room work for me?

Because the goal isn’t to make yourself smaller so you fit everywhere.

The goal is to find the places where you don’t have to shrink at all. Where the things that once made you feel like “too much” are simply… you. And maybe even exactly what the room needed all along.

Turns out I wasn’t too much.

I just hadn’t found the right room yet.

xoxo, Leah

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Some weeks I’m unpacking something heavy like this. Other weeks I’m linking you to my favorite carry-on or recapping a trip where I did yoga at 10am and tequila at 10:15. Subscribe below and come hang out.