Chapter 11

Dear Diary: The Day I Stopped Feeling Small

11/12/25

Dear Diary,
 
Have you ever been in a room or at a table where you felt small?
It could be in business. It could be personal.
 
Have you ever found yourself on the receiving end of someone else’s manipulation, the kind that makes you question your own feelings? Maybe they’re so skilled at it, they can twist your reality until you’re left wondering, “What’s wrong with me?”
 
I have.
 
Too many times.
And I’ll never forget the day I made myself a promise:
Never again.
 
Never again would I hand over the power to let someone make me feel small.
 
Because here’s the truth. They didn’t make me feel small.
I let them.
And that realization, as painful as it was, changed everything.
 
It took years of self-work, the kind no one claps for. Years of reading, reflecting, and learning to spot manipulation not as a personal attack but as a reflection of someone else’s insecurity.
 
It’s taken time to reach a place where I can recognize the tactic for what it is: an attempt to pick me apart, to make me doubt my strength.
 
And now? I don’t bite.
 
When you live with purpose, when you give without expecting, when you show up for others and for yourself, the manipulators lose their grip. Their noise fades into the background.
 
They become nothing more than a distraction.
 
For a long time, I believed my worth was something to prove, something to earn from others’ approval or validation. But value isn’t something you wait for someone else to recognize. It’s something you embody. It’s something you own.
 
When you finally understand the depth of what you bring to the table, your experience, your empathy, your ability to create, to lead, to connect. You stop shrinking to fit where you don’t belong.
 
You stop giving discounts on your energy.
You stop apologizing for your presence.
You stop letting people convince you that what you offer isn’t enough.
 
Because the truth is, what you have to offer is immeasurably valuable. And the moment you start believing that, the rooms that once made you feel small suddenly feel too small to hold you.
 
Until next time,
Katelyn