Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh,

Welcome home. I'm Dr. Tama, a minister, licensed psychologist, and sacred artists.

And this is Homecoming, a podcast to facilitate your journey home to yourself.

While I will provide weekly inspiration and mental health tips, this

podcast is not a substitute for therapy. I'm so excited you're on the journey. If you

want to request specific topics or share your progress, email me at homecoming

podcast at gmail.com. Also after you listen, be sure to like, subscribe, and share. Let's begin.

Welcome home, co-journers. I am glad you're here for another episode, and as you are making your way back home to yourself, if you write a poem about your homecoming journey, I would love for you to send it to me at homecoming podcast at gmail.com that's homecoming

podcast at gmail dot com so we want to talk today about taking up space, taking up space. This is so important and a lot of the conversation around taking up space has focused on women.

But we can also think about other marginalized communities that not only are politically marginalized, but even physically

we can find ourselves shrinking, trying to get out of the way, or be invisible.

We can be silenced and we can silence ourselves.

And so you want to consider on the journey home.

One of the things that has disconnected us from ourselves is invisibility.

And it is not only other people overlooking us

and underestimating us, but also the ways in which some of us have internalized that and made our value and our

worth in being able to blend in or to create space for everyone else while simultaneously

neglecting ourselves,

shrinking ourselves, and apologizing for who we are.

And so when you find yourself censoring your voice, your dress, your hair, your dreams, your needs,

it really is time as we think about the journey home to be willing to actually show up that I am going to stop apologizing for my ideas or my gifts, for my beauty, for my presence.

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