If you've spent your life being told you're too much, read this one slowly.
Somewhere along the way, someone taught you that you were too much.
Too emotional. Too intense. Too sensitive. Too needy. You loved too hard, felt too deeply, wanted too much.
And so you learned to shrink. To round yourself down. To apologize for the size of your own heart.
Notice who usually says it
Pay attention to who hands a woman that word. It's rarely the people who love her well.
It's the man who couldn't meet her depth and called it drama, instead of admitting he was out of his depth. The partner who wanted less of her so he'd have to give less of himself.
"You're too much" is so often just "you're more than I'm willing to rise to," said in a way that quietly puts it all on you.
What "too much" really means
Here's the truth almost no one tells you. You were never too much. You were too much for the wrong people.
The intensity that overwhelmed a shallow man is the exact thing the right one will call magnetic. The depth that scared someone small is what a bigger man will treasure.
Same woman, same heart. The only thing that changes is whether the person across from you can hold it.
The real cost of shrinking
The real tragedy is how much of yourself you've folded away trying not to be too much.
Every time you swallow the feeling, soften the ask, and dim your own light, you get a little smaller and a little lonelier, and you teach people to expect less of you.
And the right man was never looking for less of you. He's looking for all of it.
Your depth is the feature
The big feelings you've apologized for are the same ones that let you love fiercely, show up fully, and notice what everyone else walks past.
The intensity is passion. The sensitivity is empathy. The "too much" is simply a lot of life, and the right person feels lucky to stand in it.
You were never broken for being deep. You were just handed, again and again, to people who needed shallow.
Permission to take up your space
So here's your permission, in case you've been waiting for it. Stop rounding yourself down.
Feel what you feel. Ask for what you need. Love at full volume. The ones who call that too much were going to leave anyway.
The right people, and the right man, will exhale with relief when they finally meet a woman who's all the way here.
You were never too much. You were a lot of woman handed to people who couldn't hold a lot.
Stop shrinking to fit small hands. Hold out for the ones built to hold all of you, because they exist, and they're looking for exactly you.
Talk soon,
Matthew Coast
P.S. If a friend came to mind while you read this, the one who keeps being told she's "too much," send it her way. She probably needs to hear it as badly as you did.