I Think We're Going to Need a Bigger Box

I went to the DMV last week.

It was surprisingly calm, efficient, even digital—everything we’ve been promised about modern systems. They showed their practiced smiles from behind the bulletproof glass and told me I had brought the wrong kind of identification. And I had to come back twice. Not because I forgot anything, but because I didn’t exist properly.

That moment stuck with me. It felt oddly familiar—like I’d been in that dynamic before, not just at the DMV, but in boardrooms, job interviews, and coaching sessions. Over time, I started to recognize it as a pattern: people trying to make themselves legible to a system that was never built to understand them.

Clients might not always express it directly, but I sense it in what they describe—a feeling of being too jagged or too smooth, appreciated for their roles but not their true selves.

So, they learn to compartmentalize. Work is kept in one box, emotions in another, and needs? Those are tucked away somewhere smaller—if they are acknowledged at all.

It keeps things moving. But it often leaves the person behind.

Because people aren’t data.

People grieve between bullet points, question their worth on Monday, and feel invincible by Thursday. They carry brilliance and burnout simultaneously. When that mix interferes with “efficiency,” they assume they’re the problem.

So they adapt and shrink. They show up in ways that seem acceptable—even when it hollows them out. And they do this quietly, skillfully, without asking for help. Because in many environments, asking to be whole feels like asking for too much.

What I’ve learned through coaching is that most people aren’t searching for answers—they’re searching for space. Not a fix, not a framework—just room to breathe. A pause to feel the weight of everything they’ve been carrying without needing to justify it. They want permission to be human in places that only value performance.

We build boxes because we need structure. But when the box becomes more important than the person inside it, we lose something essential: curiosity, emotional range, imagination, and intuition. We lose the qualities that make us resilient. We lose belonging.

And we lose the part of ourselves that doesn’t fit the form—yet holds the magic.

You can’t lead others by sorting them. You can’t love them that way either. And you definitely can’t understand yourself by managing your feelings like a to-do list.

Healing takes time. So does being known. But they’re the things that truly help us move forward.

That part of you—the one tired of always being useful, fitting in, or getting it 'right'. That part deserves space, too. To be seen and understood. To be met without correction.

Consider this: What if the part of you that never fit isn’t broken—just bored of pretending?