on being called intimidating

i’ve been told this on more than one occasion, and it always, always confuses me.

i see myself as soft, plush, welcoming, and understanding. how can i be intimidating when my arms are almost always open to whatever you’re bringing to the table?

you are intimidated, so i am intimidating. does that have to be true?

i am very conscious of the energy i’m trying to project here, so let me go through it from my point of view.

i love being witness to someone’s humanity. i can see what someone says and notice the layers that must be underneath it— i can see a tabletop, with all the legs holding it up from underneath.

i can be fierce, ferocious even. i am intolerant of the intolerant (and even still, check myself regularly on the stuff i believe.) i am a mama bear in the extreme. i will wildly protect the ones i love.

maybe that’s one of the intimidating parts.

i’ve been called a force of nature— i’ll roll in, inspire awe, and then rattle the foundations of your house. it is easy to get swept up in me.

for a long time i lost that. i started trying to be something i was not. i miss being who i was before. i miss being that force of nature, or who i was when i FELT like that.

i feel close to having it back.

i think the big feelings here are that like, i have a hard time seeing who i am from someone else’s eyes. i am always always surprised when someone tells me what they think of me.

and i think i reject the powerful parts of myself when i am afraid they may do damage. but, tamed, i do a lot of damage to myself.

i want to reclaim my bigness. i feel like a hurricane that’s hit land, that’s dwindled how’s your just a scattering of clouds and storms across the coast.

i don’t want to be scary, but that’s always going to be part of the deal.