Leave some room for you

Nobody ever sat me down and said it. I doubt anyone sat you down either. We didn't need telling, instead we picked it up the way you pick up an accent.

For other people's moods. Their plans, their needs, their feelings, their opinion of you. Move the diary. Keep the peace. Be easy-going. Say it's fine when it isn't.

Women have been told this for as long as anyone can remember. A good woman accommodates. She bends so that other people don't have to, and the highest compliment, the one we're raised to want more than almost anything, is: she's no bother, low maintenance.

(And it is at this point, in the spirit of Halloween season and a little humour, that I want to highlight the film Gone Girl: the whole premise is on the horror of her being a cool girl, low maintenance, easy going. Well, if you have seen that you know how that turned out. So.. with that in mind!)

It's rarely anything big, that's the whole trick of it.

It's whatever suits you. It's apologising when someone else bumps into you. It's reading the room before you've had a chance to read yourself. It's taking the wobbly chair, the last slot, the smaller slice. It's shrinking your plans so they fit round everyone else's. It's carrying the invisible list that sits like a little guide on your shoulder: the birthdays, the appointments, what's for tea — so nobody else has to think about it.

None of it looks like much on its own. It happens a hundred times a day, in tiny adjustments, so it doesn't look like anything at all. Until one day you add it all up and realise there's very little of the day, or the diary, or the house, or the conversation, that's shaped around you.

I don't say any of this to blame anyone. The women who came before us held whole families and communities together this way, and often it wasn't a choice. Accommodating was a skill, sometimes it was survival.

It's worth noting that plenty of it is lovely. Warmth. Generosity. Being the person who notices when someone's struggling and quietly makes space for them. Those are real strengths, and I'd never want to talk anyone out of them.

The trouble is when it's the only setting, when it isn't something you offer, it's something that's expected, when you can't not do it without feeling like you've done something wrong.

Still with me?

Here's where I see it most, in the rooms and in the replies.

When you're in the middle of a transition, a new chapter, an ending, a body that's changing, a life that's asking something different of you, you need room. That's what The Hollowing is: the gap between who you were and who you're becoming, room being made for what comes next.

The old reflex kicks straight in. You start accommodating everyone else's reaction to you changing and you make the change smaller, so it doesn't inconvenience anyone. You keep it quiet and tidy. You apologise for not being quite who you used to be. You make sure everybody else is comfortable with the new you before you've even had a chance to meet her.

A hollow tree makes space in its middle, and that space becomes shelter for whatever needs it, but if you fill your hollow straight back up with everyone else's needs, there's no room left for what's trying to grow in you.

I want to put this as plainly as I can.

You were taught to make room. Nobody ever said you had to leave none for yourself.

Accommodating can be a gift you give, it doesn't have to be a job description. You get to choose when and for whom — and you get to be accommodated too. Other people are, as it turns out, perfectly capable of moving their diary for you.

This isn't about swinging to the other extreme overnight. The reflex took a lifetime to build so be kind to yourself about how long it takes to loosen.

A few places to begin: Listen for "it's fine". Next time you hear yourself say it, check. Is it? If not, you don't have to say anything different yet. Just notice.

Put a pause before yes. "Let me check and come back to you" is a totally reasonable sentence. It gives you time to ask what you want before you've agreed to what someone else does or wants.

Let someone else do the bending, once. One small thing this week where you don't smooth it over, don't rearrange, don't fill the silence. See what happens. Usually, far less than you'd feared.

Ask who's making room for you. Not as an accusation, but as a genuine question. Who in your life makes space for you and where could you let them do more of it? And when the guilt turns up, as it will, try this: guilt isn't always a sign you're doing something wrong, sometimes it's just a sign you're doing something new.

Where in your life are you accommodating out of habit rather than choice?

What would you do with the room, if you left some for yourself?

Who would you be, if you weren't always making sure everybody else was comfortable?

You're not being difficult. You're being here.