Are you the right size?
And no, I’m not talking about clothing. I was first introduced to the terminology of becoming “right sized” through Staci K. Haines’s book The Politics of Trauma. Haines is a co-founder of generative somatics. To become right sized gives language to an implicit aspect of somatic and Family Constellations work: refining your understanding of the physical and energetic space you take up, and your agency to affect it. Through somatics, we come to know our size more accurately in the context of our environments, our relationships, and the universe at large.
To be “right sized” is to be no bigger or smaller than you are. Issues arise when we are too big or too small in our physical or energetic bodies. For instance, from a Family Constellations perspective, parentified children are often too big energetically. In more well balanced family systems, children are always meant to be energetically smaller than their parents, no matter how old they are. Oppressive systems like patriarchy and white supremacy require certain people to maintain certain sizes in order to ensure their place in society. It takes brave souls within an oppressed group who refuse to shrink in order for change to take root. The simultaneous work for the oppressors is to deflate their energetic size to participate in rebalancing the system as well. Clashes occur if the oppressors are unwilling to relinquish their perceived sense of power in this way.
Becoming right sized is a practice of sustainability. It is energetically costly for a person to be bigger or smaller than they are. Being too big is like being a human gas leak, even with the best intentions. At an extreme, your energy might fill up a room and make it hard for other people to sense anything else besides your presence. Being too small is like being compressed gas, which can be dangerous if not handled properly. These dynamics can manifest through posture and movement patterns as well. The true self is hidden in being either too big or too small. To be right sized is to allow yourself to be witnessed and sensed by others just as you are, nothing more, nothing less.
Sometimes there is discord between the “inner” and “outer” sizes of a person. Someone who comes across as extremely large energetically may be subconsciously overcompensating for how extremely small they feel internally (eg. the current U.S. president.) A person who grew up with an overwhelming amount of large energies around them may have learned how to become very small in order to maintain the balance of the system they were born into. How big or small you become might fluctuate in response to different people, environments, cultures, etc. This can be adaptive, but can also distract from understanding your true size.
It’s a matter of balancing a system as a whole. To know your size puts you in right relationship with everyone and everything else. It acknowledges the uniqueness of your existence without making you more or less important than anyone else. Right sized-ness can dovetail with the Buddhist concept of right action. If you don’t take on more than is yours to handle (too big), or give up what power and agency you do possess (too small), you are more likely to respond to a moment skillfully. You understand more innately what you are able to offer in response to the demands of a moment through a clarity of presence.
To become right sized is also a practice of locating yourself. The more accurately people can locate themselves, the more agency they can have in how they show up in present time and space, and how they want to move forward. Understanding size and location seems to be connected to understanding purpose, and understanding purpose seems potentially connected to an increased sense of belonging at the cosmic level. You belong. We all belong. Somatic touch and energy work can be particularly useful in helping to locate yourself.
Now, if there are any quantum theory experts reading this, I would love your input below. Because what I think I understand from that field of knowledge (and have a felt sense of it too), is that our corporeal form is also an illusion to some degree. We are made up of particles and waves in spacetime, and are permeable and inextricably unified with all other particles and waves in spacetime which seems to render the concept of having a finite size moot. Though it might also be this truth that makes it possible for us to affect change in the size of our energetic and physical bodies. Recognizing my “right size” may acknowledge the current particular configuration of the particles and waves that make up my sense of self. I have incarnated in a particular form in this 3D plane, and maybe becoming right sized means each cell of my being recognizes itself more fully. Consciousness recognizing consciousness. Maybe being too big or too small is just another way to say that I am out of alignment with the recognition of my true self as pure consciousness.
Exploration
How do you know what size you are?
1) Stretch your arms out wide and slowly bring your hands towards your body as though you are collecting the space around you. Gather and collect your energy 360 degrees around you until you feel more inside of your body, and you feel in even more contact with the ground. Do you experience any relief?
2) Now, place your hand on your body anywhere you notice you are gripping inside. Have an intention simply to meet the constriction with your hand without trying to change anything about it for now. After a few breaths, imagine that place begin to gently and slowly un-grip into expansion, like a dry sponge getting rehydrated. Do you experience any relief?
If you experienced more relief with the first prompt, you may tend toward being bigger than you are. If you experienced more relief with the second prompt, you may tend toward being smaller than you are. Remember we can also be a fluctuating mix of the two patterns depending on the context of the moment.
Continue to find times to play with your size throughout your day just through your intention. Practice in different spaces, activities, and with a variety of people in your life. Let any sense of relief or breath opening up be your indicator that you are practicing in beneficial ways for your system.