I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to get the message that whatever we are, we are not enough. Or we are way too much.
I think about this as a parent because I sometimes become overwhelmed when my kids are especially needy and one more tearful episode threatens to push me over the edge.
And I think about this as a former child who was often pushing my parents over the edge with my own needy intensity.
Somehow we got the idea that we are all supposed to be even keeled all the live long day. Maybe one too many readings of Goldilocks gave us the illusion that “just right” is a worthy goal. In any case, most of us got the message that when we were at our most emotional — most angry, sad and even happy — that we were too much.
It’s why people apologize for crying in therapy; they worry that they’re too much for me; at some point they internalized the message that crying is a violation, that feelings in general are a violation.
Sometimes the people I work with think that any negative feeling whatsoever is a fai