You’re not “too much”, and men Want to meet you.
👋🏻 QUICK HEADS UP: We are 5 days away from 🥀 Project X: INITIATION!
And I've been over here, sitting with how much I had to got to 🫠 heal when I was moving through my "re-patterning all my man patterns" chapter in life.
Today's tale?!
It's about the incredible shrinking woman!
AKA: ME, CIRCA 2003-2020.
That right — seventeen tired years of making myself smaller, dimming my light, and watering myself down so I could try and be a match for a love that was never even meant for me.
OH THE AGONY. 💀
When I was in my shrinking days, I carried around 2 "this must be 100% true, because the world keeps reflecting it back to me" beliefs, that deeply informed the relationships I co-created and called in:
Firstly, I believed: I am too much.
And secondly, because I am too much:
No man can meet me.
Now, by "too much", I really mean:
I feel too much, I think too much, I wanna talk too much, I have too many opinions, my energy is too much, I want too much, I need too much, I'm too weird, I'm too sensitive, I'm too expressive, I'm too sexual, I'm too honest -- I'M A BIG HEAPING BOWL OF ORGANIC, NON-GMO, WAYYY TOO-MUCH-NESS.
And historically, once a man discovers all my too-much-ness?
It turns him off. He's overwhelmed by it. He gets the ick!
Because it feels like "a lot". (If I had a nickel for every time a man said some version of, "This is kind of a lot..." about their experience of being with me, I'd have at least 4 nickels, and that would be enough. 😣 THAT SHIT HURTSSSS TO HEAR.)
When I was living in the world, the identity, of "I'm too much" I had no choice but to shrink and self-diminish, and then attract men who couldn't meet me.
Because, helloooooo -- I wasn't really being all of me.
How can I feel met, seen, held cherished, when I am over here hiding?! Playing small!?? Self-abandoning??!
But could I seeeee that that is what I was doing?
No! Of course not!
So do you know what I told myself?!
CLEARLY, IT WAS HIM. IT WAS ALL HIS FAULT. HE COULDN'T "HANDLE" ME.
NONE OF THEM COULD HANDLE ME. 😈
Forget the fact that I was showing up as a rather tame, vanilla, beige-ish, self-abandoning version of me...
Clearly, this was a them/him/man problem.
Cue the internal dialogue:
He should be doing his work. He needs to be more emotionally evolved. He's not Masculine enough. His capacity should be greater. He's not mature enough. Why isn't he in therapy? Why isn't his therapy working better? Should I buy him that book I heard about on that podcast for conscious men?!
Instead of being able to see where I was chronically self-diminishing and self-abandoning, and then correcting that...
It was so much easier to blame the guy at about 3 months in, when he would inevitably start seeing the real me and get freaked out and turned off and RINSE-REPEAT, HERE WE ARE AGAIN!
Now, is it true that a lot of men need to be doing their work, increasing their capacity, and developing skills for mature relating?
Of course.
But is it also true that no man would ever be able to meet me or hold me in a way that I could not meet and/or hold myself?
Also, yeah, of course.
To shift this pattern, I had to stop blaming him, and start cleaning up my side of the street.
I had to release the story of being "too much", and accept that I'm a delicious, multi-faceted flavor for the right kind of man who's dying for a hyper-Feminine, mystery-ride Unicorn of sorts.
I had to believe that the full-flavored all-ness of me was perfect and lovable and choosable, and that until I met a man who could reflect that back to me, I was going to show up that way with and for myself.
I had to meet myself -- fully and completely. Top to bottom. All my layers, facets, and flavors.
I had to learn how to hold myself -- completely. Through all the up's and down's. Every emotion. All my ebbs and flows.
I had to delight in handling myself -- working with my wildness, enjoying my extremes, having fun being on my own ride.
Your repeated patterns in relationship to men are always going to illuminate things you can't (or don't want to) see about yourself.
In this case: It was my beliefs around my "too-much-ness".
Wanna discover what it might be for you?
I'm talking about this on Monday's live call inside INITIATION, titled: "Man as Mirror" 🪞
If you want to join the free 5-day event, here's the link to learn more.