This morning, a bird started knocking on my door.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
So of course I looked. Because… what?
And for a second, I had that thought:
“Opportunity is knocking.”
Cute, right?
Except it wasn’t.
I opened the door to see what it was doing, and it turns out—it was pecking at the metal. At the reflection.
It wasn’t knocking for me.
It was reacting to itself.
At the same time, I’ve been getting irritated with someone staying nearby.
Slamming doors. Loud. Early.
And I caught myself getting really annoyed.
Not just “ugh, that’s inconsiderate” annoyed.
Something deeper.
And then it hit me:
I’m not actually mad about the noise.
I’m mad because I would never allow myself to take up space like that.
I’ve spent years being the one who:
- closes the door quietly
- moves carefully
- doesn’t disturb
- doesn’t inconvenience
- doesn’t draw attention
The “good” one.
The considerate one.
The one who stays just under the radar.
And somewhere along the way, that stopped being about respect…
and started being about disappearing.
So when someone else doesn’t do that?
When they just exist—loudly, fully, unapologetically?
It hits something.
Not because they’re wrong.
But because I’ve been holding myself to a standard that makes me smaller.
That’s the part no one really talks about.
We’re taught to be “good.”
But “good” often means:
- be quiet
- be easy
- be palatable
- don’t ruffle feathers
And that’s not goodness.
That’s conditioning.
And here’s the shift:
I don’t need to become loud or inconsiderate to reclaim myself.
But I do need to stop shrinking in the name of being acceptable.
The bird wasn’t knocking for me.
It was reacting to its own reflection.
And honestly?
So was I.
Somewhere in all of this is a version of me I haven’t fully allowed yet.
One who:
- takes up space
- speaks clearly
- doesn’t filter herself into invisibility
And maybe that’s what reclamation actually looks like.
Not becoming someone new.
But finally allowing who’s already there.
This is the kind of pattern I help people actually see—and shift.