You're Not Too Much — You've Just Been in the Wrong Rooms | Episode 8

Have you ever been told you're too much — too emotional, too intense, too sensitive? Or maybe no one said it directly, but you learned it anyway through silence, looks, or people pulling back when you showed up fully? This episode is for you.

Sandy explores one of the most common yet quietly damaging beliefs she sees in clients, colleagues, and her own life: "I think I'm just too much for people." She unpacks where that belief actually comes from — and why it's usually the wrong conclusion.

In this episode, Sandy covers:

• Why "too much" is often a fit problem, not a you problem
• How your nervous system responds when the people around you don't have the capacity to hold your emotions — and how that mismatch becomes internalized over time
• The difference between co-regulation and simple connection, and why it matters for the relationships you choose
• How to stop using low-capacity people as mirrors for your worth
• Practical ways to start shifting — from finding regulating relationships to naming your needs without shrinking them

Key insight: When you bring big emotion or intensity and the person across from you shuts down, withdraws, or tries to rush you out of it — your nervous system doesn't register "I'm too much." It registers "this isn't being held." Over time, we confuse the two.

You'll want to listen if:

• You find yourself consistently toning down, filtering, or making yourself smaller in relationships
• You've been told your drive, emotion, or opinions are "a lot"
• You're ready to stop questioning yourself and start questioning the spaces you're in

If this episode resonated, Sandy works with clients on understanding their nervous system and building a more regulated internal foundation — including neurofeedback and somatic-based support. See below to connect with Sandy.

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Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesandyboone/

Learn More About Neurofeedback: https://sandy-boone.mykajabi.com/opt-in

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hey y'all, welcome to the Brain Dump with Sandy Boone. I am so glad you're here. Have you ever been told that you're too much, too emotional, too intense, too sensitive, too needy? Or maybe no one said it directly, but you learned it anyway. From the looks, from the silence, from people pulling back when you showed up fully. So you adjusted, you toned it down, you filtered yourself, you tried to take up less space. But here's the question that I want to start with. What if you were never too much? What if you just weren't in spaces that could hold you? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I see it everywhere. I see it in clients, in conversations, in the quiet things people admit when they finally feel safe enough to say it out loud. I think I'm just too much for people. And that statement carries so much weight. Just this week, I was in conversation with a friend, and she was talking to me about how she learned that she was too much because she was driven. And this showed up in places from childhood through even when she owned her own business, which she still owns her own business. But she had fallen into the idea that if people don't like me, it must be because I'm too much. Or if I'm not getting my needs met consistently, I must be asking for too much. And so this statement of, I think I'm just too much for people, it usually comes from relationships where someone felt misunderstood, moments where their emotions weren't met, times when they needed something and it didn't land well. So they start to believe I need to be less. And that gets overcoupled and they become less expressive, less honest, less visible. But here's what I want to gently challenge. What if the issue wasn't your amount, but the environment that you were in? Humans don't just need connection. We need the capacity and the people in the spaces around us. We need people who can stay present when we're emotional, people who don't shut down when things get real, environments that don't make intensity feel like a problem to solve. And when that capacity isn't there, your normal human experience can feel like too much. Now, I'd like to interject here. I am not talking about narcissistic individuals or individuals that show up consistency, show up consistently trying to blow up the world. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people that are often overachievers or highly successful or perhaps even opinionated, or, you know, just because someone disagrees with us, it doesn't mean that we're too much because we don't hold the same space. Let's talk about this through a nervous system lens. Your system is wired for co-regulation. And by that, by co-regulation, if I am experiencing extreme nervous system overload and you're in a calm place, we're not co-regulating because I'm not regulated and you are. Co-regulation happens when both nervous systems are in a regulated space. We calm, we organize, we understand ourselves better in the presence of someone who can stay with us. Not fix us, not shut us down, just stay. So when you bring big emotion, intensity, truth, and the person across from you gets overwhelmed, they withdraw, they minimize, or they try to rush you out of it, your system doesn't go, oh, I'm too much. It goes, this isn't being held. But over time, we internalize that mismatch and we believe that not being held is too much. You, my friend, are not too much. You've just been in spaces that didn't have the capacity to contain you. And instead of questioning the container, you questioned yourself. I can think of plenty of moments where I walked away from an interaction thinking, wow, I need to dial that back. Not because I did anything wrong, but because it didn't land well in that space. Maybe someone was jealous of my success. Maybe someone didn't like that I challenged their belief system. It didn't mean that I needed to dial it back. It's taken time to realize that it wasn't always a me problem. Sometimes it's a fit problem. So if this is hitting something in you, I want to give you a few ways to start shifting this. First, stop using the wrong rooms as mirrors. Not everyone has the capacity to hold you. And that's not a character flaw, that's just a limit. But if you keep using people with limited capacity to define your worth, you're always going to feel like too much. Go in bigger rooms. Go where your dreams are met with the dreams of others. Go where people can hold all that you are. Look for regulation, not just connection. Chemistry is easy. Regulation is different. Pay attention to do I feel calmer, clearer, and more myself around this person? Or do I feel like I have to manage myself and mask to stay connected? Third, name your needs without shrinking them. You don't have to present your needs perfectly to make them accept acceptable. The right spaces don't require you to dilute yourself to be received. Now, when you put your need out there, whomever you're talking with absolutely has the option to not meet that need. And sometimes that's not about you. Maybe even often it's not about you. But if you're in a relationship where someone consistently doesn't have the capacity to meet your need, probably need to rethink that relationship. I also encourage you to build better containers. It might be therapy, it might be coaching, it might be friendships with more emotional capacity. It could be spatial spaces designed for death. You don't need more people. You need better held experiences. And you only need just a few people to be that emotional container. There is nothing inherently wrong with being deep, emotional, intense, or aware. Those are not liabilities. They just require environments that can meet them. And when you find those environments, you don't feel like too much. You feel understood. So if you've been carrying the belief that you're too much, I want you to consider this. Maybe you're not. Maybe you've just been trying to fit into spaces that were never built to hold you. And you deserve better than that. If this resonated with you, this is the work I love. Helping people understand their nervous system and find spaces where they can actually be fully themselves, where they don't have to mask anymore. And if you're curious about deeper support, whether that's neurofeedback or creating a more regulated internal foundation, I'd love to walk alongside you in that. Thanks for being here.