If you apologize for taking up space, people will start believing you’re in the way.

People take their cue from how you present yourself. Constant small apologies for existing, for asking, for being in the room quietly instruct everybody to treat your presence as a minor imposition, and most of them will go along with it without ever examining why. Stopping is not arrogance. It is just removing a false claim.

Notice how often you type or say sorry when nothing has gone wrong. Swap it for thank you where you can: thanks for waiting rather than sorry I am late. Same politeness, no apology for being there.