Who Decided You Were Too Much? A Guided Reflection

Somebody taught you that you were too much. And somebody taught you that you weren't enough. You probably don't remember when, and it may not have been said directly, but the belief got in somehow and it's been running ever since. This track goes underneath the pattern to the question: who actually decided this, and why have you been carrying their opinion as if it were a fact? Includes a guided reflection to help you trace the belief back to where it started and begin to separate what's actually yours from what was handed to you. Warm, unhurried, and genuinely honest. For the full course, find Too Much and Not Enough: Breaking Free From the Impossible Standard on my profile.

Transcript

Who decided that you were too much? Seriously, Who told you? Because somewhere along the line, You learned that you were too much. And somewhere along the line, You learned that you weren't enough. And you've been carrying both of those since, Often for decades, As though they were simply facts about you. But they came from somewhere. Someone or something put them there. And I think it's really worth it to go find out who. Let me tell you about a moment I asked myself this for the first time. I was somewhere in my 30s, Sitting with the realization that I had spent most of my life managing how much of myself I let into a room. And I found myself thinking, Okay, But who actually said this? Where did the original message come from? And you know what surprised me was that I couldn't really point to one big moment. There wasn't a single person who sat me down and told me that I was too much. It was much smaller than that. It was like a hundred tiny corrections. Or the time that I was super excited about something and then one of the adults in the room was sighing. Or that moment that I was told to calm down, Or being described as dramatic when I was just upset about something that really genuinely hurt me. Someone laughing, Not unkindly, And saying, Oh, She's a lot, Isn't she? None of it was cruel, And most of it was probably not even conscious, But it accumulated. And by the time I was maybe 12, I had absorbed a very clear message. The full version of you is a bit much for people, So bring less. And this is the part that really hit me, Because the people who taught me that I was too much, Were mostly just repeating what they'd been taught. They weren't experts on who I was. They were just passing along the same conditioning that had been passed to them. So I want to do something with you now, Like a short reflection. Nothing complicated. You don't need to do anything except be very honest with yourself. So get comfortable and take a deep breath if you want to. I want you to think about the belief that you are too much. Whatever form it takes in your head. Too emotional, Too loud, Too needy, Too intense, Whatever that particular version is for you. Just bring it to mind. Now I want you to go looking for the earliest version that you can find. So not the most recent moment, But like the oldest moment. How young were you? Do you remember where you were? And who was there? Don't force it, Sometimes an image comes up, Sometimes it's just a feeling, Sometimes nothing at all. All of that is fine. But if something does come, I want you to look at that person, The one who gave you that message. And I want you to ask yourself or actually that person something. Were they right? Not, Did they mean well? Did they say it with a kind voice? Not, Did they love you? They probably did. But were they right about you? Sit with that for a moment. Because most of us have never actually questioned this. We just accepted the verdict and spent the next 30 years serving the sentence. All right, I want to do another one. Think about the belief that you're not enough. And now go look for the earliest version of that. So the same questions, How young were you? Who was there? And what was actually happening. And again, Ask yourself were they right? This is what I noticed when I did this with myself and when I was in a conversation with another woman. Almost nobody finds an authority figure. Nobody finds a person whose judgment they actually trust on the question of their own word. What they find is a tired parent, A teacher having a bad day, A comment from a boy at school who was 14 and knew nothing about nothing. And we've been running our lives based on their assessment. And that's the thing I want to leave you with today. You've been treating an opinion as a fact, And not even a well-informed opinion, An offhand one from someone who was almost certainly not thinking very carefully when they made it. You're allowed now to reconsider that. So here's your challenge. Write down the earliest memory you can find of being made to feel too much. And then underneath it, I want you to write down the earliest memory of being made to feel not enough. And then under each one, Write this. This was their opinion, Not a fact about me. You don't have to believe it yet, Just write it down. Because sometimes you have to put the words down before the feeling catches up. Now, I hope this gives you some food for thought. And if you want to keep going with this, I mean how it plays out in your relationships, At work, In motherhood, And what actually starts to shift it, I created a full course. It's called Too Much and Not Enough, Breaking Free from the Impossible Standard. And you'll find it if you click on my profile. So I hope to see you there. Have a great day.