I Thought This Was Growth… Why Do I Feel Smaller?

Live Class Recording - Many women believe love means growing together — until they realise they’ve grown quieter, smaller, and more careful instead.
In this session, I explain the inner dialogue that convinces you that merging equals intimacy, how self-expansion quietly turns into self-erosion, and the subtle behaviours that signal you’re disappearing.
You’ll leave with clarity on how to stay connected without losing yourself in the process.

Transcript

Today's topic is,

I thought this was gross,

Why do I feel smaller?

And I see this,

I just,

I had a client just last week,

A one-on-one client,

And I'm giving you that example later.

But first,

We want to define what do we mean by that?

So,

I've written down,

Love means growing together.

Often couples have that idea that we grow together,

That we develop together,

That we become spiritual together.

It has to be together.

But the question is,

From the self-growth lens,

How do you define growing together?

So,

Does it mean we learn a tool together and we use it?

Does it mean,

For example,

You're doing a communication course on how to communicate in your relationship,

And then you're expecting from the other person and from yourself to use that?

Is that what growing together means?

Is it maybe both opening up emotionally,

That kind of growing together?

So,

There are different options of what growing together could look like for you and for your partner.

But before you go into,

Oh,

I thought we grow together,

And now I feel smaller,

Define for yourself what does that actually look like?

What did I mean by that?

What expectations were in my head when I thought that?

What do I carry now with me?

So,

We want to be clear on that.

How does it look like?

And it's like when you set a goal,

You define your goal clearly with a SMART.

You probably know the SMART goal setting.

You need to be specific.

That's the first part.

Be specific.

How does it look like?

Because if you don't know what does it look like,

You don't know when you have reached it.

That's why we want to define for ourselves,

Clarify with the partner,

What does it look like?

And like I said,

Just the other day,

Just last week,

I had a client and she,

It was literally this topic.

And she said,

Now here's what she did.

She was in a relationship and she thought she's doing everything really good.

But for some reason,

She felt smaller.

She felt like being more careful about what she said,

How she behaved around her partner,

When to talk to him and when not to talk to him.

So,

She was getting very sensitive,

But in a way that she wasn't herself anymore.

And that's why we feel smaller because we're trying to fit in.

Now,

Here's what she did and why she thought I'm growing and you do this.

So,

We are growing.

They did a communication training from work.

They also bought books on relationship,

On how to communicate with your partner.

And then the expectation was there,

Okay,

We both know this now.

Let's do it.

Let's just keep that like script and talk according to this script with each other.

And he didn't take it that seriously,

But for her,

It was very important to grow,

To learn,

To improve the relationship.

So,

She felt compelled to stick to it,

To be more careful.

And she also learned to listen.

Again,

From work in these communication trainings and in other trainings,

In big corporates,

It's a big thing to learn to listen,

Be the listener,

Become the listener.

And other self-help books,

Listen,

Listen to your partner.

What do they say?

And apart from that,

She read many books and you might have done that as well.

Learned a lot of self-help stuff and trying to implement it in your relationship.

That's what she did.

And what happened is,

While she was growing,

She became more careful when and what she said.

That looked like in her specific case,

That she was looking,

How is he reacting?

He's coming home.

Okay.

What's his mood?

Can I say now that I'm not happy with his behavior?

Can I say now that what he said was hurting me?

She got very,

Very careful.

It's like treading on eggshells.

What can I say?

When can I say?

How is he?

And she was also like looking in her crystal ball,

Thinking to knowing the future that if I say this now,

He will react like that.

So,

She didn't say when she wasn't happy.

She didn't say when she was hurt by his behavior.

She just kept quiet waiting for the right moment because that's what she learned in her trainings in her self-help books.

What she also tried not to do is take things personally.

That's a big thing in self-help and relationship books.

Don't take things personally.

Easier said than done.

I'm fully aware of that because if your partner says something or does something,

You take it personally because you're the one who's hurt.

Why didn't they see that?

Why did they say that?

But she tried not to do it.

And what happened is,

Again,

She didn't say anything because his mood wasn't the right mood for now to tell him.

And she grew resentful.

And with resentment,

It's the thing.

It's a little bit here,

A little bit tomorrow,

A little bit the day after.

And it grows and grows and disconnects you emotionally.

But that was what happened by her trying not to take it personally,

Shaming,

Blaming herself when she took it personally.

And yet not communicating it to her partner because she was careful of his mood.

She also learned to show compassion towards her partner.

To like,

I explained to you with his mood,

How is his mood?

Can I talk to him now?

Oh,

He's stressed.

Maybe now is not a good time.

So she took over control,

Making a decision for her partner by judging what he's doing,

How he's behaving.

Okay,

Now it's not a good time.

Now I can't say.

Now I keep it to myself.

And then the and then the justification came.

Oh,

He's very tired now.

Now I can't talk to him.

Or if he behaved in a way that was hurtful to her.

Or yeah,

He was tired.

He was very annoyed.

Or he had stress in at work.

His manager was nasty to him.

Whatever she could find,

She justified it and also took it towards herself.

So the focus went on her.

So maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm not patient enough.

Maybe I'm the problem.

And with that,

She grew smaller in her confidence.

The self-doubt just grew and grew and grew.

Because she was so careful because she didn't talk because she didn't communicate at any point.

And the resentment grew.

And of course,

When the resentment towards your partner grows,

You're unhappy with yourself.

It's a cycle.

It works together.

And the disappointment grew and grew and grew because she also had expectations because he learns the same things.

He read the same books.

But he's not doing it.

And she explained to me,

Anna,

But I have to have standards.

My standards are high and they didn't fulfill my standards.

And I said,

I hear you.

But what about these standards if you don't have boundaries?

You can have as many standards and expectations as you want.

And I'm still voting for just leave your expectations somewhere.

Just don't take them with you.

But if you don't have the boundaries to say,

OK,

This is where it goes and not any further.

And now I'm reinforcing.

Now I'm acting.

If that doesn't happen,

Then you get in this cycle of,

Oh,

I learned so much or I'm growing.

But you feel smaller and smaller and smaller because you might have worked on your boundaries,

But no one taught you to reinforce that.

No one taught you how horrible it is when you have to sit with that uncomfortable feeling of when you reinforce your boundary.

Telling you a story,

You might have heard it if you've been in some of my lessons before,

You know this story,

But I'm telling it again.

So a couple of years ago,

We moved to China and my partner,

He had some event coming up and he needed a shirt.

And he doesn't have many because he usually doesn't need them.

So he said,

Oh,

Can you please wash my shirt?

I said,

Yeah,

Put it in the washing,

Get it out,

Hang it.

He came home and said,

Oh,

Your shirt is there.

You can iron it.

And he got very upset for me not ironing his shirt.

He said,

Why don't you do it?

You have the time.

You have the skills.

You can do it.

It's done within five minutes.

You're not supporting me.

You're a bad partner.

I feel left alone.

And hearing that from your partner,

That he takes that so personally and because you say no,

He says all of that.

That feels,

No,

I don't want it.

And he was so mad at me,

So disappointed in me.

He walked away and I was sitting there and I was thinking,

Yeah,

I could easily iron that shirt.

I have the skills.

I have the time.

I have all the equipment that I would need.

But I also know standing in front of that ironing board,

I would shame myself for not sticking to it because I don't want to do it.

So I didn't do it and he didn't talk to me for three days.

And that's the caveat that you get with your boundaries.

People will get upset very,

Very,

Very often because for him it was news that I'm not ironing his shirt.

I said it probably years before,

But it never came up since.

And he probably thought it's like,

Yeah,

She just said this.

But now the situation came.

Now I reinforce my boundary.

Now I stick to it.

And then you have to deal with the uncomfortable feeling of your partner not talking to you,

Your partner being mad at you,

Your partner thinking the most horrible things about you.

And that's where people usually break and say,

Oh,

OK,

I'm doing it because I can't stand.

I can't sit with this feeling.

And that's where what happened to her.

She didn't reinforce her boundaries.

She just had the expectation and she just had her high standards,

But she didn't,

Didn't reinforce her boundaries.

So it was with no boundaries came the justification,

Came the self-doubt.

And that's what drove them apart emotionally.

And that what makes you feel small in your relationship,

Even though you grow so much.

It's not particularly the boundaries,

But it's one of the things because what she didn't do,

That she didn't recognize her own patterns first.

This is something that I teach in my group program,

The 3R process,

Recognize,

Reconnect,

Rebuild.

First,

You need to recognize your own patterns.

She didn't do that.

She went straight into fixing mode.

And that's what often happens.

You have a problem in your relationship.

You feel like this relationship could be better.

There's something that doesn't work the way I want it.

My partner is behaving a certain way.

They should behave a different way.

And what do you want to do?

You want to fix it.

Ideally,

Fixing your partner,

Because when they behave differently,

You are happy.

That's what the common belief is.

And that's not how it works.

It works by starting with yourself first.

And recognizing,

OK,

What's my part in here?

Taking that responsibility of saying,

I'm doing this.

For her,

It was,

Oh,

Yeah,

The boundaries,

Definitely.

But also,

Oh,

Yeah,

I forgot about me.

I just paid attention to his mood,

To what's going on with him.

I held back because I was afraid he wouldn't like me or love me anymore if I would say that I'm not happy with X,

Y,

Z.

That's when we go deeper to recognize,

OK,

What are you afraid of losing?

Because there's always a fear in your patterns.

I'm going through that myself right now,

Having my coach and working on my things.

And there is fear behind it.

There's usually fear behind it.

But it has to start with you.

So,

I feel like I talked a lot.

And I hope it makes sense to you.

Because this is how you improve your relationship.

This is how you grow together and not getting lost in that growth or feel smaller.

You start with yourself first.

You take responsibility for what you are doing,

For your thoughts,

For your behavior.

And when you recognize that,

The beauty is,

As soon as you recognize it and you can say,

Yes,

This is part of me.

It doesn't mean that you like it.

It doesn't mean that you want to be like that.

That's not what I'm saying.

But just the acceptance of this is who I am today.

What happens is you stop that inner war with yourself,

Because what she did,

She felt smaller and smaller because she was in a constant war with herself.

I should do this.

Oh,

I didn't do this.

Why didn't I do that?

Oh,

I should have waited.

Oh,

He's just mad because of his manager.

I should have seen that.

So,

That should have.

I should have seen that.

That's self-shame.

You're blaming yourself for not being aware of whatever happened.

And that's causing that inner war.

And you can't grow if you're still at war with yourself.

It makes it so,

So much harder,

Because when you're constantly fighting against yourself,

But still trying to be a different version of the version that you are,

It becomes this spiral.

You spiral into self-doubt,

Into expectations that you don't met,

That you don't meet.

And then you're blaming yourself.

And then you think,

I should do better.

Why am I not better?

What else can I do?

You're in a constant war,

Constant pressure.

And you see that on your body.

You see that in your thoughts.

And you feel that in your soul,

Because you're constantly like,

I felt when I was at that point,

I felt like I'm in this cage,

In this golden cage,

And I can't get out.

I couldn't get away from myself,

But I want to.

But it doesn't work unless you accept that this is a version of you,

However bad that version might be in your rating system.

It's part of you.

Today,

I explained to another client that what if you look at yourself like,

You can be Mother Teresa,

But you can also be the most hated man on earth.

You have every capacity in you at certain situations,

At certain mental,

Physical,

And emotional resources that you have to display those two and everything in between.

That's all part of you,

The good,

The bad,

The ugly.

And when you can accept that,

Just like,

Okay,

This is part of me.

This is not who I am.

This is not me.

This is just part of me.

And it's not okay.

Don't like it.

That's totally fine.

It's just like,

This is part.

That's the acceptance I'm talking about.

So,

My question to you is,

Are you aware of your thought or behavioral patterns?

Are you aware?

Have you recognized what you do,

How you behave,

Where your thoughts go?

Because that's the first step,

To recognize it and then accept it.

And from there,

You grow.

And as soon as you stop your inner fight,

You will see that your relationship will change because your romantic relationship is a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.

So,

When your war stops,

The war with your partner stops.

It sounds so easy and many of my clients and students tell me,

Anna,

It's too easy.

But that's what it is.

If you want it hard,

Continue your inner war,

Please do that.

I don't want to take you away from that because that feels comfortable to many of us because we're so used to it,

Because that's what you've been trained for probably decades.

So,

That option is always there.

But why not choose the easy one?

And with that,

I finish my lecture for today.