How Can I Expand Without Abandoning Myself?
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Liberation means growth rooted in self-belonging.
Dear Liberators,
Spring brings the promise of expansion—the tender shoot pushing through the soil, the budding possibility of what’s next. But for many of us shaped by systems of extraction and performance, expansion has often come at a cost: self-abandonment.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that growth requires sacrifice. That we must hustle to be worthy. That to evolve, we must shed so much of who we are that we become strangers to ourselves. This narrative is not liberation. It is the legacy of supremacy culture—a culture that says in order to be seen, you must conform, perform, and produce.
But true growth is not about becoming more palatable or productive. It is about becoming more you.
And here’s where it gets layered: many of us enter anti-oppression and decolonial work bringing with us the very behaviors we are trying to unlearn. We seek to dismantle the binary—but we approach it with binary thinking. We want to heal, but we believe we must suffer first. We long for liberation, but carry a colonized mindset that tells us transformation only comes through punishment, perfectionism, or performance.
So we shame ourselves for what we didn’t know.
We abandon our softness in the name of “doing the work.”
We quiet our bodies to appease the intellect.
We treat liberation like a checklist instead of a becoming.
But liberation work requires self-belonging. It asks that we hold complexity, contradiction, and compassion at the same time. It invites us to see our own unlearning not as failure, but as evidence that we are in process—and that process is sacred.
You don’t need to split yourself in half to be worthy of this path.
You don’t have to disown the part of you that’s still learning.
You can expand, shift, and awaken—whilst staying rooted in your truth.
This week’s lesson is for the part of you that is ready to rise…
…but refuses to rise by way of self-erasure.
It’s for the part of you that believes liberation isn’t just about being free from—
but about being deeply with yourself as you grow.
Liberation asks us to expand without leaving ourselves behind. It asks:
Can you bloom and still remain rooted? Can you grow and still belong to yourself?
This lesson is for the part of you that’s ready to rise, but refuses to split in half to do it.
Critical Reflection:
Where in your life have you equated growth with overextension or self-betrayal?
What parts of yourself do you silence, shrink, or abandon when you're in “go” mode?
What would it mean to grow in a way that feels nourishing, not depleting?
Let’s step into this conversation through the LIBERATE Framework™…
You're invited to keep growing with us.
The rest of this Liberation Lesson includes reflection practices, somatic rituals, and this week’s LIBERATE Framework™ to guide your expansion without self-erasure. If this work speaks to your spirit, becoming a paid subscriber is a powerful way to go deeper in community.
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I hope you’ll join us inside.
With gratitude,
Desireé