Too Much, Not Enough, and Everything In Between

Somewhere along the way, you decided that shrinking was safer.

You got quieter, softer, smaller. Maybe you were told to be less dramatic. Less sensitive. Less opinionated. You stopped crying in front of people. You swallowed your rage. You laughed off the ache in your chest. You became agreeable, capable, the one who never needs too much.

And yet, you’ve always felt like too much. Too emotional. Too intense. Too messy. Too loud. Too needy. Too ambitious. Too complicated.

What no one tells you is that “too much” and “not enough” are often just shame, dressed up in different outfits.

At MIND&Co., we see this every day. Clients stuck in the loop:

“If I show up fully, I overwhelm people.”
“If I hold back, I disappear.”
“Maybe I’m just unlovable either way.”

Let’s be clear: you were never too much. You were too much for someone who was emotionally unavailable, dysregulated, or terrified of their own depth.

This pattern is deeply rooted in attachment dynamics. More recent research confirms that insecure attachment (anxious or avoidant) predicts increased emotional suppression and identity distortion in adulthood (Rothschild-Yakar et al., 2020). When emotional expression is consistently met with dismissal or invalidation, people learn to suppress, fragment, or contort themselves to maintain perceived safety or connection. This kind of adaptive masking—often learned early—is a survival response, not a personality flaw.

These patterns don’t disappear with age. They evolve. They become the ways we shrink ourselves in adult relationships, workplaces, even in therapy.

You learned to fragment yourself to feel safe. And now, here you are—decades later—trying to figure out who you are without the shame narrative calling the shots.

It’s no wonder you feel exhausted.

So what do we do with all this?

We start small. With gentleness. With honesty.

We get curious about the parts of you that feel like too much. We let them speak. We don’t shush them. We ask what they need. We hold space for the part of you that tried to shrink, and the part of you that’s been begging to expand.

Neuroscientific studies back this up. Research into emotion regulation shows that naming internal states – especially when done with self-compassion – activates the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which plays a key role in calming the amygdala and reducing emotional reactivity (Zhao et al., 2023; Lieberman et al., 2007). In short: when you name the part of you that feels like too much, your nervous system starts to feel safer. You start coming home to yourself.

And no, this isn’t about becoming a perfectly regulated self-love goddess overnight. It’s about slowly remembering:

• Your bigness isn’t a threat.
• Your needs aren’t a weakness.
• Your intensity is data, not a flaw.
• You don’t need to make yourself palatable to be loved.

If this feels close to home, you’re not alone.

This is the work we do at MIND&Co.—holding the stories, the shame, and the parts of you you’ve been editing out. If you’re tired of shape-shifting just to survive, we see you.

References:
Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.
Rothschild-Yakar, L., Levit-Binnun, N., Shahar, B., & Parnass, A. (2020). Insecure attachment and self-concept clarity: The mediating roles of mentalization and emotion regulation. Personality and Individual Differences, 163, 110067.
Zhao, Y., Gu, R., Zhang, L., Yang, M., Luo, Y., & Wu, H. (2023). Emotion regulation and the prefrontal cortex: An updated review on the neurobiological mechanisms. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 23(1), 24–41.