ever feel like you’re “too much”?

when i was a very very young person, i was labeled “dramatic.” 
“oh, she’s just so dramatic" was a constant explanation for my reactions.

 cue the bb-ier versions of me —

• crying when we drove by a once-forest now decimated, basic suburban cookie-cutter neighborhood

• crying in the grocery store

• sobbing uncontrollably (re: ugly crying) in 8th grade while reading Flowers for Algernon (can’t we get a HEADS UP when shit is going to be a LOT on a Tuesday at 2p in a florescent-lit room with uncomfortable cold desks, nasty brown carpet and weird lunch smells?)

• unsure of what to do or say when communication wasn’t super direct

• quickly, easily, getting big creative, abstract, ‘out there’ concepts + meanwhile, struggling during bio lab because figuring out the colors for alkaline and acid felt ‘too abstract.’

• LIVING for dance classes, rehearsals, + performance because i could be as hardworking, weird and “dramatic” as i wanted to be. here i was rewarded instead of shunned (at least when we weren’t in the dressing room)

and these are just some of the small things. it wasn’t even the big things like when my niece died or getting my heart broken or figuring out who i was when my dance career didn’t pan out the way i had hoped, actual depression, abandoning the religion i grew up with… you get the idea. 

needless to say, i didn’t get a whole lot of positive reinforcement around being sensitive. and, frankly, most people don’t.

when i wasn’t getting feedback about how i was too emotional or overly sensitive, i was getting feedback that i was boring, too quiet or oh, i just forgot that you were here.

here’s the thing… nothing was wrong with the folks giving me all that feedback.

those scenarios weren't a lot for them. they didn’t notice the florescent lighting. they didn’t sense the brown carpet was nasty. the grocery store wasn’t overwhelming for them. they didn’t feel that the trees were sad. the world didn't feel extremely loud + incredibly close for them.

but the more important takeaway is this : there also wasn’t anything wrong with me.

i’m sharing this because maybe there’s something here you can relate to? what was the feedback you got? where have you been told that you are too much This or not enough That?

maybe it has a name —ADHD, synesthesia, HSP, autism, Aspergers…
maybe it doesn’t or maybe the name isn’t helpful.

i would like to propose that the soft, tender parts of you that don't quite fit in or do things the “right” way are oh-so-special, deserve to be here and are incredibly valuable to the world.

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Francis Weller describes the chief sins of our overculture as 2 things : amnesia and anesthesia.

anesthesia — how numb we have to be to endure the day-to-day goings-on of contemporary life in Western World 2023. it’s unimaginable to me that some people just leave the news on 24/7 and are also able to eat, sleep and speak actual words. not to mention all we have to tune out in order to tolerate a lifeless food system, the mass extinction of wildlife, the heartless “design” of housing subdivisions, oil spills, prison industrial complex, on and on.

amnesia — how humanity as a collective has forgotten our place in it all. we’ve forgotten the primary satisfactions that make our life fulfilling, beautiful, alive, and at home.

so maybe… there’s nothing wrong with you.

maybe… it’s just hard to be someone who wants to wake up, heal, feel, believe, hope, create, imagine, be soft and really BE HERE in a world that asks us to be calloused, numbed out, angry, certain, overwhelmed and constantly stimulated.

maybe… it’s just hard trying to re-member the aliveness and beauty of what it means to be human and that life is short and we want to feel it all, live it all, find all the glimmers while we are here.

maybe… the world you need is a world that could be better for all of us.

i am 100% convinced that if the “sensitive” people —

who are actually listening and paying attention to what is actually going on

who can see/hear/taste/sense a more beautiful world

who are trying to bring some of that world alive through what they make —

are constantly drowning in overwhelm, anxiety, self-doubt, self-criticism

then there is no hope for a better world.

because the medicine

is you.

and that’s just true.

in my life, i've found that the foundation to accessing the medicine inside me is self-acceptance.

all the facades have to go.

when i think of all the time i’ve wasted trying to

fit in

feel accepted by “the cool” people

find approval

feel understood

be more visible

look successful

do things the “right” way

i see how they are all anchored in the belief that “something is wrong with me” or that “who i am can’t work out.”

when we’re trying to be other than who we are,

we are blocking the signal and song of who we are which is our heart.

and that is literally the only thing we need to find ourselves on our path.

self-acceptance is the foundation of any lasting transformation.

it is the pillar for having compassion and acceptance of others

and what IS

which unlocks our capacity for things like joy + courage.

so what if we trusted ourselves more?

what if we took the judgement out of it?

what if we learned to be more self-full

to accept that the medicine is you

and opened the heart, your heart, that has the blueprint for your life

your work

and then we got on with this beautiful, terrible thing called Life.

self-acceptance is how we are brave

and, as Glennon Doyle says, The braver I am, the luckier I get.

or in my version : the more i accept myself and relax into who i am, the better my life gets.

may it be so.

courage,
grace