Speaker 1: Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
Speaker 1: the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
Speaker 1: what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is
Speaker 1: so great to have you here back for another episode
Speaker 1: as we of course break down the psychology of our twenties.
Speaker 1: Of your twenties, Hey, before we get into this episode,
Speaker 1: Before we get started, I wanted to let you know
Speaker 1: that the full video version of this episode of this
Speaker 1: podcast is now available on Netflix worldwide. If you are
Speaker 1: somebody who prefers to watch rather than listen to your podcast,
Speaker 1: or just likes having the pod on in the background
Speaker 1: whilst you're cooking or cleaning or commuting, you can find
Speaker 1: us on Netflix. It is candidly a pretty new space
Speaker 1: for podcasts. So if you're a fan of the show
Speaker 1: and just want to help prove that podcasts are the
Speaker 1: real deal and that people enjoy them and support them genuinely,
Speaker 1: the best way you can do that is to just
Speaker 1: go and watch an episode. That is my plea to
Speaker 1: you today. But what are we talking about in this
Speaker 1: episode today, we are talking about something that I think
Speaker 1: almost everyone has experienced at some point in their lives,
Speaker 1: which is the feeling of just being too much. You know,
Speaker 1: you're too loud, you're too emotional, you're too opinionated. Somebody's
Speaker 1: made you feel like you're too sensitive, you're too needy,
Speaker 1: too enthusiastic. I think at some point most of us
Speaker 1: have had that sudden flash of self consciousness where we
Speaker 1: just become acutely aware of ourselves, how we're behaving, and
Speaker 1: how other people are responding, perhaps in a less than
Speaker 1: favorable way. Maybe it's because you're laughing a little bit
Speaker 1: too loudly and you realize everybody's kind of looking at you.
Speaker 1: Maybe you realize you've been talking for too long, or
Speaker 1: you know you've shared something personal you've immediately regretted it.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've expressed excitement, passion, love too soon, or you
Speaker 1: know at too much of a level, only to watch
Speaker 1: someone else's reaction and just think, oh, they're definitely going
Speaker 1: to tell people about this, and it's not going to
Speaker 1: be nice. It's a genuinely and uniquely painful feeling, and
Speaker 1: it can lead us to living very lonely lives because
Speaker 1: it goes deeper than just embarrassment, right, this feeling, it's
Speaker 1: bigger than that. What we're feeling is shame. When we
Speaker 1: feel too much, we feel shame, the sense that who
Speaker 1: we are naturally is somebody that won't be accepted. And therefore,
Speaker 1: if you want to find people to connect with, if
Speaker 1: you want to find people to be around, the only
Speaker 1: way to do that is to just treat down a
Speaker 1: little bit. That is your only pathway to acceptance is
Speaker 1: to just not be who you are. I have such
Speaker 1: distinct memories and moments from my childhood exactly like this,
Speaker 1: where I can literally see in hindsight, like the idea
Speaker 1: being implanted into my mind in real time that I
Speaker 1: was too much for people, And so I wanted to
Speaker 1: explore it today for others who may feel the same way,
Speaker 1: because I think at its core, feelings of being too
Speaker 1: much are closely related to feelings of not fitting in,
Speaker 1: Feelings that you know you never did belong that haven't
Speaker 1: found their resolution, and they won't find their resolution until
Speaker 1: you really dig into why it is that you're made
Speaker 1: to feel this way, the cost of feeling this way,
Speaker 1: and how it is that you can really just accept
Speaker 1: the bigger, louder, more out there.
Speaker 2: Parts of yourself.
Speaker 1: So, without further ado, let's get into it. When you
Speaker 1: feel like you are too much, that feeling really stays
Speaker 1: confined to just like one area of life, it tends
Speaker 1: to follow you everywhere, even if it takes on different
Speaker 1: forms depending on the situation. For example, when we date,
Speaker 1: you know, we might consciously pull back from saying what
Speaker 1: we really want to say and admitting our true feelings,
Speaker 1: showing the other person that we're interested, or showing them
Speaker 1: too much about personality. We may stop ourselves from doing
Speaker 1: those things prematurely so that they won't reject us. At work,
Speaker 1: when we feel too much, we can feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're always the loud one. We're too demanding, our standards
Speaker 1: are too high, we're too sensitive, and so again we
Speaker 1: don't ask for what we want. We stay silent when
Speaker 1: we really want to say things. We maybe lose out
Speaker 1: on opportunities because of that. Same in friendships, Same with
Speaker 1: your family. Perhaps your family was the kind of family
Speaker 1: that was quite quiet, and you embarrass them. You know.
Speaker 1: The guiding thought we have is again and again and again,
Speaker 1: people would probably like me if I wasn't the way
Speaker 1: that I am. The core question we need to explore
Speaker 1: here is to begin with, why does our society automatically
Speaker 1: tend to shame people who are too much into being less?
Speaker 1: Why is it not the other way around. Why is
Speaker 1: it that we find loud, passionate, some might say brash
Speaker 1: individuals so polarizing, you know, inspirational at best, offensive at worst.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me because society, you know, as much
Speaker 1: as I said, they don't tend to shame people who
Speaker 1: go the other direction. I do think they do. You know,
Speaker 1: people who are too quiet also are made to feel
Speaker 1: like they are less than. It's another example of like
Speaker 1: this impossible standard. You can't be too much, you can't
Speaker 1: be too little. You have to be just right. And
Speaker 1: very few people sit on that fine line. So there's
Speaker 1: a couple of explanations as to why the too much
Speaker 1: person is shamed. The first is that it challenges social norms.
Speaker 1: One of the deepest psychological reasons we label people as
Speaker 1: too much is because human beings are remarkably sensitive to
Speaker 1: social norms. Every culture, every workplace, every friendship, group, family
Speaker 1: community has this unwritten rule book for how members should behave,
Speaker 1: what's appropriate to wear, how loud, someone should be what
Speaker 1: gets said, what doesn't get said? Who's top dog, who's
Speaker 1: a follower? What's polite, what's not polite? It's always there
Speaker 1: when someone exceeds those invisible boundaries, others think, you know, well,
Speaker 1: you're not playing by the rules. Why can't you just
Speaker 1: be like the rest of us? Why can't you just
Speaker 1: obey and continue this harmonious kind of feeling. This reaction
Speaker 1: is particularly the case for people who have a real
Speaker 1: rule following structured personality type. These people find the muchness
Speaker 1: particularly difficult to deal with, and they're often high in
Speaker 1: what we call conscientiousness, which is a Big five personality
Speaker 1: trait that measures and reflects self control, diligence, tension to detail,
Speaker 1: rule following, and it's also correlated with perfectionism and at
Speaker 1: times authoritarianism and traditionalism. That final point I find really interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, there is a particular kind of individual who
Speaker 1: finds much less offensive. One study I found from twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: titled the Big Five in relationship with I can't even
Speaker 1: remember it's like the Big Five in relationship with social
Speaker 1: dominance orientation, looked at personality correlates in a sample of
Speaker 1: four hundred people and you know who they voted for,
Speaker 1: what political parties they supported. And they found that people
Speaker 1: high in conscientiousness there was a positive correlation with an
Speaker 1: increase in conservative, traditional, and at times authoritarian values. Some
Speaker 1: people just like rules and structure more. They want people
Speaker 1: to behave all in the same way. When you don't,
Speaker 1: and they have that personality type, they look to correct
Speaker 1: that in you by making you feel too much and
Speaker 1: hoping the shame of that nudges you back in line.
Speaker 1: That's explanation number one. Explanation number two muchness. Your muchness
Speaker 1: reflects a self acceptance and an authentic expression that other
Speaker 1: people feel is a threat. Psychology points to this idea
Speaker 1: that perhaps we dislike people who are confident because they
Speaker 1: make us feel that we are lacking. This as a name,
Speaker 1: it's called the self evaluation threat. Essentially, a lot of
Speaker 1: our identity is based on how we regard ourselves in
Speaker 1: relation to others. When someone displays traits or behaviors we
Speaker 1: secretly feel like we lack. We either feel worse about
Speaker 1: ourselves and our ego is injured, or we convince ourselves
Speaker 1: we actually don't like those traits. We don't want to
Speaker 1: be that person. Therefore, we checked our ego by dismissing
Speaker 1: the value of this individual we're secretly a little bit
Speaker 1: jealous of. This really comes down to that one pesky
Speaker 1: social reaction that is hardwired into all of us, whether
Speaker 1: we like it or not. Social comparison. Something we talk
Speaker 1: about a lot on the podcast is how comparison happens
Speaker 1: in two directions, and what direction we choose to. I
Speaker 1: guess directed in will influence how we feel about ourselves,
Speaker 1: also how we will feel about other people. I think
Speaker 1: an example is probably needed here. The best one I
Speaker 1: can think of is, like, imagine you hear that, like
Speaker 1: your colleague has just made like a huge scientific discovery.
Speaker 1: They've published something in a journal, they've won an award,
Speaker 1: they've received some accolade. It's a big deal. In response,
Speaker 1: you either can feel inspired by them, happy for them.
Speaker 1: You see their status rise and that's motivational for you,
Speaker 1: or you feel crap about yourself, You feel stressed that
Speaker 1: you haven't a chie that yet you find reasons to
Speaker 1: make their achievement feel smaller. The first reaction, the positive one,
Speaker 1: is upward social comparison. This person becomes what we call
Speaker 1: an expander for you, someone who has showed you what's
Speaker 1: possible and inspired you to reach it. The second reaction
Speaker 1: is downward social comparison. This person has become a threat.
Speaker 1: They've threatened you. They've made you feel worse about yourself.
Speaker 1: You feel in competition with them, and due to their success,
Speaker 1: their recent success, so you are now losing that competition.
Speaker 1: You're not as good. This can start as what we
Speaker 1: call in psychology benign envy, which is relatively harmless. It
Speaker 1: quickly can transform into malicious envy. If you're not careful
Speaker 1: where you know, you start doing things you don't see
Speaker 1: as a reflection of your character.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: You criticize this person, You try and lessen their status.
Speaker 1: You accuse them, or somebody's maybe accused you of being
Speaker 1: too much. This also explains why your own muchness feels
Speaker 1: like a threat to people who internally feel too little.
Speaker 1: Someone else's own comfort in themselves can remind people of
Speaker 1: their own unhealed insecurity. They call you too much. They
Speaker 1: say you're too loud, too aggressive, too excited. Because they've
Speaker 1: silenced themselves, so why can't you. They've had to do it,
Speaker 1: you should have to do it as well. They've denied
Speaker 1: themselves authentic expression they've been internally hurt by that fact. Well,
Speaker 1: now everybody else should have to make the same choice
Speaker 1: and should have to pay the same price. In Australia,
Speaker 1: we have a term for when people feel threatened by
Speaker 1: other success. It's called tall poppy syndrome. And it's this
Speaker 1: idea that the tallest poppy or the tallest flower is
Speaker 1: the first one to get cut down. The people who
Speaker 1: are doing the best, who are the most successful, the loudest,
Speaker 1: the most passionate, they are the ones others need to
Speaker 1: eliminate first if they want to feel better about their
Speaker 1: own deficits or lackings. A great way to do that
Speaker 1: say that somebody is just too much, Shame them into
Speaker 1: being smaller. Paint them as, you know, going against social
Speaker 1: harmony in the name of humility, like you're doing this
Speaker 1: to make sure social order is maintained. Not really, the
Speaker 1: reason we do this is because of pride and because
Speaker 1: we can't bear to see somebody be better than us.
Speaker 1: An interesting psychological follow up question is when does this
Speaker 1: feeling begin? Right, We kind of know how it's implanted
Speaker 1: in us, but when does our muchness first start to
Speaker 1: feel like something that we need to internally correct or
Speaker 1: change to belong. There is this turning point around the
Speaker 1: ages of like six or eight, and then again, I
Speaker 1: think in our early teenage years when we often have
Speaker 1: our first experiences of realizing that maybe people don't like
Speaker 1: us and realizing perhaps I don't fit in people don't
Speaker 1: like me for who I am. This can happen with
Speaker 1: our families. It also happens with teachers, with friends, even
Speaker 1: random strangers. But I think the first place it really
Speaker 1: does begin is with our families and with our parents,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to our bids for connection and
Speaker 1: our bids for emotional comfort.
Speaker 2: A big way children show.
Speaker 1: That they want closeness and that they want emotional support
Speaker 1: from their parents is through crying and through being loud,
Speaker 1: and through trying to get their attention. If an adult's
Speaker 1: response to your crying or your bids was to tell
Speaker 1: you to shut up or to stop crying, or to
Speaker 1: get over it, if they became frustrated when you wanted attention,
Speaker 1: when they dismissed your upsets, something kind of clicks in you.
Speaker 1: You know, when I am loud, when I express what
Speaker 1: I need, I am made to feel bad. Therefore, part
Speaker 1: of me that naturally needs and naturally wants must be
Speaker 1: inherently shamed and incorrect. We have to remember, you know.
Speaker 1: A big way that we learn what is socially and
Speaker 1: personally appropriate as children is by closely watching, monitoring, and
Speaker 1: responding to adults reactions to our behavior. And so when
Speaker 1: we see people constantly be like you are too much,
Speaker 1: we start to feel that does that mean we become emotionless? No,
Speaker 1: it just means we become very repressed that natural set
Speaker 1: point for our emotions, though that remains like, we still
Speaker 1: feel all the feelings we would normally feel, but it's
Speaker 1: now constantly bubbling below the surface, unable to be communicated,
Speaker 1: and it becomes incredibly uncomfortable when we just can't express
Speaker 1: or be who we are. It's not just your tears
Speaker 1: or your cries that we're perhaps ignored as a child.
Speaker 1: Research shows that children who are over excitable, loud, boisterous,
Speaker 1: they often receive less preferential or favorable treatment from parents
Speaker 1: and teachers compared to children who are quiet and agreeable.
Speaker 1: The loud children are punished just for being themselves. Children
Speaker 1: pick up on those reactions, especially since their sense of
Speaker 1: fairness is so heightened, and so when they see you know,
Speaker 1: the nice, quiet girl gets a lot more praise than
Speaker 1: the loud child or the big, brash child. We internalize that.
Speaker 1: We basically think, if I want adults to like me,
Speaker 1: if I want people to like me, I better change
Speaker 1: because who I am now isn't good enough if it
Speaker 1: doesn't meet that standard. Personally, I had so many experiences
Speaker 1: like this when I was a kid, because I was
Speaker 1: a happy and extroverted and enthusiastic child. Like I can
Speaker 1: acknowledge now that I really didn't do any harm, but
Speaker 1: I was just loud and I was just boisterous. The
Speaker 1: way some adults responded to my personality is a feeling
Speaker 1: that I don't think you can forget, like frustration at best,
Speaker 1: discussed even a little bit of hatred at worst, and
Speaker 1: that sticks with you. That becomes how you feel about yourself. Disgusted, annoyed, ashamed,
Speaker 1: I should be less. I remember one teacher I had,
Speaker 1: I can remember it so well. She would almost try
Speaker 1: and like embarrass me for how loud I was. I
Speaker 1: think I was literally like seven or eight, and she
Speaker 1: would get other children to copy how loud I was
Speaker 1: back to me, so I'd be like speaking loud and
Speaker 1: she'd be like well, everybody speak at Gemma the way
Speaker 1: she was speaking. She would call me like loud Gemma,
Speaker 1: and the other Gemma in class was nice Gemma. I
Speaker 1: was literally seven. She would ignore me when I asked
Speaker 1: her questions or like I would try and I remember
Speaker 1: having these distinct memories of being like, I'm so excited
Speaker 1: by this art I made, or trying to share something
Speaker 1: with her, and she would just ignore me. And you know,
Speaker 1: I was the biggest and tallest and loudest girl in
Speaker 1: the class. I wasn't particularly delicate or neat, and I
Speaker 1: could see that even as a kid, like she had
Speaker 1: personal opinions of that she didn't like that I was
Speaker 1: that child. I share that story not for sympathy, not
Speaker 1: because I'm still hurt by it. I literally now get
Speaker 1: to talk and be loud for a living. It's obviously
Speaker 1: worked out pretty fine for me. But I just think
Speaker 1: it's a good example of what early childhood experiences and
Speaker 1: conditioning does to our sense of self. Those early autobiographical
Speaker 1: memories of somebody not liking you for who you are
Speaker 1: doesn't just disappear. They are absorbed into our internal sense
Speaker 1: of self and shame and how we self police our
Speaker 1: own behavior the older we get. Eventually, we don't need someone.
Speaker 1: We don't need a teacher or a parent to tell
Speaker 1: us that we're being too much or to tell us
Speaker 1: to shut up anymore. We just do it ourselves. One
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen paper from the Journal of Child Psychiatry talks
Speaker 1: about how children who were made to feel embarrassed by
Speaker 1: aspects of who they are, and it's not just whether
Speaker 1: they're allowed, but their looks or anything, they tend to
Speaker 1: develop more shame proneness the older they get. This was
Speaker 1: from a longitudinal study that started with three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty children in the fifth grade. It followed them until
Speaker 1: they turned eighteen, so a long time. More shame in
Speaker 1: childhood caused what these researchers labeled as painful self focus
Speaker 1: or painful focus on the self, and it was often
Speaker 1: accompanied by a need to shrink to be smaller. As adults,
Speaker 1: these individuals also often resorted to a number of defensive
Speaker 1: strategies to escape the feeling that they were inadequate, everything
Speaker 1: from substances to overconfidence to self sabotage that was the
Speaker 1: consequence of this childhood reaction to their personality. So what
Speaker 1: are some of the other long term psychological effects. I
Speaker 1: really want to investigate these. We need to take a
Speaker 1: short break. When we return, we'll dive right into it.
Speaker 1: So what is the effect of constantly being told or
Speaker 1: like implicitly made to feel like we're too much from
Speaker 1: childhood even to adulthood. Could have been last week that
Speaker 1: you felt this way first, If this began when you
Speaker 1: were a child, you were likely made to grow up
Speaker 1: a lot faster than your peers because you learn to
Speaker 1: emotionally and socially monitor your behavior early on. You also,
Speaker 1: you know, learned how to observe the reactions of others
Speaker 1: and the reactions they were having towards you much earlier
Speaker 1: in life. This increases our level of social hypervigilance that
Speaker 1: occupies a lot of mental space. It basically means that
Speaker 1: if you're a kid and you're trying to pay attention
Speaker 1: to whether the adults in your.
Speaker 2: Life like you, you have a lot less time.
Speaker 1: And attention to just be a kid and to just
Speaker 1: experiment and to just enjoy yourself and have fun.
Speaker 2: It also has.
Speaker 1: The lovely added bonus of making us prematurely and rather
Speaker 1: intensely insecure. Now, some level of insecurity is natural with age.
Speaker 1: It's actually a good thing. It's what psychologists call the
Speaker 1: looking glass self, the ability to imagine and understand how
Speaker 1: others may perceive us, so that we can kind of
Speaker 1: meet important social norms, Like we know not to hurt others,
Speaker 1: We know not to completely alienate ourselves. We know that's
Speaker 1: not good for our sense of belonging. But for someone
Speaker 1: who constantly feels like their personality is too big for
Speaker 1: their body, that people don't like them or expect them
Speaker 1: to be less, that looking glass self becomes a hyperfixation
Speaker 1: that becomes something that we obsess over. I always think
Speaker 1: about this as like it almost creates a kind of
Speaker 1: like self concept dysmorphia, where similar to body dysmorphia, we're
Speaker 1: like looking in this internal mirror and we're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out if like we're.
Speaker 2: Too big or we're too small, or.
Speaker 1: If we're just right, and like how others see us
Speaker 1: versus how we see ourselves, Like can we trust our
Speaker 1: own self perception? And that's what's happening internally. Feeling like
Speaker 1: we're too much also leaves us disconnected from our authentic self,
Speaker 1: whereby our identity kind of splits. There's this true self
Speaker 1: and there's this false self, our false self, begins to
Speaker 1: feel more and more like the real us, because they're
Speaker 1: the version everybody sees and hopefully everybody likes. They're the
Speaker 1: version of us that is acceptable, the one that is
Speaker 1: smaller and nice and polite, and the one we try
Speaker 1: and force our selves into. But there will always be
Speaker 1: a disconnect that lingers and eats away at us. We
Speaker 1: will always know, unconsciously, probably consciously, that there is a
Speaker 1: part of us that really wants to be expressed that
Speaker 1: we can't. Our relationships also might feel less fulfilling, because again,
Speaker 1: it's the false self that people like, and it's the
Speaker 1: false self that people are investing in, and it makes
Speaker 1: it harder and harder the more they invest in the
Speaker 1: false self to actually reveal who we are and not
Speaker 1: feel like we're going to be rejected. I saw this
Speaker 1: great quote the other day, you know, if you are,
Speaker 1: how will they find you? And that is an excellent
Speaker 1: example of what feeling too much and feeling like you
Speaker 1: need to hide does to your ability to really find
Speaker 1: your people and to be accepted. Another thing that I
Speaker 1: don't see spoken about a lot, constantly suppressing our organic,
Speaker 1: naturally occurring emotions and feelings and reactions has a tangible
Speaker 1: and very real impact on your body, specifically the body's
Speaker 1: ability to heal itself and to take.
Speaker 2: Care of itself.
Speaker 1: There is so much There is a huge scientific link,
Speaker 1: i should say, between self suppression, feelings of self consciousness,
Speaker 1: and poorer physical functioning, and it is a multidirectional relationship.
Speaker 1: One paper from twenty fourteen exploring kind of the interplay
Speaker 1: between our emotions and our immune system, reviewed a series
Speaker 1: of studies and found that the expression or suppression of
Speaker 1: four critical emotional states anger, anxiety, joy, and relaxation all
Speaker 1: modulated the production of cytokine, specifically cytokine proteins in the body.
Speaker 1: Cytokine proteins these chemical proteins. They are what allow our
Speaker 1: immune cells to communicate and properly function on a cellular level.
Speaker 1: Their production is being influenced by our emotional state. When
Speaker 1: we feel greater levels of anxiety, anger, frustration, and social alertness.
Speaker 1: When we feel tension from having to go a step
Speaker 1: further and suppress those things, this reduces production, meaning our
Speaker 1: immune system and our immune cells are worse at working
Speaker 1: with each other when we feel capable of expressing those emotions.
Speaker 1: On the other side of things. When we feel less tension,
Speaker 1: when we feel more positive, relaxed emotions, greater production occurs.
Speaker 1: This is so important. I literally never see people talk
Speaker 1: about this when we feel that we ad too much.
Speaker 1: When we censor our emotions and feelings to create a
Speaker 1: version of our cells that we think will be more
Speaker 1: palatable to others, we could potentially be causing physical harm
Speaker 1: to our body and its ability to take care of itself.
Speaker 1: Our body becomes worse at knowing what is wrong and
Speaker 1: being able to treat it, and for what, literally for
Speaker 1: what the benefit of somebody else's comfort, so that they
Speaker 1: may like us, they may help us, include us, when
Speaker 1: we secretly know like it's not us they actually like,
Speaker 1: it's this version of us that they enjoy more. We
Speaker 1: are paying this debt for somebody else's comfort. We are
Speaker 1: genuinely I don't want to say sabotaging, but you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say making poor choices, but we
Speaker 1: are doing. We are putting ourselves and our bodies through
Speaker 1: an uncomfortable and an un and not unhealthy, but an
Speaker 1: uncomfortable state just so that somebody else doesn't get insulted
Speaker 1: by us. And that is a ridiculous bargain. That is
Speaker 1: a ridiculous trade deal. Now, there is a huge part
Speaker 1: of this discussion that we've kind they've swept over so
Speaker 1: far that has like a massive gigantic role to play
Speaker 1: when we discuss how like society socially conditions us into
Speaker 1: being less. That is, of course the effective gender and
Speaker 1: the fact that the insult of too much is much
Speaker 1: more likely to be directed at women than at a man.
Speaker 1: This is a gendered insult. It is Whilst I think
Speaker 1: anyone can feel like they're too much one and men
Speaker 1: are definitely made to feel this way in many circumstances,
Speaker 1: women have historically been far more likely to be subsequently
Speaker 1: punished for taking up space, and part of that punishment
Speaker 1: is language like this that is intended to correct a
Speaker 1: woman's unsocial mannerisms and behaviorists so that they act in line.
Speaker 1: I feel like this isn't news to many of you.
Speaker 2: I feel like we.
Speaker 1: Kind of know this is like feminism one and one,
Speaker 1: But just to describe the whole process from like A
Speaker 1: to B two C. You know, from a young age
Speaker 1: a any girls are socialized to be agreeable, accommodating, very
Speaker 1: easy to manage. This doesn't just happen naturally, but because
Speaker 1: we are being conditioned, it gives the impression that women
Speaker 1: and girls are just like this, again because they were
Speaker 1: environmentally made to be, but because it becomes a social
Speaker 1: wide thing, it seems.
Speaker 2: Like a norm.
Speaker 1: Because we raise girls to be polite, mature, helpful, because
Speaker 1: we therefore confuse these traits as being inherently feminine, because
Speaker 1: we reward these behaviors more even as a woman gets older.
Speaker 1: What that means is that when somebody doesn't act that way,
Speaker 1: when the social standard of female behavior isn't met, those individuals,
Speaker 1: probably us, are made to feel bad and are made
Speaker 1: to feel like they cannot perform. They are not people
Speaker 1: who fit into society. They are made to feel shame.
Speaker 1: It also means that we start to self police and
Speaker 1: self impose these ideas of femininity on ourselves. The issue
Speaker 1: is this behavioral pattern, like I said, doesn't allow for
Speaker 1: any divergence from the good girl's standard, So women are
Speaker 1: often placed in an impossible position. You can either be
Speaker 1: good and you can be polite and you can be
Speaker 1: liked and maybe not get what you want, or you
Speaker 1: can be loud, you can be yourself, you can be criticized,
Speaker 1: but be able to be more ambitious and go after
Speaker 1: what you want. This is called the likability paradox or
Speaker 1: the likability penalty. It was first labeled by researchers at
Speaker 1: NYU and Northwestern and they were studying this thing called
Speaker 1: role congruity. Essentially, what is often required to get ahead
Speaker 1: in certain industries is the very thing that makes people
Speaker 1: dislike a woman more based on their expectations for how
Speaker 1: she should behave, based on what they think a female
Speaker 1: behavioral profile should be. Research repeatedly shows this qualities like confidence,
Speaker 1: assert of ambition are generally viewed very positively in men,
Speaker 1: not so positively in women. I think they can actually
Speaker 1: provoke a great deal of social backlash and a great
Speaker 1: deal of like sometimes even disdain from other people. You know,
Speaker 1: a woman who advocates for herself maybe seen as very aggressive.
Speaker 1: A woman who is confident may be labeled as very arrogant.
Speaker 1: A woman who is passionate maybe very bossy emotional. Time
Speaker 1: and time again we see these like kind of stereotypes
Speaker 1: come up. A woman who is just being herself is
Speaker 1: once more too much. And this is where that very
Speaker 1: label of too much that we've been examining this whole
Speaker 1: episode becomes less of an observation and more of a
Speaker 1: social weapon. In these situations, it functions as like a
Speaker 1: warning signal, like don't be louder, don't get any bigger
Speaker 1: for your boots, don't be any more visible than people
Speaker 1: expect you to be, because we won't like you anymore
Speaker 1: and you will be punished. Like again, too much is
Speaker 1: a social weapon, it's also a bit of a warning.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is the line, don't cross it. What's
Speaker 1: particularly important to recognize is that this policing doesn't only
Speaker 1: come from men. Women can also reinforce these expectations onto
Speaker 1: other women, perhaps even more so in my opinion at times.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's controversial, but from what I've seen,
Speaker 1: sometimes women are the ones who correct other women's behavior
Speaker 1: more and there's a few terms for this. Internalized misogyny
Speaker 1: is probably the most famous. Horizontal hostility is another one.
Speaker 1: This is a term from social psychology describing when members
Speaker 1: of a marginalized group direct criticism, judgment, aggression towards members
Speaker 1: of the same group, rather than challenging like the broader system,
Speaker 1: because it's easier to win favor with the dominant group
Speaker 1: by tearing down similar people in your group, so other women.
Speaker 1: The one I think appli best here, though, is what
Speaker 1: we call the patriarchal bargain. This was a concept first
Speaker 1: talked about in the nineteen eighties by the Turkish academic
Speaker 1: Denise Candiotti, who essentially said, some women look around, they
Speaker 1: see the cost they would bear of fighting back against
Speaker 1: the patriarchy, and they decide it would be easier to
Speaker 1: play it safe. Instead, it'd be much easier to just
Speaker 1: keep playing along. It would also be very beneficial to
Speaker 1: become a bit of a soldier for the patriarchy, hoping
Speaker 1: that the patriarchy is going to be nicer to them
Speaker 1: for being on their side. And one way they do
Speaker 1: it criticizing other women who fall out of line, criticizing
Speaker 1: women who were too much to prove that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm on the patriarchy side, I'm on your side. Don't
Speaker 1: go after me, go after them. Over time, these experiences,
Speaker 1: when repeated, can create a very powerful internal narrative. Instead
Speaker 1: of recognizing that other people's discomfort is the issue, that
Speaker 1: people are allowed to just be who they want to be.
Speaker 1: There's actually nothing inherently wrong with being too much or
Speaker 1: having opinions or being sensitive or loud, other than that,
Speaker 1: we've been socially conditioned to not like it. Instead of
Speaker 1: realizing that many women, many people come to believe that
Speaker 1: I'm a problem. This behavior that I exhibit is a problem.
Speaker 1: I need to adjust accordingly. I want to say, of
Speaker 1: course men experience this as well. I think they just
Speaker 1: experience it in different ways. Many boys are taught that vulnerability, sensitivity,
Speaker 1: emotional openness are unacceptable. They are also labeled too much,
Speaker 1: just in a different way. They're labeled too much when
Speaker 1: they express feelings that fall outside of traditional masculine norms.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how these all combined. When a man is
Speaker 1: called too much, it's also often in comparison to a
Speaker 1: woman as well. You know, you're being too much? Like
Speaker 1: are you just on your period? Like you're so emotional?
Speaker 1: Why are you being You're a woman? You know, that's
Speaker 1: all combined. Everybody suffers when there is this one idea
Speaker 1: of good, and that is somebody who is small, silent,
Speaker 1: and palatable, and the other version is not going to
Speaker 1: be accepted. The other way and place that we can
Speaker 1: see this is in celebrity culture, especially in the treatment
Speaker 1: of celebrities I'm going to make this one final point
Speaker 1: that I.
Speaker 2: Promise that I'll move on.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure a lot of you guys have noticed
Speaker 1: this or seen this cycle of female celebrities where we
Speaker 1: celebrate them, we celebrate them, we get them as big
Speaker 1: as we can get them, and then we tear them
Speaker 1: down the moment that they feel like it's okay to
Speaker 1: celebrate themselves as well. It's like, we're going to praise
Speaker 1: you until you believe us that you're good, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to make you feel foolish for ever believing.
Speaker 1: So I've noticed this more and more the older I've gotten,
Speaker 1: where every few years there will be a celebrity darling
Speaker 1: who people just adore, especially if they're an underdog, especially
Speaker 1: if they're young, and they will get all these endorsements,
Speaker 1: all the invites, all the opportunities, all the praise, But
Speaker 1: as soon as they become even the slightest bit opinionated,
Speaker 1: the slightest bit a little bit too loud, a little
Speaker 1: bit too something, they're cast aside and they are kind
Speaker 1: of depicted as deeply unlikable, difficult to work with. They're
Speaker 1: getting old. Now, this cycle happens like every couple of years,
Speaker 1: the actress and activist Jamila and Jamil has spoken about
Speaker 1: this a lot. She talks about what it was like
Speaker 1: coming up and how you know special, she was made
Speaker 1: to feel how welcome until she got to a point
Speaker 1: where she was overexposed, and then suddenly the press coverage
Speaker 1: like turned almost overnight. It blew minor things she said
Speaker 1: out of proportion. It painted her as somebody who was
Speaker 1: too loud, who was rocking the boat, who was a maniac.
Speaker 2: It was crazy.
Speaker 1: What she found interesting was like the media made money
Speaker 1: off of her when they liked her, and they also
Speaker 1: made money off of her when they convinced everybody to
Speaker 1: hate her for being too much. This isn't just her.
Speaker 1: This is a pattern that we see time and time again,
Speaker 1: and I have to admit it's a pattern that has
Speaker 1: influenced my opinion of female celebrities from time to time.
Speaker 1: For example, when I say these names, what do you
Speaker 1: think see if this has influenced you, what do you
Speaker 1: think of these women? Megan Markle, Taylor Swift and Hathaway,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lawrence, Rachel Zegler, Billie Eilish. It feels like they
Speaker 1: have this glory moment and then they're just dropped. If
Speaker 1: you feel like you don't like one of them, can
Speaker 1: you explain why? Can you think of exactly why you
Speaker 1: don't like them? Where did that feeling come from. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that, you know, all women should be immune
Speaker 1: from being criticized. I'm sure a lot of those celebrities
Speaker 1: have done things that are genuinely probably not great. They
Speaker 1: shouldn't be immune just because they're women. But a woman
Speaker 1: seen as too much will often be canceled much faster
Speaker 1: and harder than a man with literally serious crimes to
Speaker 1: his name. A lot of that is tied up in
Speaker 1: how we shame muchness in women, and I think it
Speaker 1: needs to be examined from a psychological perspective, which is
Speaker 1: what we're doing. Even Adele, one of the greatest singers
Speaker 1: of all time, do you remember when people were like
Speaker 1: running tabloids that she was like too loud, she was
Speaker 1: like too much. She's literally a soul singer, Like it
Speaker 1: is literally her job to have a loud voice. So
Speaker 1: if this fear of being too much exists at every
Speaker 1: layer or stage of society, from childhood to adulthood, regular
Speaker 1: human to famous human, how do we unlearn it? That's
Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about, So glad you asked.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about so many ways that we
Speaker 1: can do this, including some maybe unconventional ones, after this shortbreak.
Speaker 1: So we know that believing that we're too much is
Speaker 1: most certainly rooted in gender norms, in how we would
Speaker 1: treat it as children, male or female, and importantly in
Speaker 1: other people's psychology as well, and how they treat us
Speaker 1: based on their own insecurities. How do we counteract all
Speaker 1: of these things, all of these forces that have actually
Speaker 1: very little to do with us. Well, sometimes the only
Speaker 1: antidote to being too much is just being too much
Speaker 1: and just owning it. Like, the first thing we have
Speaker 1: to realize is that not everybody is going to like you.
Speaker 1: It is a fact of life that literally nobody is
Speaker 1: immune from nobody. If you think that there is someone
Speaker 1: that everyone in your life likes, I think you're mistaken
Speaker 1: unless this person is like Dolly Parton or something. But
Speaker 1: I also think you'd be surprised about how much this
Speaker 1: person has had to self police and suppress to be
Speaker 1: this universally liked figure. We suffer in one way or another.
Speaker 1: We suffer if people don't like us. Because we feel
Speaker 1: bad and we suffer if everybody does. Because we don't
Speaker 1: know who we are. We definitely have to compromise parts
Speaker 1: of ourselves to get to that point. Like there is
Speaker 1: genuinely no winning, and I think that's a very important
Speaker 1: thing to remember. Not everybody is going to like you.
Speaker 1: It's just going to happen. The truth is is that
Speaker 1: your too much is always going to overwhelm people who
Speaker 1: have been asked to suppress those same things they see
Speaker 1: in you in themselves. Some people are going to be
Speaker 1: intimidated by your confidence. Others are going to find you irritating.
Speaker 1: Someone might find you disappointing because you don't match their expectations.
Speaker 1: But if the opinion comes from them, it is their
Speaker 1: responsibility and it is their burden.
Speaker 2: It's not yours.
Speaker 1: They have ownership over that thought. If they thought it,
Speaker 1: it is their thought, the same way that you have
Speaker 1: ownership over your own thoughts about them. About people that
Speaker 1: you may judge, we all have those feelings. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: belong to you, not the other person. Instead of thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't believe they made me feel this way.
Speaker 1: I can't believe they think I'm this think. I can't
Speaker 1: believe they were made to feel like they couldn't be
Speaker 1: who they wanted to be the way that I could.
Speaker 1: I can't believe they haven't had the opportunity to unlearn this.
Speaker 1: I think pity is honestly one of the greatest antidotes
Speaker 1: to judgment, at least that's what I've found. Secondly, I
Speaker 1: think it is imperative that you start to accept that
Speaker 1: there are unique benefits to being someone who feels very
Speaker 1: deeply expresses that who is allowed, who is out there,
Speaker 1: even if a consequence is some level of social judgment.
Speaker 1: You may actually belong to a very special group of people.
Speaker 1: We have a name for them. They're known as highly
Speaker 1: sensitive persons. Highly sensitive persons. Highly sensitive people make up
Speaker 1: only fifteen percent of the population according to some estimates,
Speaker 1: And as much as we need our practical, emotionless thinkers
Speaker 1: or our creative thinker is or whatever it is, we
Speaker 1: need our complex, sensitive, out loud thinkers as well. Highly
Speaker 1: sensitive people. If you think this may be you. They
Speaker 1: are individuals who feel and respond to the world very deeply,
Speaker 1: sometimes even painfully. A recent Guardian article talks about how
Speaker 1: highly sensitive people may be the missing personality type you
Speaker 1: know you just notice and feel other people's emotions as
Speaker 1: strongly as your own. You feel very moved by the world,
Speaker 1: by art, by small injustices. You may cry more, you
Speaker 1: may be more expressive and passionate about things. It may
Speaker 1: even influence how you respond to things like caffeine, things
Speaker 1: like noise, things like pain. It's thought that all of
Speaker 1: it's actually also genetic hereditary. I should say, there was
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty three study from well, not from but
Speaker 1: conducted in Saudi Arabia that kind of linked being this
Speaker 1: kind of individual to a kind of genetic component that's
Speaker 1: passed down through you know, your parents and their parents
Speaker 1: that essentially influences how your brain processes emotion and responds
Speaker 1: to external stimuli. Also goes without saying, can also be
Speaker 1: entirely not genetic. You know, if you're the only one
Speaker 1: in your family like this, don't go and think that
Speaker 1: you're like adopted. There's nothing wrong with you. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just our temperament, it's just who we are. It is
Speaker 1: another unique part of how humanity has been formed and
Speaker 1: how we operate. And I think when you realize this
Speaker 1: about yourself.
Speaker 2: You realize you are this kind of person.
Speaker 1: You know, your life history starts to make a little
Speaker 1: bit more sense. You can realize that criticism you have
Speaker 1: received since you were a kid about being too much
Speaker 1: might come from people who just don't feel as deeply
Speaker 1: as you. They just literally can't access that depth. They
Speaker 1: don't ruminate as much as you. They don't understand what
Speaker 1: it feels like to not be able to let things
Speaker 1: go because more things are so important to you. They
Speaker 1: just genuinely it's like somebody who is colorblind trying to
Speaker 1: think about what it's like to see in color. You
Speaker 1: also need to appreciate that you are a needed and
Speaker 1: necessary part of society because your character, your personality, has
Speaker 1: so many advantages that are needed in the world. Firstly,
Speaker 1: if the goal in life is to experience, you are
Speaker 1: already doing way more of that than the average person
Speaker 1: because you're feeling everything like two hundred percent double the
Speaker 1: depth that the average person is. Secondly, you're better able
Speaker 1: to acknowledge and help people with their own struggles and
Speaker 1: kind of be that beacon. Highly sensitive people make excellent therapists,
Speaker 1: excellent teachers, artists, social workers, humanitarian workers, vets, activists. Thirdly,
Speaker 1: you are more likely to be someone who is quite
Speaker 1: creative you're more likely to have higher levels of emotional
Speaker 1: intelligence greater levels of divergent thinking. Again another huge benefit.
Speaker 1: Divergent thinking. By the way, if you haven't heard of
Speaker 1: this is actually one of the greatest signs of pure
Speaker 1: intelligence that we know of. It is the it's a
Speaker 1: distinct kind of thought process that allows us to have unique, creative,
Speaker 1: spontaneous thoughts, and it's a kind of thought process that
Speaker 1: allows people to connect ideas that often seem very unrelated
Speaker 1: together into one picture. You know, you see a problem
Speaker 1: and you can think of a dozen solutions that are
Speaker 1: out of the box, whereas most people could only think
Speaker 1: of one. You can maybe match small tunes to rhythms.
Speaker 1: You have a business idea once a day. You know,
Speaker 1: you have all these different creative ways of thinking about
Speaker 1: the world that connect disparate ideas. That is a huge
Speaker 1: sign that you are quite a switched on person. And
Speaker 1: so your too much personality in that sense is an asset.
Speaker 1: It is an asset that has probably gone unappreciated by
Speaker 1: the people around you. If you're feeling like it's something
Speaker 1: to be ashamed of. Another thing that's worth doing is
Speaker 1: just considering if you are generally too much or if
Speaker 1: there are just certain people in your life who make
Speaker 1: you feel that way, meaning that this feeling is situational
Speaker 1: and relational, not personal. I think it's often the case.
Speaker 1: What's fascinating is that some relationships do seem to expand us,
Speaker 1: whilst others contract us, specifically ones that are based around shame.
Speaker 1: The psychologist Karl Rogers spoke about the importance of this
Speaker 1: thing called unconditional positive regard, the feeling that you are
Speaker 1: accepted and valued without needing to constantly edit yourself. When
Speaker 1: we are around people who offer that acceptance, who accept
Speaker 1: our muchness, I should say, we tend to become more open,
Speaker 1: more spontaneous, more authentic, more confident. We talk more, we
Speaker 1: laugh more, we share our opinions without rehearsing them first.
Speaker 1: We just feel better. That's a very great kind of relationship.
Speaker 1: The opposite can also occur, though. Certain people make us
Speaker 1: hyper aware of ourselves in a restrictive way, and the
Speaker 1: longer you spend around these people, the worse you will
Speaker 1: feel about yourself, and the worse you will feel about
Speaker 1: the core elements of your personality. You will believe that
Speaker 1: it is something to fix. In this way, as I said,
Speaker 1: your muchness is situational. It is relational. It is not personal.
Speaker 1: It is not a personal flaw. This doesn't even need
Speaker 1: to be explicit, like it doesn't need to be somebody
Speaker 1: telling you you're too much. It can be subtle. Research
Speaker 1: on nonverbal cues show that we often instinctively know when
Speaker 1: somebody is attempting to make us feel bad about ourselves
Speaker 1: through subtle changes in their tone, eye contact, body language,
Speaker 1: the positioning of their mouth, even if we can't consciously
Speaker 1: put a finger on it. Being around that constantly, knowing
Speaker 1: in this far away part of our minds, like I
Speaker 1: don't think this person likes me. I don't think they
Speaker 1: like who I am. That has a lasting effect. I
Speaker 1: need you to reconsider the nature of these relationships, even
Speaker 1: if you are scared the other side of the this
Speaker 1: is going to be lonely. I promise you the space,
Speaker 1: the social space that you will open up, the acceptance
Speaker 1: that you will receive in the future from meeting people
Speaker 1: who love you for who you are is going to
Speaker 1: be a million times more fulfilling than the temporary lack
Speaker 1: of loneliness that you get by avoiding these hard conversations
Speaker 1: or staying in these relationships I think it's so difficult
Speaker 1: to separate ourselves from people who we've known for a
Speaker 1: while who make us feel this way better family, And
Speaker 1: we know that a lot of people who feel too
Speaker 1: much report feeling very lonely and very isolated and misunderstood.
Speaker 1: But is that because you're just easy to misunderstand or
Speaker 1: is that because people just don't want to understand you
Speaker 1: or don't have the capacity. I think it's the latter,
Speaker 1: And if they don't have the capacity, it means that
Speaker 1: there are people who do the right people will find
Speaker 1: you when you make the space for them to step
Speaker 1: into your life. The right people will see your muchness
Speaker 1: and take it up like ten levels. They will see
Speaker 1: your passion as an asset. They will love that you're allowed.
Speaker 1: They will want even more of you to love. They'll
Speaker 1: see your muchness as more of you to love. You
Speaker 1: deserve people who can meet your level of depth, of
Speaker 1: emotional velocity and complexity with their own level of those
Speaker 1: same things. I think the early wounds of feeling like
Speaker 1: you're too much can make us think that that isn't
Speaker 1: out there, That we are like this isolated individual who
Speaker 1: needs to be ashamed and put away, But they are
Speaker 1: so with that in mind, I want to wrap up
Speaker 1: this episode. I just hope that it's made you feel seen.
Speaker 1: I hope it's made you realize how common this kind
Speaker 1: of childhood wound is, and how many people feel like
Speaker 1: that they should be less than to find acceptance. I
Speaker 1: realize now, you know, I've been in the wrong environments
Speaker 1: for so many years of my life. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: that I famally found the right ones. Your muchness is
Speaker 1: not inherent bad. I just want to say that you
Speaker 1: have just been socially conditioned to feel that way because
Speaker 1: of other people's expectations and at times their own self consciousness.
Speaker 1: That can be counteracted. You can counteract that by recognizing
Speaker 1: three truths about who you are. One, your muchness stops
Speaker 1: being a problem when the people you surround yourself with
Speaker 1: are also at that same level of muchness. Two, your
Speaker 1: muchness stops being a problem when you realize that it
Speaker 1: makes up a wonderful part of who you are and
Speaker 1: it is a valuable addition to society. And three, your
Speaker 1: muchness stops being a problem when you direct it in
Speaker 1: ways that are creative, exciting, and helpful. And then you'll
Speaker 1: realize that all that shame you were made to carry
Speaker 1: has just been completely misdirected, and it's been completely not helpful.
Speaker 1: Embracing this part of you is going to just unlock
Speaker 1: a whole new side of life. So I hope again
Speaker 1: this episode has helped. I want to thank our researcher
Speaker 1: Lucy Davidson for her contributions. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: even more about this feeling and about this unique kind
Speaker 1: of childhood wound, you can read the full episode transcript
Speaker 1: on substack. I will leave a link down below. We
Speaker 1: will also have additional resources, including some of the papers
Speaker 1: that we cited in the description down below. As always,
Speaker 1: if you haven't yet, please watch an episode on Netflix.
Speaker 1: It would help us greatly, truly, it really would, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna again leave a link down below. I feel
Speaker 1: like I say that twenty million times every episode, but
Speaker 1: you know where to find it. Until next time, Be safe,
Speaker 1: be kind, be gentle with yourself, especially if you resonated
Speaker 1: with this episode. We will talk very very soon.