WEEK 32 - Done Apologizing
By Jennifer Dirksen · Sheer Photography, Youngstown OH · Est. read time: 5 min
You don't have to be smaller, quieter, easier, or less to deserve to be here. You never did.
When was the last time you apologized for something that wasn't your fault?
Not a real apology. Not the kind that comes from genuine accountability and actually means something. The other kind. The reflexive, automatic, almost unconscious kind that women do dozens of times a day without even noticing.
Sorry, can I squeeze past you. Sorry, this might be a stupid question. Sorry, I know you're busy. Sorry for bringing this up. Sorry for taking so long. Sorry for being here.
We apologize for existing in spaces. For having needs. For taking up room (physical room, conversational room, emotional room) that we have every right to occupy. We've been doing it so long it doesn't even register as apologizing anymore. It just feels like being polite. Being considerate. Being the kind of woman who doesn't make things difficult.
But here's what it actually is: practice. Daily, repeated, deeply grooved practice in making yourself smaller so everyone around you stays comfortable.
And we're f*ing done!!! 🖤
"Every time you apologize for existing in a space you have every right to occupy, you practice smallness. And you get very, very good at it."
You don't have to earn the right to be visible.
This is the one I want you to really hear because I think it's where most women get stuck.
We've been taught that visibility is something you earn. That you get to take up space when you've done enough, achieved enough, lost enough weight, become enough of whatever the “current standard” is. That the right to be seen, heard, photographed, celebrated, acknowledged is conditional. Something you work toward. Something you justify with your accomplishments or your appearance or your usefulness to the people around you.
It's not.
You don't earn the right to be visible. You have it. You were born with it. It was never contingent on your size or your productivity or how palatable you make yourself for other people's comfort.
The woman who walks into a room and owns it isn't more deserving of space than you are. She's just stopped waiting for permission to occupy it.
The ways we shrink without realizing it.
It's not always dramatic. Most of the time it's so small you'd miss it if you weren't looking:
You have something to say in a meeting and you wait. And wait. And by the time you work up the nerve the conversation has moved on and you tell yourself it wasn't that important anyway.
You're in a photo and you immediately move to the back. Or you angle yourself. Or you ask to see it first and decide before anyone else gets to whether you're allowed to exist in it.
You have a need in your marriage (for more attention, more affection, more presence) and you don't say it. Because you don't want to be demanding. Because you don't want to make him feel bad. Because somewhere along the way you decided your needs were an inconvenience.
You wear the safe outfit. The one that doesn't draw attention. The one that won't cause a comment. The one that says please don't notice me instead of this is who I am!
You apologize before you speak. You soften the thing you mean. You make yourself easier to digest.
None of these moments feel like a big deal on their own. But they add up. And over years they become a posture… a whole way of moving through the world that says: I am here but I am trying very hard not to bother anyone with it.
Taking up space in your marriage.
I want to talk about this one specifically because I think it's where women shrink the most and talk about it the least.
You are allowed to take up space in your own marriage. You are allowed to have needs that are inconvenient. You are allowed to ask for more (more romance, more presence, more effort, more of the partnership you actually want) without framing it as an accusation or softening it into something so gentle it loses its meaning.
You are allowed to be a lot!!! To feel deeply. To need things. To want things. To say this isn't working for me without apologizing for having a standard.
Your needs in your relationship are not a burden. They are information. And you deserve a relationship where saying them out loud doesn't feel like you're asking for too much.
Being photographed without apologizing for yourself.
This one is personal for me. Because I have watched hundreds of women walk into my studio and immediately start apologizing.
Sorry, I know I'm not in the best shape right now. Sorry, my skin has been terrible. Sorry, I should have lost more weight before doing this.
And every single time I want to stop them and say: you walked through that door. You showed up. You did the thing you've been talking yourself out of for months or years. There is nothing to apologize for babe!!!
Being photographed is an act of taking up space. It's saying: I exist. I am here. My body, my face, my presence in this moment is worth capturing. And for women who have spent years making themselves invisible (in photos, in rooms, in their own lives) it can feel almost radical.
It's not radical. It's just yours. You're allowed to be in the picture. You're allowed to take up the whole frame. You're allowed to look at yourself and find something worth seeing.
Wear the damn dress.
Not the dress that's safe. Not the dress that won't cause a comment or draw attention or make you feel like you're trying too hard.
The dress that makes you feel like yourself. The one that's been hanging in your closet waiting for a good enough reason. The one you bought and then second-guessed and then kept anyway because some part of you wasn't ready to give up on it.
Wear it on a Tuesday. Wear it to dinner. Wear it to the grocery store. Wear it because you wanted to and that's enough of a reason.
You don't have to justify taking up space in your own wardrobe any more than you have to justify taking up space in a room. The dress fits you right now. You are allowed to wear it right now.
Not after. Not when. Not once you've earned it.
Now babe!!!
This month we stop apologizing.
September at Sheer is about one thing: reclaiming the space you've been giving away.
Not loudly. Not aggressively. Not at the expense of anyone else. Just… steadily…. deliberately… without the apology attached.
You stop shrinking in conversations. You stop moving to the back of the photo. You stop softening the thing you mean until it means nothing. You stop making yourself smaller so everyone around you stays comfortable.
You take up the space. All of it. The physical space, the conversational space, the emotional space, the space in your own marriage and your own wardrobe and your own life.
And you stop apologizing for being there.
A boudoir session is one of the most deliberate acts of taking up space I know. It's showing up and saying: I am here. I am worth seeing. I am not going to make myself smaller so this is easier for anyone.
That's the energy we're building all month. And it starts right now. 🖤
The investment is smaller than another year of waiting.
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