For all the people that feel like they're 'too deep'

You are not too much; a nervous system-informed perspective

Writing is my favorite medium of expression. And yet, I spent most of my adult life, studies and career, avoiding it.

I went for science, visual arts and healing. I peered through microscopes, interviewed science journalists (well, only one of them, this didn't last long), painted, drew, photographed, did performance art, made videos and talked to people in sessions.

All areas in which I could also write, but only secondarily, for a ‘noble cause’.

Because oh boy, was I repressed in my expression.

Then I took a marketing course in which I liberated my authentic voice and found the ‘hidden gems' of exactly which parts of my expression I had suppressed: my depth, my love of language, my nerdiness.

I realized that so much of my hesitation to write came from people around me not having the capacity to listen when I fully unleashed in conversation.

My depth felt shameful, because it was shamed.

I always held back, because I tired people out.

My thinking was excessive, compared to theirs.

And if you’ve always felt like you're ‘too deep’, too sensitive, too emotional, too much, you might have had the same experience.

I’m sharing my story as an example of where it can stem from.

Catering to the short attention span

It was a real eye-opener to realize that I let my urge to verbalize be inhibited by the short attention span of the people I grew up with.

A perfect match with my burn-out cycle on fast-paced social media.

Why did I keep chasing the views, likes, comments in a clearly detrimental algorithm on Facebook and Instagram, who promote a short attention span?

Because it felt familiar to me.

Even as a child I’ve always had to fight for that attention.

So I uncoupled this: their attention span does not determine my output anymore.

I healed my hurt and liberated my anger and frustration, which were clear messages from my nervous system that I wasn't being met in the way I needed.

Simultaneously, I realized: some people close to me are just different in the way they absorb information. Their limited nervous system capacity to listen to my words is not a measurement of their love for me, which I can feel so clearly.

It is not a measurement of my value either.

To let their attention span shape my writing habits is taking my consideration of them way too far.

Instead, I need to go where my depth is valued.

And also I needed to unsubscribe my mother from my Substack list, bless her heart.

I was always biding my time

I hid myself in school.

I was a nerd, but too sensitive to even sit at the nerd table at lunch.

There, toughness was required to fit in. I can still hear their loud, bolsterous laughter, which grated on my already overstimulated nerves.

I had a small smattering of friends that all belonged to different groups. I went for the individual and that theme has continued throughout my adult life.

All my squad goals have as of yet remained unfulfilled—showing my wounded Chiron in the 11th house of community.

Which is a great teacher, too, because these ‘squad goals’ come from the media anyway, and are based on images of ensemble casts that are there to support the hero and/or the plot, and life is not like that.

We are all the main character in our own story, and every story is valid—even the lonely ones. Plus, the plot is hard to find sometimes in life and any ensemble that we managed to gather around us doesn't always propel it forward in the way we want.

We only tell the story afterwards.

I remember one time where I slipped and had written from my own voice in a school paper. A big mistake.

I got ridiculed, my writing read aloud in class by some boys, who snickered along with my imaginative, deep prose.

I remember my flight and freeze responses kicking in and not being angry at them or even being ashamed of my writing, but mostly berating myself for having shown my hand, even if I knew better.

In order to not get bullied, I had already learned that is not good to be authentic, if you're young and can't yet control your life circumstances.

Sometimes, we need to bide our time.

That was my strategy: shut up and wait until i’m free.

So I did.

And I had chronic eczema around my throat because I suppressed all my healthy aggression and expression.

Still, I am glad I followed my survival instincts. As a sensitive soul, my path would have been even more difficult otherwise, and the price for my authenticity would have been too high for my nervous system to pay. This is why it chose to react in the way it did—I am grateful for that biological intelligence.

So as a teen, I found outlets for my expression online. That helped. I joined writing contests. I went to fantasy themed fairs and conventions. I dressed up as a court jester mostly, because Robin Hobb was my fave.

Then, I went to art school.

Ticket to liberation acquired!

But by now, I was held back by my subconscious beliefs and restraints too much to really function.

Also, art school isn't therapy, no matter how healing art can be, and I really needed therapy first, and therefore my expression wasn't able to thrive.

It all boiled down to me thinking: I will alienate people if I’m deep and take my time with my expression, especially verbally.

And of course, this was proven right because there were deadlines in art school (couldn't take my time) and it was all about visual art, not verbal, so me writing long texts didn't really go over well (I had a blog that I let everyone read as my art piece to discuss in class, which was awkward on so many levels *shudders*).

Eventually, I quit.

But when we quit something, we will just find the same limitation elsewhere, until we can truly transcend it by accepting ourselves internally—life lessons from someone with their sun in gate 60.3 (Human Design).

This belief of ‘no one wants to listen to my depth’ continued, when I pursued a career in spirituality and healing. With social media marketing, I got in trouble again. I've written about that before.

In short: I got into a fight/flight pattern, always hurrying to create wayyy too much, depleting myself by trying to capture people's attention.

I was forcing my expression to be short, condensed and easy to digest.

All the things that I am not. Well, I am very short though. But you get what I mean.

And in the fall of 2024, that pattern over overly trying to capture people's attention came crumbling down, when I regulated my nervous system and was grossed out once and for all by all that stress around shortening and sensationalizing my expression.

throat chakra art

How to transform this belief

So let's now focus on how I transformed my limiting belief, and you can try it on for size.

First of all, I asked myself: so what if my expression is too much for some people?

And… what if it isn’t too much for others?

What if there are people out there that can’t get enough, that just want more depth and authenticity?

I haven't met all people yet, so I can't be sure.

Excellence, not validation

I made a new agreement with myself and with Life: I am going to see what happens when I let myself verbalize completely in the way I want, and strive for excellence in my expression, not validation.

Using a model by Tara McMullin, I am going to measure my success not by external validation, but with personal goals of excellence:

• I say what I really want to say, with piercing honesty and no fluff

• I make sure I've done my research and cited my sources

• I create a logical, compelling structure that makes reading as smooth as possible

• I hone other writing skills that I encounter along the way

• I write from flow, not survival

My satisfaction depends not on metrics, but on whether I’ve said what is really alive in me (even if I’m scared to say it) and used my research/communication skills to argue for my points or add more nuance and depth.

My success is measured by how proud I am of writing it, and whether I would still stand behind every word if literally everyone I’ve ever known read it—a good authenticity test for people pleasers.

My level of excellence isn't dependent on what stats show, but on consistent improvement in my writing skills. If I notice that fight, flight, fawn or freeze is powering or diminishing my writing, I’m going to stop and do somatic work before proceeding.

These are goals I can control. Hitting them is doable and satisfying.

They result in emotional fulfillment, especially the one about success being determined by my taking pride in my output, because then insecurity about my output means that I've failed—and I get to do more self-loving, which is always within my control. External measures of success are not.

‘My writing is bad for the environment’

Even with my own journaling (that no-one reads but me), I held back. I felt like I shouldn’t write too much, or else… I used up too much paper and that was bad for the environment.

This is literally what was going through my head, but underneath was that same subconscious belief of ‘I’m too much in my expression’.

Even too myself, I was holding back! How sad.

Now, I can also reimagine my journaling habits. What if I write until I’m exhausted, what if I completely let myself purge all over the page, instead of carefully editing in my head before writing and only putting the bare necessities on the paper?

Why ‘save space’?

I won’t save the environment when I write two sentences less.

Understanding our blueprint

For anyone with toxic shame, systems for self-insight like astrology, Human Design, enneagram, MBTI and [add your fav] are heavenly.

They help us retrieve and accept suppressed parts of us through providing a validating framework, a mirror.

So for the astrology lovers: Mercury, the planet of communication, is the ruler of my chart (see where it is in yours for poignant insights) and I have a Libra moon in the 3rd house. Air moons need to talk and write to process their emotions. The 3rd house is all about communication. I have 6 planets, including Mercury, in the 5th house of creativity.

So to say that my chart is all about expression would be an understatement.

Moreover, Libra moons need to be artistic about it. The concept of ‘romanticizing your life’ fits in perfectly with this part of my chart, as well as proclamations like: if I can't make art, I can't breathe.

(My down-to-earth Capricorn Sun in the creative 5th house doesn't like this dramatic artist's lament one bit, and my sun-moon square is one of the hardest parts of my chart, because it makes me overthink my expression and pits my sense of safety against the results I know I’m capable of, creating a field of tension that already occupies my nervous system 24/7, until one day, I can maybe hold it properly.)

So I tell my Sun and my Moon and all the unsafe parts of me: maybe, what happens when I unleash my expression and communication is the opposite of what I worry will happen.

Safety, beauty and excellence

These are the things I need in my expression. What do you need in your expression, for it to thrive?

If I don't feel safe, my expression gets blocked.

And I think that is the case for everyone.

But I can do my expression in a safe way, and you can, too.

Not by making false promises that everyone will like us if we're authentic or even that it will eventually lead to Substack success if we write every day.

Don't fall into that trap, no matter what the notes say, Substack is just selling itself through the algorithm. This is a narrative that gets promoted here, which felt liberating at first to my excess depth that wants to be written (I am allowed to write daily?!)… until I noticed my body go into ‘fight’ - so this would just be the ‘fight' part of me talking, tryin to override my freeze response and always failing at that.

Fake confidence is not confidence, it stems from the ‘fight’ part of our fight/flight. It is wanting to convince really hard, shouting to be heard, forcing people to listen, pretending to be certain and strong. It is a repelling energy, or it will only attract insecure, submissive people.

This is what real safety sounds like: maybe, if I fully express, instead of sinking into a swamp of excess and distraction, fake confidence or frantic output, I’ll actually find clear, pure truth when I unleash my full expression, and I am now capable of defending myself when I’m attacked (retorting, muting, blocking etc), and free to leave if it gets dicey.

Maybe, I will start getting to the point and say what I really want to say, instead of what I think other people have the space for to listen to, which always distracts and dillutes my message.

If I go on for longer and dig deeper, maybe that actually leads to more treasure.

Depth = gold.

No guarantees, but inner treasure attracts outer treasure, according to the law of attraction.

We can always test it out.

It could be that indeed no-one (or only very little people in our overstimulated culture) has the capacity or interest to read when we fully unleash what we want to write.

But I say to myself: even if that’s true, then at least I’ve been able to meet myself completely. And that’s a big reward on an emotional level, although I’m sure the crickets will also still hurt.

But if I work with my survival physiology while writing and after I published something (thereby ensuring my Libra moon sense of safety), those methaphoric insects of rejection have less power over me.

(The insects are the crickets… get it? Thought I needed to help you there, when I read this back, I didn't even get it myself.)

When my own nervous system has the capacity to listen and I sit still for the whole of me in my fullest expression, these old wounds don’t have the same hold on me as they used to.

I am my own audience first. I am my own biggest reader.

I hold the part of me that is afraid of rejection before I ask for attention.

I already know that it can be different. I already know that slowing down and oozing out can find all the space it needs in this world.

A loving embrace, a fertile soil, that is infinitely welcoming. Receiving back exactly what I need.

I have experienced this many times as well. Even with my community wound, I have had brilliant friendships and connections in my life.

And hey, every experience of rejection teaches me what actually alienates people and what doesn't (gate 56.3 in undefined throat), so that's a great way to keep refining my skills and become a better communicator.

Today, I welcome my full expression.

I welcome all the old survival stress to come up and out and I am willing to be present and lovingly heal the hurt and frustration that arises whenever I’m not heard. I welcome experimentation and stumbling and making mistakes and rectifying myself. I welcome inconsistency and the eb and flow of expression.

I invite you to do the same.

And with that, I say goodbye to all the things I didn’t even want to say to begin with.

…right when I am ready to publish this post, my mother comes up to me with a cup of tea called Throat Comfort—what a synchronicity and once again, bless her heart.

Let me know if you relate to this theme of owning your depth and taking up space with your expression. I hope hearing my story and insights have helped you in your reflections.

If you want to support me, you can donate on my PayPal, it would really help me.