Shero Cafe Podcast

040 - Invisible No More - Reclaiming Your Space

• Deborah Edwards and Debbie Pearson

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Have you ever found yourself shrinking in a room full of people—dimming your own light before anyone else had the chance? That stops today.

The journey to authentic self-expression begins with reclaiming your sass, spunk, and soul.

We share powerful stories about transformative moments—whether it’s having the courage to ask for help when we normally wouldn’t, or recognizing times in professional settings when we gave away our power. These moments, big or small, are part of reclaiming your right to take up space without apology.

Because just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it should be done that way in your life now. You get to decide what stays and what goes.

Reclaiming yourself starts with noticing where you shrink, then taking small steps toward showing up fully. Over time, you build the ability to hold your space no matter who else is in the room—knowing their presence doesn’t diminish yours.

                           And for the Shero who wants to dig deeper ..
                    [grab your Reflection Sheet with Journal Prompts here]


Subscribe to Shero Café and join our movement to spread more self-care, more self-love, and more conversations that help you own your presence, speak up for yourself, and remember: you matter, and your space matters. Want to go deeper? Download the reflective questions and start standing powerfully in your truth.

#reclaimyourpower
#womenowningtheirvoice
#selfexpressionforwomen
#buildingselfconfidence
#standinginyourtruth
#personalgrowthforwomen 
#SelfWorthMatters
#NoMoreShrinking
#TakeUpSpace
#WomenSupportingWomen
#SpeakYourTruth 
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#EmpoweredWomenEmpowerWomen
#HighValueWoman
#LeadFromWithin
#UnstoppableWoman 
#SheroCafe
#OwnYourSpace
#ReclaimYourVoice
#StandInYourPower
#WomenWhoLead
#AuthenticPresence
#BoldAndUnapologetic
#SassSpunkSoul
#SelfTrustFirst
#LiveYourHighestGood 

Thank you so much for the likes, love, and comments you leave. Not only does it mean the world to us, it helps other women who need to hear it be able to find it.

#womenempoweringwomen
#youmatter
#makeadifference


---CONNECT with Shero Cafe---
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---CONNECT with Deborah Edwards---
Let's Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deborah.edwards.372
Self Care Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/624202641785785
Website: https://gratefulom.life/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahedwards-selfcarecoach/

---CONNECT with Debbie Pearson---
Website: https://www.debbiepearson.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbiepearsoncoach/
Email: deb@debbiepearson.com

Debbie:

Welcome to the Shiro Cafe. This episode is about how to stand fully in who you are and own every inch of your presence. This is about reclaiming your sass, spunk and soul and showing up in a way that makes your presence undeniable. You're not waiting for permission or invitation. You matter and your space matters. Permission or invitation you matter and your space matters. Before we go any further, please subscribe to our channel. Not only do we really appreciate it, but it helps support our mission to get the word out to other women.

Deborah:

Wow, I just love this subject. It is so interesting. When I think about this subject, I think about how many times I kicked myself out of the room. Before I got kicked out of the room. It's like, oh you know, these people are too whatever and you don't belong here, you're not good enough, you're not whatever enough, and you know.

Deborah:

And instead of just standing in my own power, in my own space and I remember many times, especially in the corporate environment and you know many of the social environments that I was in where I would be the only whatever or even just not the only, but I would be the only me and would just kind of shrink, shrink back a little bit to not really step in and step up and defer to whoever and just advocate my power, advocate my space and I am looking at Deborah Edwards now and how I claim my space fully. I don't advocate my space, I advocate for myself. You are not going to get me to do your job of beating me up. You're going to have to do the work and if that's your intention, then you're going to be facing somebody that's fully present, fully aware of her power and fully aware of her right to hold space in the room.

Debbie:

Like that, that is so powerful. You started by saying kicking myself out, and it's like holy cow, like that really hit me. Like how many times do we actually kick ourselves out before someone else quote unquote has the chance? But we do seemingly seem to maybe get off that vibe or set ourselves up, or whatever the words are where we actually go. Let me just, without consciously thinking it, maybe we just kind of shrink to the side and allow that other person. And then you said something else that I felt your power, I felt your presence, and it was about how I gave myself permission. I don't know if you use that exact words, but you were like you know, I stand up for myself. Now it was like, wow, it just felt incredibly powerful. Deborah, that was beautiful. So, yeah, thank you for sharing that.

Debbie:

Um, it's, it is challenging how we, for whatever reason, get to the place where we don't really know how to stand up for ourselves. We don't really know how to like stand sturdy, we don't really know how to own our power. I like that. What I see now is you lead from that fire within, you know, and and it shows like that was just powerful, I don't know it's clear that with time your wisdom grew and it's like you didn't need or want I'm not really sure of the right word but where you maybe used to look for approval or validation. I mean, I know that you don't anymore, but obviously there came a point where you went. That's it. That's enough, not doing that anymore.

Deborah:

Right, because what I was wanting to do is reclaim. Right, because what I was wanting to do is reclaim. First of all, you became aware, an employee we're going to defer to whoever has the highest title in the room. That's just the way our society is set up. Until you get to a place where you're like wait, this whole stuff is set up against me. I'm not playing, I'm not going to set myself up.

Debbie:

Exactly, and if you get into the right relationship, it's like you find that you're able to co-lead. You know, sometimes one person will know more about a topic subject and they should be the lead for that, but then they step back in their place and when something else comes up, the other person might be and they step in and you know it's just more. Um, what's the word I'm looking for?

Deborah:

It's a it's harmonious, harmonious, harmonious, you know, because you know, if I am sitting here and making myself small in a room and not saying, yeah, I know my stuff and I have something to offer to this, you know what, who, that doesn't serve. It doesn't serve me and it doesn't serve the world either. It doesn't serve the organization, it doesn't serve my relationship with my husband because, just like you said, there are things that I'm better at than maybe what another member of my family is better at, and if I keep myself small, then neither one of us are getting the benefit of that. And so if you allow yourself to be your full self, to be present and to share all of your gifts and to have that, um, that confidence in your gifts, then you're lifting up the rest of the world too, right, and those around you.

Debbie:

Absolutely. I feel like as I live my life from my highest good, even though it may upset or annoy or challenge someone else. When you step far enough back, it's like you can see that the reason that they're upset, for whatever reason, is a little bit of a control or they're not quite living their highest good and they don't want you to change, or they there's something that they're trying to hold on to, and so sometimes living our highest good means that we've shifted and changed, and it shifts and change the dynamic. Some people get really scared about that, but if we stay with our highest self, what we end up learning is that is the highest good for everyone involved. Exactly, trust is so. In the beginning of the um intro I said something about um reclaiming your sass, spunk and soul. So you know, sometimes, especially if you grew up this way, being sassy was a bad thing oh yeah being spunky was like a calm down child, right, and you even use the word soul.

Debbie:

If you grew up in a religious household, that could have been like sacrilegious and you were put down for that. So I would like to kind of like just give a little idea of what we're talking about, because reclaiming your sass, spunk and soul is actually just a really beneficial thing. So your sass would be your boldness, but in an assertive, not an aggressive way. So no BS. And when I say no BS, I'm talking about being authentic, because if we're not being authentic and we're not being true to ourselves, then nobody's getting the best of us, including ourselves. Spunk is like your spark, your joy, your playfulness. That's awesome. We should have more of that. That is amazing. And if we're not doing that, maybe look at why we're not doing it. What can we possibly do to shift that? And then your soul is your deep knowing. It's your intuition and your sacred truth.

Deborah:

And I would add a couple of things to those Like spunk. Spunk is your sense of adventure, this you know. Okay, I'm gonna, you know I'm gonna do this, I'm just gonna go for it, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna. It's like gumption to me, that gumption, that, and that's an old word, but you know I've got to resolve. Yeah, conviction, that's an old word, but you know I've got to resolve. Yeah, conviction, yeah, conviction, yeah. And so I really really like that. And I have a, a, a story that I can tell.

Deborah:

Nice, I was at, you know, I am I, I I lead, I am a leader in an organization called Be Present. Yes, and one of the things that we have is a annual retreat for the black and female, and I just got off of this weekend retreat and I was, you know, kind of riding the high of everything and the empowerment and all of this. You know kind of riding the high of everything and the empowerment and all of this. Sure, and I was in a, in a cafeteria, and there was this man standing there I will say that he was an older gentleman and I was in the middle of a, a certain County in Georgia, that, and you know, and I'll just leave that there.

Deborah:

And I needed some help with something and I typically would have just never asked this person. And I just looked at this guy. I'm like, hey, can you help me do this? And you know, and before I would have been like, oh, I'm not going to ask that guy, you know, that's that's then. But I asked him to help me and guess what he helped me? Oh, he was happy to help me do it. And that's the story of, first of all, having the sass, the gumption, the um, resolve. I I guess I don't even know what it was, but just feeling like I have a space in the room, I have equal space in the room and if I deserve, if I want to ask for help, I deserve to ask for that help.

Debbie:

Absolutely. I mean, if he would have said no, you would have been okay. I mean you would have just moved on. But I think what it is is as, as we become more comfortable with who we are and we're more authentic, we're not as concerned about what they say. And I think that shows, and that's what I'm talking about. It's not the energy of well, you know, like a kind of whiny or can you please help me like we're victims or we're exactly.

Debbie:

I don't want to use that word because but we're less, we're we're. What was? What is it that you said earlier, taking myself out the room, you know? To me would not normally have in the past. And then here this person. I don't know, were you surprised when he said yes, or were you just, like I, expected him to say yes and that's why yeah.

Deborah:

I just kind of I didn't even care, you know, I just was in the moment. But then this is what I equate self love and self care. Quick self-love and self-care Absolutely Is advocating for yourself, loving yourself so that you find out what your needs are in the moment. You're taking up all of your space. Here's my need in the moment. I deserve to have my need met and let's look around and see who can help me or if I need to do something different to get my need met.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing that we grow up with certain rules and they become habits, that we act a particular way so that we're following that rule that was made by, I just say, the others. So that's usually an authority figure of some sort, whether it's a parent, a teacher or whatever. So that's usually an authority figure of some sort, whether it's a parent, a teacher or whatever and that authority figure expects us to follow the rules they set, and so we kind of end up boxing ourselves in to make sure we follow that rule. And then we go somewhere else and then they have another rule, and another rule, and another rule, and so we're like boxing ourselves into this little tiny, little minuscule thing of who we actually are, because we're trying to follow all those rules.

Debbie:

I heard a saying no, I read it, but it doesn't matter. But there was a saying that came into my life in my mid thirties and it made such a huge impact for me. I had moved away from my home state, you know, living within an hour of my parents. Okay, I moved away from that state after 30 something years, mid thirties, and being in another state, like 600 miles away, was like the first time I'd ever experienced that much distance and it was very freeing because I didn't have to worry every day Would my parents show up or am I not doing it the right way? Even though those weren't really conscious thoughts, that was just part of life because that's what I'd always lived.

Debbie:

But this saying came and I cut it out. It was in a magazine. You remember those things, those paper things we used to look at? And it said something like just because things were done a particular way in the house you grew up in, doesn't mean you have to continue doing them in the house you live in now.

Debbie:

And when I tell you for me I mean it was like mind blown, like blown for the first time that it was like that statement gave me permission to say I can do things differently, like somehow, that's OK. I cut it out, I taped it to the wall like I wanted to see that every day because it really opened something up inside of me day, because it really opened something up inside of me. So it's like how are we behaving today? Even that is a way that maybe we're doing it because we're still around the people we love, we're not trying to bash them, but maybe that's not our, maybe that's not how we really want to be, and maybe take a look at that and say am I doing that because I just that's just what I've always done, or am I doing that because I really choose that?

Deborah:

So, yeah, yeah, I mean I totally get that and you know, and you know, when you were talking about that, saying that meant so, and presence to where you are right now, but making choices, that I guess the thing that I want to say is that it all begins with awareness. Just start looking at those situations to start saying, okay, you know where am I situations? To start saying, okay, you know, where am I, you know, presenting myself smaller than where I am? Where am I not getting my voice out? Where am I not showing up? And just begin by just looking at those and seeing how you can maybe make a different decision in those moments, you know.

Debbie:

Absolutely. I mean even like clothing. I can remember just being around family members and I would just hear these these little judgments and I would hear something like oh, I think she's getting a little too heavy to wear those pants, right and just, and not thinking whether they were good, bad, right or wrong that they said that, but internalizing that to go oh, I better be careful about the pants I wear because I might be judged, like that became part of every time I went to buy a new pair of pants or whatever clothing or whatever I was doing. I was filtering that thought because I heard that from people I loved and we don't, you know anyway. So but it's like just to look at.

Debbie:

And then there came a point not that I'm going to be on a, I was going to spend a Walmart cam and I was going to spend a Walmart cam. You know, it's not that I'm going to be, you know, stepping out into public and weird clothes that even I wouldn't do. But it was like taking a look and going why am I so concerned that they may judge with that? And then just finding the clothes that feel right for me or whatever. It is the car or the friends or whoever I'm hanging out with, whatever, because I did shrink, I did become invisible, I had I guess you could say I allowed. I didn't realize I was allowing it, but I allowed, I made the agreement with myself that.

Debbie:

I'm going to let their words dictate how I am. And so, yep, that happened in family, that happened at work, that happened in family, that happened at work, that happened everywhere in my life, until it did.

Deborah:

Let me just okay. I know we're coming to the end of this episode, but this just brought something up to me that was just just a recollection of my sassy young self.

Deborah:

I like to used to wear short shorts when I was younger and I was working out in the yard with my mom and one and my boyfriend comes up and my mom says, dave, don't you think those shorts are a little short? And he said, yes, I do, she shouldn't be wearing shorts like that. Guess where Dave was the next day? Not my boyfriend, you know. So situations like that you got to stand up for yourself and just notice. You know, when somebody's you know trying to make you small, or when you're making yourself small and advocate for yourself, stand up for yourself. But that was when I was like 15. I don't wear short shorts anymore for obvious reasons. But the thing is, I can think of all of those examples where I did that and when I'm thinking about us today, when we're wanting to move from, you know, from being that person that kicks herself out of the room before anybody else. It's baby steps.

Debbie:

Yes.

Deborah:

That's, you know. Just find one area. I remember this organization just a couple of years ago that I belong to and I was afraid to speak, you know, and so then I just took the risk and said, okay, I'm going to speak, and it was well-received, and then I felt comfortable to speak again and I kept speaking and there were times when I had I was challenged and then I welcomed the challenge. So, just trying these little baby steps to try to move you towards more expressing who you really are and more expressing or allowing yourself to take up your space, your full space in the room, in full presence.

Debbie:

So I have to like maybe push back a little bit on that story or maybe just ask a question, because I'm looking back at my own experience where I was in a room of full of people and I had a question.

Debbie:

These people I considered to be I'm going to use the word above, but meaning it in the way that they knew more about this topic than I did, right, so they were knowledgeable and I was a little afraid that my question was not going to be received well, so I was a little nervous about it, but I wanted the answer and so I started to ask the question and the moderator just talked right over me and acted like I didn't say a word and just kept going, and it was not a good experience for me. I really shut down. It like turned my stomach. I just felt horrible and small, but I did the thing that you know the good little girls are supposed to do the compliance and you know. And that was just nod and smile the rest of the time, and then I never wanted to go back because it was just horrible. As soon as it was over, I was like out of there.

Debbie:

Yeah, so did you have some bad experiences that brought you to walk to the place where you could stand on your own two feet, cause you said something about baby steps to the place where you could stand on your own two feet, because you said something about baby steps.

Deborah:

Yes, yes, yes. Because no, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows and all of that, because there was having to get past that fear, which was the first thing. And then, when someone took up their space in the room, I had to feel like them taking up their space in the room wasn't taken away from my space, oh nice so they could.

Deborah:

They could challenge me, they could whatever, and that didn't mean anything about me. I still had the ability to hold my space. But it took me a while to get there. Yeah, because every time someone challenged me or whatever, I felt like, oh I better back on, you know. So then you build that, you build that, you build that. I don't have to back off, I can stay in my space and accept whatever comes.

Debbie:

So the thing you talked about just now is the awareness part. We just paid attention to what was going on people too which brings to mind before we go that, um, we have some questions. If you guys want to, um, download, uh, some reflective questions and we'll the Shiro in you. Yes, bye, bye everybody.

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Debbie Pearson

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Deborah Edwards

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