Pod Insights The Psychology of your 20s 437. The psychology behind feeling 'too much' About this episode At some point in most of our lives, most of us have felt that we are ‘too much’. We might feel that we are too loud, have too many opinions, are too extroverted, too needy, or generally take up too much emotional ‘space’. In this episode, we explore what this feels like when it bleeds into our personal and professional lives, the impact of suppressing emotions upon our immune system, and look at some methods to unlearn and reconfigure our relationship with the ‘too much’ label.
We unpack:
• Why society likes to shame people who are confident and outspoken
• The psychology of ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’, and why women are particularly vulnerable
• How being shamed and shut down as children makes us feel ‘too much’ later in life
• The link between suppressing our emotions and our immune system
• How we can unlearn the belief that we are ‘too much’
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Our favourite sources:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_are_confident_people_so_polarizing
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4212945/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXo5rB3jtOe/?img_index=20&igsh=emNnMDNlZzFoeDZm https://www.instagram.com/p/DXo5rB3jtOe/?img_index=20&igsh=emNnMDNlZzFoeDZm
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:18 Jemma Sbeg? Hello everybody, I'm Jemma Sbeg and welcome back to the Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.
2:38 Jemma Sbeg? Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course, break down the psychology of our twenties, of your twenties. Hey, before we get into this episode, before we get started, I wanted to let you know that the full video version of this episode, of this podcast, is now available on Netflix worldwide. If you are somebody who prefers to watch rather than listen to your podcast or just likes having the podcast on in the background whilst you're cooking or cleaning or commuting, you can find us on Netflix. It is candidly a pretty new space for podcasts.
3:23 Jemma Sbeg? So if you're a fan of the show and just want to help prove that podcasts are the real deal and that people enjoy them and support them, genuinely the best way you can do that is to just go and watch an episode. That is my plea to you today. But what are we talking about in this episode today? We are talking about something that I think almost everyone has experienced at some point in their lives, which is the feeling of just being too much. You know, you're too loud, you're too emotional, you're too opinionated. Somebody's made you feel like you're too sensitive, you're too needy, too enthusiastic. I think at some point, most of us have had that sudden flash of self-consciousness
4:04 Jemma Sbeg? where we just become acutely aware of ourselves, how we're behaving and how other people are responding, perhaps in a less than favorable way. Maybe it's because you're laughing a little bit too loudly and you realise everybody's kind of looking at you. Maybe you realise you've been talking for too long or you know, you've shared something personal, you've immediately regretted it. Maybe you've expressed excitement, passion, love too soon or you know, at too much of a level, only to watch someone else's reaction and just think, "Oh, they're definitely..."
4:41 Jemma Sbeg? Going to tell people about this and it's not gonna be nice. It's a genuinely and uniquely painful feeling. And it can lead us to living very lonely lives because it goes deeper than just embarrassment. Right? This feeling, it's bigger than that. What we're feeling is is shame. When we feel too much, we feel shame, the sense that who we are naturally is somebody that won't be accepted. And therefore, if you wanna find people to connect with, if you wanna find people to be around. The only way to do that is to just shrink down a little bit. That is your only pathway to acceptance is to just not be who you are. I have such distinct memories and moments from my childhood exactly like this where
5:25 Jemma Sbeg? I can literally see in hindsight, like the idea being implanted into my mind in real time that I was too much for people. And so I wanted to explore it today for others who may feel the same way because I think at its core, feelings of being too much are closely related to feelings of not fitting in. Feelings that, you know, you never did belong, that haven't found their resolution. And they won't find their resolution until you really dig into why it is that you're made to feel this way. The cost of feeling this way and how it is that you can really just accept the bigger, louder, more out there parts of yourself. So without further ado, let's get into it.
6:09 Jemma Sbeg? When you feel like you are too much, that feeling rarely stays confined to just like one area of life. It tends to follow you everywhere, even if it takes on different forms depending on the situation. For example, when we date, you know, we might consciously pull back from saying what we really wanna say and admitting our true feelings, showing the other person that we're interested or showing them too much of our personality. We may stop ourselves from doing those things prematurely so that they won't reject us. At work, we, when we feel too much, we can feel like, you know, we're always the loud one.
6:48 Jemma Sbeg? We're too demanding, our standards are too high, we're too sensitive. And so, again, we don't ask for what we want. We stay silent when we really wanna say things. We maybe lose out on opportunities because of that. Same in friendships, same with your family. Perhaps your family was the kind of family that. Was quite quiet and and you embarrass them, you know, the guiding thought we have is again and again and again, people would probably like me if I wasn't the way that I am. The core question we need to explore here is, to begin with, why does our society automatically tend to shame people who are too much into being less? Why is it not the other way around? Why is it that we find
7:31 Jemma Sbeg? loud, passionate, some might say brash individuals so polarizing, you know, inspirational at best, offensive at worst? It's interesting to me because society, you know, as much as I said, they don't tend to shame people who go the other direction. I do think they do, you know, people who are too quiet also are made to feel like they are less than. It's another example of like this impossible standard. You can't be too much, you can't be too little. You have to be just right and very few people sit on that fine line. So there's a couple of explanations as to why the too much person is ashamed. The first is that it challenges social norms. One of the deepest psychological reasons we label people as too much is because human beings are remarkably sensitive to social norms.
8:15 Jemma Sbeg? Every culture, every workplace, every friendship group, family, community has this unwritten rulebook for how members should behave, what's appropriate to wear, how loud someone should be, what gets said, what doesn't get said, who's top dog, who's a follower, what's polite, what's not polite, it's it's always there. When someone exceeds those invisible boundaries, others think, you know, well, you're not playing by the rules. Why can't you just be like the rest of us? Why can't you just obey and continue this harmonious kind of feeling? This reaction is particularly the case for people who have a real rule-following, structured personality type.
9:00 Jemma Sbeg? These people find the muchness particularly difficult to deal with. And they're often high on what we call conscientiousness, which is a big five personality trait that measures and reflects self-control, diligence, attention to detail, rule following, and it's also correlated with perfectionism and at times authoritarianism and traditionalism. That final point I find really interesting. You know, there is a particular kind of individual who finds muchness offensive. One study I found from two thousand and sixteen titled The Big Five in Relationship with, I can't even remember, it's like, the big five in relationship with with social dominance orientation, looked at personality correlates in a sample of four hundred people.
9:46 Jemma Sbeg? And, you know, who they voted for, what political parties they supported, and they found that people high in conscientiousness, there was a positive correlation with an increase in conservative, traditional, and at times authoritarian values. Some people just like rules and structure more. They want people to behave all in the same way. When you don't, and they have that personality type, they look to correct that in you by making you feel too much and hoping the shame of that nudges you back in line. That's explanation number one. Explanation number two, muchness, your muchness reflects a self-acceptance and an authentic expression
10:30 Jemma Sbeg? that other people feel is a threat. Psychology points to this idea that perhaps we dislike people who are confident because they make us feel that we are lacking. This has a name, it's called the self-evaluation threat. Essentially, a lot of our identity is based on how we regard ourselves in relation to others. When someone displays traits or behaviours we secretly feel like we lack, we either feel worse about ourselves and our ego is injured, or we convince ourselves we actually don't like those traits. We don't want to be like that person.
11:11 Jemma Sbeg? Therefore, we protect our ego by dismissing the value of this individual we're secretly a little bit jealous of. This really comes down to. That one pesky social reaction that is hardwired into all of us, whether we like it or not, social comparison. Something we talk about a lot on the podcast is how comparison happens in two directions. And what direction we choose to, I guess, direct it in will influence how we feel about ourselves, also how we will feel about other people. I think an example is probably needed here. Um, the best one I can think of is like, imagine you hear that like your colleague has just made like a huge scientific discovery.
11:54 Jemma Sbeg? They've like pu- published something in a journal, they've won an award, they've received some accolade. It's a big deal. In response, you either can feel inspired by them, happy for them. You see their status rise and that's motivational for you. Or you feel crap about yourself. You feel stressed that you haven't achieved that yet. You find reasons to make their achievement feel smaller. The first reaction, the positive one, is upward social comparison. This person becomes what we call an expander for you. Someone who has showed you what's possible and inspired you to reach it. The second reaction is downward social comparison.
12:37 Jemma Sbeg? This person has become a threat. They've, they've threatened you, they've made you feel worse about yourself. You feel in competition with them and due to their success, their recent success, you are now losing that competition. You're not as good. This can start as what we call in psychology benign envy, which is relatively harmless. It quickly can transform into malicious envy if you're not careful, where you know, you start doing things you don't see as a reflection of your character. You know, you criticize this person, you try and lessen their status. You accuse them or somebody's maybe accused you of being too much.
13:17 Jemma Sbeg? This also explains why your own muchness feels like a threat to people who internally feel too little. Someone else's own comfort in themselves can remind people of their own unhealed insecurity.
13:34 Jemma Sbeg? They call you too much, they say you're too loud, too aggressive, too excited because they've silenced themselves. So why can't you? They've had to do it, you should have to do it as well. They've denied themselves authentic expression. They've been internally hurt by that fact. Well, now everybody else should have to make the same choice and should have to pay the same price. In Australia, we have a term for when people feel threatened by other success. It's called tall poppy syndrome. And it's this idea that the tallest poppy or the tallest flower is the first one to get cut down. The people who are doing the best, who are the most successful, the loudest, the most passionate, they are the ones others need to eliminate first if they wanna feel better about their own
14:19 Jemma Sbeg? deficits or lackings. A great way to do that, say that somebody is just too much, shame them into being smaller, paint them as, you know, going against social harmony in the name of humility. Like, you're doing this to make sure social order is maintained. Not really. The reason we do this is because of pride and because we can't bear to see somebody be better than us. An interesting psychological follow-up question is, when does this feeling begin, right? We kind of know how it's implanted in us, but when does our muchness first start to feel like something that we need to internally correct or change to belong?
15:00 Jemma Sbeg? There is this turning point around the ages of like six or eight. And then again, I think in our early teenage years when we often have our first experiences of realizing that maybe people don't like us and realizing perhaps I don't fit in. People don't like me for who I am. This can happen with our families. It also happens with with teachers, with friends, even random strangers. But I think the first place it really does begin is is with our families and with our parents. Especially when it comes to our bids for connection and our bids for emotional comfort. A big way children show that they want closeness and that they want emotional support
15:41 Jemma Sbeg? from their parents is through crying and through being loud and through trying to get their attention. If an adult's response to your crying or your bids was to tell you to shut up or to stop crying or to get over it. If they became frustrated when you wanted attention, when they dismissed your upsets, something kind of clicks in you. You know, when I am loud, when I express what I need, I am made to feel bad. Therefore, part of me that naturally needs and naturally wants must be inherently shameful and incorrect. We have to remember, you know, a big way that we learn what is socially and personally appropriate
16:20 Jemma Sbeg? as children is by closely watching, monitoring and responding to adults' reactions to our behaviour. And so when we see people constantly be like, you are too much, we start to feel that. Does that mean we become emotionless? No, it just means we become very repressed. That natural set point for our emotions, though, that remains. Like, we still feel all the feelings we would normally feel, but it's now constantly bubbling below the surface, unable to be communicated, and it becomes incredibly uncomfortable when we just can't express or be who we are. It's not just your tears or your cries that were perhaps ignored as a child. Research shows that children who are overexcitable, loud, boisterous,
17:06 Jemma Sbeg? they often receive less preferential or favourable treatment from parents and teachers compared to children who are quiet and agreeable. The loud children are punished just for being themselves. Children pick up on those reactions, especially since their sense of fairness is so heightened. And so when they see, you know, the nice, quiet girl gets a lot more praise than the loud child or the big, brash child, we internalise that. We basically think, if I want adults to like me, if I want people to like me, I better change. Because who I am now isn't good enough if it doesn't meet that standard. Personally, I had so many experiences like this when I was a kid because
17:50 Jemma Sbeg? I was a happy and extroverted and enthusiastic child. Like, I can acknowledge now that I really didn't do any harm, but I was just loud and I was just boisterous. The way some adults responded to my personality is a feeling that I don't think you can forget. Like frustration at best, disgust, even a little bit of hatred at worst. And that sticks with you. That becomes how you feel about yourself. Disgusted, annoyed, ashamed. I should be less. I remember one teacher I had, I can remember it so well. She would almost try and like embarrass me for how loud I was. I think I was literally like seven
18:30 Jemma Sbeg? or eight and she would get other children to copy how loud I was back to me. So I'd be like speaking loud and she'd be like, well, everybody speak at Gemma the way she was speaking. She would call me like loud Gemma and the other Gemma in class was nice Gemma. I was literally seven. Um, she would ignore me when I like asked her questions or like I would try and I remember having these distinct memories of being like, I'm so excited by this art I made or trying to share something with her. And she would just ignore me. And you know, I was the biggest and tallest and loudest girl in the class. I wasn't particularly delicate or neat. And I could see that even as a kid, like she had personal opinions of that she didn't like that I was that child. I share that story not for sympathy, not because I'm still hurt by it.
19:15 Jemma Sbeg? I literally now get to talk and be loud for a living. It's obviously worked out pretty fine for me, but I just think it's a good example of what early childhood experiences and conditioning does to our sense of self. Those early autobiographical memories of somebody not liking you for who you are doesn't just disappear. They are absorbed into our internal sense of self and shame and how we self-police our own behavior. The older we get, eventually we don't need someone, we don't need a teacher or a parent to tell us that we're being too much or to tell us to shut up anymore. We just do it ourselves. One two thousand and sixteen paper from the Journal of Child Psychiatry talks about how
19:58 Jemma Sbeg? Children who were made to feel embarrassed by aspects of who they are, and it's not just whether they're loud, but their looks or anything, they tend to develop more shame proness the older they get. This was from a longitudinal study that started with three hundred and fifty children in the fifth grade. It followed them until they turned eighteen, so a long time. More shame in childhood caused what these researchers labeled as painful self-focus, or painful focus on the self. And it was often accompanied by a need to shrink, to be smaller. As adults, these individuals also often resorted to a number of defensive strategies to escape the feeling that they were inadequate.
20:43 Jemma Sbeg? Everything from substances to overconfidence to self-sabotage. That was the consequence of this childhood reaction to their personality. So what are some of the other long-term psychological effects? I really want to investigate these. We need to take a short break. When we return, we'll dive right into it.
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24:26 Jemma Sbeg? So what is the effect of constantly being told or like implicitly made to feel like we're too much from childhood? Even to adulthood, could have been last week that you felt this way. First, if this began when you were a child, you were likely made to grow up a lot faster than your peers. Because you learnt to emotionally and socially monitor your behaviour early on. You also, you know, learnt how to observe the reactions of others and the reactions they were having towards you much earlier in life. This increases our level of social hypervigilance. That occupies a lot of mental space.
25:09 Jemma Sbeg? It basically means that if you're a kid and you're trying to pay attention to whether the adults in your life like you, you have a lot less time and attention to just be a kid and to just experiment and to just enjoy yourself and have fun. It also has the lovely added bonus of making us prematurely and rather intensely insecure. Now, some level of insecurity is natural with age. It's actually a good thing. It's what psychologists call the looking glass self. The ability to imagine and understand how others may perceive us so that we can kind of meet important social norms. Like, we know not to hurt others. We know not to completely alienate ourselves. We know that's not good for our sense of belonging.
25:52 Jemma Sbeg? But for someone who constantly feels like their personality is too big for their body, that people don't like them or expect them to be less, that looking glass self. Becomes a hyper fixation. That becomes something that we obsess over. I always think about this as like, it almost creates a kind of like self-concept dysmorphia. Where similar to body dysmorphia, we're like looking in this internal mirror and we're trying to figure out if like, we're too big or we're too small. Or if we're just right and like how others see us versus how we see ourselves. Like, can we trust our own self-perception? That's what's happening internally. Feeling like we're too much also leaves us disconnected from our authentic self.
26:37 Jemma Sbeg? Whereby our identity kind of splits. There's this true self and there's this false self. Our false self begins to feel more and more like the real us because they're the version everybody sees and hopefully everybody likes. They're the version of us that is acceptable, the one that is smaller and nice and polite and the one we try and force ourselves into. But there will always be a disconnect that lingers and eats away at us. We will always know unconsciously, probably consciously, that there is a part of us that really wants to be expressed that we can't. Our relationships also might feel less fulfilling because again, it's the false self that people like and it's the false self that people are investing in.
27:20 Jemma Sbeg? And it makes it harder and harder the more they invest in the false self to actually reveal who we are and not feel like we're going to be rejected. I saw this great quote the other day. You know, if you are hiding, how will they find you? And that is an excellent example of what feeling like, feeling too much and feeling like you need to hide does to your ability to really find your people and to, and to be accepted. Another thing that I don't see spoken about a lot. Constantly suppressing our organic, naturally occurring emotions and feelings and reactions has a tangible and very real impact on your body. Specifically, the body's ability to heal itself and to take care of itself.
28:00 Jemma Sbeg? There is so much, there is a huge scientific link, I should say, between self-suppression, feelings of self-consciousness and poorer physical functioning. It is, it is a multi-directional relationship. One paper from two thousand and fourteen exploring kind of the interplay between our emotions and our immune system reviewed a series of studies and found that the expression or suppression of four critical emotional states, anger, anxiety, joy and relaxation.
28:31 Jemma Sbeg? All modulated the production of cytokine, specifically cytokine proteins in the body. Cytokine proteins, these chemical proteins, they are what allow our immune cells to communicate and properly function on a cellular level. Their production is being influenced by our emotional state. When we feel greater levels of anxiety, anger, frustration and social alertness. When we feel tension from, you know, having to go a step further and suppress those things. This reduces production, meaning our immune system and our immune cells are worse at working with each other.
29:11 Jemma Sbeg? When we feel capable of expressing those emotions on the other side of things, when we feel less tension, when we feel more positive, uh, relaxed emotions, greater production occurs. This is so important. I literally never see people talk about this. When we feel that we have too much. When we censor our emotions and feelings to create a version of ourselves that we think will be more palatable to others. We could potentially be causing physical harm to our body and its ability to take care of itself. Our body becomes worse at knowing what is wrong and being able to treat it. And for what? Literally for what? The benefit of somebody else's comfort? So that they may like us, they may help us, include us.
29:54 Jemma Sbeg? When we secretly know, like, it's not us they actually like, it's this version of us that they enjoy more. We are paying this debt for somebody else's comfort. We are genuinely, I don't wanna say sabotaging, but, you know, I don't wanna say making poor choices, but we are doing, we are putting ourselves and our bodies through an uncomfortable and an un, an unhealthy, but an uncomfortable state, just so that somebody else doesn't get insulted by us. And that is a ridiculous bargain. That is a ridiculous trade deal. Now, there is a huge part of this discussion that we've kind of swept over so far that has a, like, a massive gigantic role to play when we discuss
30:37 Jemma Sbeg? how, like, society socially conditions us into being less.
30:42 Jemma Sbeg? That is, of course, the effect of gender and the fact that the insult of of too much is much more likely to be directed at women than at a man. This is a gendered insult. It it is, whilst I think anyone can feel like they're too much, one hundred percent, and men are definitely made to feel this way in many circumstances. Women have historically been far more likely to be subsequently punished for taking up space. And part of that punishment is language like this that is intended to correct a woman's unsocial mannerisms and behaviours so that they act in line. I feel like this isn't news to many of you.
31:22 Jemma Sbeg? I feel like we kind of know this is like feminism one on one, but just to describe the whole process from like A to B to C. You know, from a young age, A, many girls are socialised to be agreeable, accommodating, very easy to manage. This doesn't just happen naturally, but because we are being conditioned, it gives the impression that women and girls are just like this. Again, because they were environmentally made to be, but because it becomes a social wide thing, it seems like a norm. Because we raise girls to be polite, mature, helpful. Because we therefore confuse these traits as being inherently feminine. Because we reward these behaviours more, even as a woman gets older.
32:07 Jemma Sbeg? What that means is that when somebody doesn't act that way. When the social standard of female behaviour isn't met. Those individuals, probably us, are made to feel bad and are made to feel like they cannot perform, they are not people who fit into society, they are made to feel shame. It also means that we start to self-police and self-impose these ideas of femininity on ourselves. The issue is this behavioural pattern, like I said, doesn't allow for any divergence from the good girl standard. So women are often placed in an impossible position. You can either be good and you can be polite and you can be liked. And maybe not get what you want.
32:52 Jemma Sbeg? Or you can be loud, you can be yourself, you can be criticized, but be able to be more ambitious and go after what you want. This is called the likability paradox or the likability penalty. It was first labeled by researchers at NYU and Northwestern. And they were studying this thing called role congruity. Essentially, what is often required to get ahead in certain industries is the very thing that makes people dislike a woman more. Based on their expectations for how she should behave. Based on what they think a female behavioral profile should be. Research repeatedly shows this qualities like confidence, assertiveness. Ambition are generally viewed very positively in men.
33:35 Jemma Sbeg? Not so positively in women. I think they can actually provoke a great deal of social backlash and a great deal of like. Sometimes even disdain from other people, you know, a woman who advocates for herself may be. Seen as as very aggressive. A woman who is confident may be labeled as very arrogant. A woman who is passionate, maybe very bossy, emotional. Time and time again, we see these like kind of stereotypes come up. A woman who is just being herself is once more. Too much. And this is where that very label of too much that we've been examining this whole episode. Becomes less of an observation and more of a social weapon. In these situations, it functions as like a warning signal, like.
34:21 Jemma Sbeg? Don't be louder, don't get any bigger for your boots, don't be any more visible than people expect you to be because. We won't like you anymore and you will be punished. Like again, too much is a social weapon. It's also. A bit of a warning. It's like this is the line, don't cross it. What's particularly important to recognize is that this policing doesn't only come from men. Women can also reinforce these expectations. Onto other women, perhaps even more so in my opinion at times. I don't know if that's controversial, but from what I've seen. Sometimes women are the ones who correct other women's behaviour more. And there's a few terms for this. Internalised misogyny is probably the most famous. Horizontal hostility is another one.
35:05 Jemma Sbeg? This is a term from social psychology describing when members of a marginalised group direct criticism, judgment, aggression towards members of the same group, rather than challenging like the broader system, because it's easier to win favour with the dominant group by tearing down similar people in your group, so other women. The one I think applies best here, though, is what we call the patriarchal bargain. This was a concept first talked about in the nineteen eighties by the Turkish academic Denise Candyotti, who essentially said, some women look around, they see the cost they would bear
35:49 Jemma Sbeg? of fighting back against the patriarchy and they decide it would be easier to play it safe instead. It'd be much easier to just keep playing along. It would also be very beneficial to become a bit of a soldier for the patriarchy, hoping that the patriarchy is going to be nicer to them for being on their side. And one way they do it, criticizing other women who fall out of line, criticizing women who are too much to prove that, you know, I'm on the patriarchy side, I'm on your side. Don't go after me, go after them. Over time, these experiences, when repeated, can create a very powerful internal narrative. Instead of recognizing that other people's discomfort is the issue,
36:33 Jemma Sbeg? that people are allowed to just be who they want to be, there's actually nothing inherently wrong with being too much or having opinions or being sensitive or loud, other than that we've been socially conditioned to not like it. Instead of realizing that, many women, many people come to believe that I'm a problem. This behaviour that I exhibit is a problem. I need to adjust accordingly. I wanna say, of course, men experience this as well. I think they just experience it in different ways. Many boys are taught that vulnerability, sensitivity, emotional openness are unacceptable. They are also labelled too much, just in a different way.
37:14 Jemma Sbeg? They're labelled too much when they express feelings that fall outside of traditional masculine norms. It's interesting how these all combine when a man is called too much. It it's also often in comparison to a woman as well, you know. Like you're being too much, like you're just on your period, like you're so emotional, like why are you being, are you a woman? You know, that's all combined. Everybody suffers when there is this one idea of good and that is somebody who is small, silent and palatable. And the other version is not gonna be accepted. The other way and place that we can see this is in celebrity culture, especially in the treatment of celebrities. I'm gonna make this one final point, then I promise that I'll move on, but.
37:56 Jemma Sbeg? I'm sure a lot of you guys have noticed this or seen this cycle of female celebrities where we celebrate them, we celebrate them, we get them. As big as we can get them and then we tear them down the moment that they feel like it's okay to celebrate themselves as well. It's like, we're gonna praise you until you believe us that you're good. And then we're gonna make you feel foolish for ever believing so. I've noticed this more and more the older I've gotten where every few years, there will be a celebrity darling who people just adore. Especially if they're an underdog, especially if they're young. And they will get all these endorsements, all the invites, all the opportunities, all the praise. But as soon as they become even the slightest bit opinionated, the slightest bit, a little bit too loud, a little bit too something.
38:40 Jemma Sbeg? They're cast aside and they are kind of depicted as deeply unlikable, difficult to work with, they're getting old now. This cycle happens like every couple of years. The actress and activist Jamila Jamil has spoken about this a lot. She talks about what it was like coming up and how, you know, special she was made to feel, how welcome. Until she got to a point where she was overexposed and then suddenly the press coverage like turned almost. Overnight. It blew minor things she said out of proportion. It painted her as somebody who was too loud, who was rocking the boat, who was a maniac, who was crazy. What she found interesting was like the media made money off of her when they liked her.
39:22 Jemma Sbeg? And they also made money off of her when they convinced everybody to hate her for being too much. This isn't just her. This is a pattern that we see time and time again. And I have to admit, it's a pattern that has influenced my opinion of female celebrities from time to time. For example, um, when I say these names, what do you think? See if this has influenced you. What do you think of these women? Meghan Markle, Taylor Swift, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lawrence, Rachel Zegler, Billie Eilish. It feels like they have this glory moment and then they're just dropped. If you feel like you don't like one of them, can you explain why? Can you think of exactly why you don't like them? Where did that feeling come from?
40:08 Jemma Sbeg? I'm not saying that, you know, all women should be immune from being criticized. I'm sure a lot of those celebrities have done things that are genuinely probably not great. They shouldn't be immune just because they're women. But a woman seen as too much will often be canceled much faster and harder than a man with literally serious crimes to his name. And a lot of that is tied up in how we shame muchness in women. And I think it needs to be examined from a psychological perspective, which is what we're doing. Even Adele, one of the greatest singers of all time. Do you remember when people were like running tabloids that she was like too loud? She was like too much. She's literally a soul singer. Like it is literally her job to have a loud voice.
40:52 Jemma Sbeg? So if this fear of being too much exists at every layer or stage of society from childhood to adulthood, regular human to famous human, how do we unlearn it? That's what we're gonna talk about. So glad you asked. We're gonna talk about so many ways that we can do this, including some maybe unconventional ones after this short break.
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44:35 Jemma Sbeg? So we know that believing that we're too much is most certainly rooted in gender norms, in how we were treated as children, male or female, and importantly, in other people's psychology as well, and how they treat us based on their own insecurities. How do we counteract all of these things, all of these forces that have actually very little to do with us? Well, sometimes the only antidote to being too much is just being too much and just owning it. Like, the first thing we have to realize is that not everybody is going to like you. It is a fact of life that literally nobody is immune from, nobody.
45:18 Jemma Sbeg? If you think that there is someone that everyone in your life likes, I think you're mistaken, unless this person is like Dolly Parton or something. But I also think you'd be surprised about how much this person has had to self-police and suppress to be this universally liked figure.
45:38 Jemma Sbeg? We suffer in one way or another. We suffer if people don't like us because we feel bad and we suffer if everybody does because we don't know who we are. We definitely had to compromise parts of ourselves to get to that point. Like, there is genuinely no winning. And I think that's a very important thing to remember. Not everybody is going to like you. It's just going to happen. The truth is, is that your too much is always going to overwhelm people who have been asked to suppress those same things they see in you in themselves. Some people are gonna be intimidated by your confidence. Others are gonna find you irritating.
46:19 Jemma Sbeg? Someone might find you disappointing because you don't match their expectations. But if the opinion comes from them, it is their responsibility and it is their burden. It's not yours. They have ownership over that thought. If they thought it, it is their thought. The same way that you have ownership over your own thoughts about them, about people that you may judge. We all have those feelings sometimes. They belong to you, not the other person. Instead of thinking, you know, I can't believe they made me feel this way. I can't believe they think I'm this. Think, I can't believe they were made to feel like they couldn't be who they wanted to be the way that I could.
46:58 Jemma Sbeg? I can't believe they haven't had the opportunity to unlearn this. I think pity is honestly one of the greatest antidotes to judgment. At least, that's what I've found. Secondly, I think it is imperative that you start to accept that there are unique benefits to being someone who feels very deeply, expresses that, who is allowed, who is out there, even if a consequence is some level of social judgment. You may actually belong to a very special group of people. We have a name for them. They're known as highly sensitive persons. Highly sensitive persons, highly sensitive people make up only fifteen percent of the population, according to some estimates.
47:39 Jemma Sbeg? And as much as we need our practical, emotionless thinkers, or our creative thinkers, or whatever it is, we need our complex, sensitive, out loud thinkers as well. Highly sensitive people, if you think this may be you, they are individuals who feel and respond to the world very deeply, sometimes even painfully. A recent Guardian article talks about how highly sensitive people may be the missing personality type. You know, you just notice and feel other people's emotions as strongly as your own. You feel very moved by the world, by art, by small injustices. You may cry more. You may be more expressive and passionate about things.
48:22 Jemma Sbeg? It may even influence how you respond to things like caffeine, things like noise, things like pain. It's thought that ultimately it's actually also genetic, hereditary, I should say. There was a twenty twenty three study from, well, not from, but conducted in Saudi Arabia that kind of linked being this kind of individual to a kind of genetic component that's passed down through, you know, your parents and their parents. That essentially influences how your brain processes emotion and responds to external stimuli. Also goes without saying, can also be entirely not genetic.
49:03 Jemma Sbeg? You know, if you're the only one in your family like this, don't go and think that you're like adopted. There's nothing wrong with you. Sometimes it's just our temperament. It's just who we are. It is another unique part of how humanity has been formed and how we operate. And I think when you realize this about yourself, you realize you are this kind of person. You know, your life history starts to make a little bit more sense. You can realize that criticism you have received since you were a kid about being too much might come from people who just don't feel as deeply as you. They just literally can't access that depth. They don't ruminate as much as you. They don't understand what it feels like to not be able to let things go because small things are so important to you.
49:46 Jemma Sbeg? They just genuinely, it's like somebody who is colorblind trying to think about what it's like to see in color. You also need to appreciate that you are a needed and necessary part of society because your character, your personality has so many advantages that are needed in the world. Firstly, if the goal in life is to experience, you are already doing way more of that than the average person because you're feeling everything like two hundred percent. Double the depth that the average person is. Secondly, you're better able to acknowledge and help people with their own struggles and kind of be that beacon. Highly sensitive people make excellent therapists, excellent teachers, artists, social workers, humanitarian workers, vets, activists.
50:30 Jemma Sbeg? Thirdly, you are more likely to be someone who is quite creative. You're more likely to have higher levels of emotional intelligence, greater levels of divergent thinking. Again, another huge benefit, divergent thinking, by the way, if you haven't heard of this, is actually one of the greatest signs of pure intelligence that we know of. It is the, it's like a distinct kind of thought process that allows us to have unique, creative, spontaneous thoughts, and it's the kind of thought process that allows people to connect ideas that often seem very unrelated uh together into one picture. You know, you see a problem and you can think of a dozen solutions that are out of the box, whereas most people could only think of one.
51:13 Jemma Sbeg? You can maybe match small tunes to rhythms, you have a business idea. Once a day, you know, you have all these different creative ways of thinking about the world that connect disparate ideas. That is a huge sign that you are quite a switched on person. And so you're too much personality in that sense is an asset. It is an asset that has probably gone unappreciated by the people around you, if you're feeling like it's something to be ashamed of. Another thing that's worth doing is just considering if you are generally too much or if there are just certain people in your life who make you feel that way, meaning that this feeling is situational and relational, not personal.
51:56 Jemma Sbeg? I think it's often the case. What's fascinating is that some relationships do seem to expand us whilst others contract us, specifically ones that are based around shame. The psychologist Carl Rogers spoke about the importance of this thing called unconditional positive regard, the feeling that you are accepted and valued without needing to constantly edit yourself. When we are around people who offer that acceptance, who accept our How muchness, I should say, we tend to become more open, more spontaneous, more authentic, more confident. We talk more, we laugh more, we share our opinions without rehearsing them first. We just feel better. That's a very great kind of relationship. The opposite can also occur, though.
52:38 Jemma Sbeg? Certain people make us hyper aware of ourselves in a restrictive way. And the longer you spend around these people, the worse you will feel about yourself. And the worse you will feel about the core elements of your personality, you will believe that it is something to fix. In this way, as I said, your muchness is situational, it is relational, it is not personal, it is not a personal flaw. This doesn't even need to be explicit, like it doesn't need to be somebody telling you you're too much. It can be subtle. Research on nonverbal cues show that we often instinctively know when somebody is attempting to make us feel bad about ourselves through subtle changes in their tone, eye contact, body language, the positioning of their mouth.
53:23 Jemma Sbeg? Even if we can't consciously put a finger on it, being around that constantly, knowing in this far away part of our minds, like, I don't think this person likes me, I don't think they like who I am. That has a lasting effect. I need you to reconsider the nature of these relationships. Even if you are scared, the other side of this is going to be lonely. I promise you, the space, the social space that you will open up, the acceptance that you will receive in the future from meeting people who love you for who you are, is going to be a million times more fulfilling than the temporary lack of loneliness that you get by avoiding these hard conversations or staying in these relationships.
54:08 Jemma Sbeg? I think it's so difficult to separate ourselves from people who we've known for a while, who make us feel this way, but are family. And we know that a lot of people who feel too much report feeling very lonely and very isolated and misunderstood. But is that because you're just easy to misunderstand? Or is that because people just don't wanna understand you? Or don't have the capacity? I think it's the latter. And if they don't have the capacity, it means that there are people who do. The right people will find you when you make the space for them to step into your life. The right people will see your muchness and take it up like ten levels. They will see your passion as an asset. They will love that you're loud. They will want even more of you to love.
54:53 Jemma Sbeg? They'll see your muchness as more of you to love. You deserve people who can meet your level of depth, of emotional velocity and complexity, with their own level of those same things. I think the early wounds of feeling like you're too much can make us think that that isn't out there, that we are like this isolated individual who needs to be ashamed and and put away, but they are. So with that in mind, I wanna wrap up this episode. I just hope that it's made you feel seen. I hope it's made you realise how common this kind of childhood wound is and how many people feel like that they should be less than to to find acceptance.
55:34 Jemma Sbeg? I realise now, you know, I've been in the wrong environments for so many years of my life. I'm so glad that I finally found the right ones. Your muchness is not inherently bad. I just wanna say that you have just been socially conditioned to feel that way because of other people's expectations and and at times their own self-consciousness. That can be counteracted. You can counteract that by recognising three truths about who you are. One, your muchness stops being a problem when the people you surround yourself with are also at that same level of muchness. Two, your muchness stops being a problem when you realise that it makes up a wonderful part of who you are and it is a valuable addition to society.
56:20 Jemma Sbeg? And three, your muchness stops being a problem when you direct it in ways that are creative, exciting and helpful. And then you'll realise that all that shame you were made to carry has just Been completely misdirected and has been completely not helpful. Embracing this part of you is going to just unlock a whole new side of life. So I hope again, this episode has helped. I want to thank our researcher Lucy Davidson for her contributions. If you want to learn even more about this feeling and about this unique kind of childhood wound, you can read the full episode transcript on Substack. I will leave a link down below. We will also have additional resources, including some of the papers that we cited in the description down below.
57:05 Jemma Sbeg? As always, if you haven't yet, please watch an episode on Netflix. It would help us greatly. Truly, it really would. So I'm gonna, again, leave a link down below. I feel like I say that 20 million times every episode, but you know where to find it. Until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself, especially if you resonated with this episode. We will talk very, very soon.
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59:15 Speaker 01 Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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