Self-care Isn't Enough When You're
Still Shrinking Yourself
And we need to talk about
why so many of us still are
There’s a moment many of us know too well:
You’re in a room — a meeting, a family gathering, a classroom, a group chat — and someone says something that slices deep. A microaggression. A dismissal. A flattening of your experience.
You feel it in your body.
Your throat tightens. Your stomach drops.
But you say nothing.
Not because you don’t have words — but because you’ve spent years learning that your words come at a cost.
Maybe you’ll be labeled difficult.
Or angry.
Or ungrateful.
Maybe you’ll be punished — directly or subtly — for not playing along.
So instead of speaking, you swallow it.
And they call it resilience.
We’ve been praised for our ability to endure.
For how well we hold it together.
For how we show up with grace in the face of disrespect.
For how we “don’t let it get to us.”
But the truth is — it does get to us.
It gets into our bones.
Into our nervous systems.
Into our relationships and our rest and our journals and our dreams.
We don’t just shrink ourselves in public.
We shrink ourselves in private.
Even in the spaces that are supposed to belong to us.
This isn’t just about discomfort.
It’s about survival.
Most of us didn’t choose silence — we adapted to it.
We learned to read the room.
We learned that taking up less space meant we were less likely to be hurt, harassed, or humiliated.
It was a protection strategy.
A smart one.
A necessary one.
But it came at a cost.
Now, even when the danger has passed, we find ourselves stuck in the pattern.
Quieting.
Numbing.
Avoiding.
And then wondering why we feel so far from ourselves.
Mainstream self-care doesn’t address this.
We are sold candles and face masks and mindset tips.
But no one’s talking about the emotional violence of always being “on guard.”
No one’s talking about the labor of code-switching, people-pleasing, second-guessing every word we speak.
Most self-care advice wasn’t built for women like us.
It wasn’t built for women who’ve been told they’re “too much” and “not enough” in the same breath.
It wasn’t built for women who are exhausted from carrying the weight of generational survival and daily micro-erasure.
Here’s what I believe:
True self-care is not a luxury. It is a reclamation.
It’s not about feeling better in the moment — it’s about reclaiming what was stolen:
- Your voice
- Your boundaries
- Your rest
- Your agency
- Your full presence in your own *darn* life
This kind of care doesn’t come from a checklist.
It comes from a conscious decision to stop performing resilience.
To stop managing exhaustion and call it “strength.”
To stop silencing yourself in your own story.
At And Yet She Thrived, we do that reclamation work together.
We journal.
We reflect.
We get honest.
We return to ourselves, one page at a time.
This isn’t pretty, polished self-help.
This is liberation work disguised as a writing practice.
This is radical self-care for women who have spent too long in survival mode.
If you’re ready to come home to yourself…
Start with the Courageous Living ebook.
It’s not a set of affirmations — it’s a call to action.
It’s where we begin to unpack, unlearn, and unfurl — together.
You don’t need permission.
You need a path.
🖤
—Toya
Founder, And Yet She Thrived
Courageous Living:
Radical Self-Care
for Everyday Power
In a world where everyone seems to want something from you, when was the last time you paused to care for yourself? When did you give yourself the time and attention you truly deserve?
It's time to change that.
Welcome to Courageous Living: Radical Self-Care for Everyday Power—your guide to reclaiming your strength, clarity, and peace.
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