Episode 109: Too Much or Not Enough: Healing the Beliefs We Carry and Pass On

Why You Always Feel Like You’re “Too Much” or “Not Enough”

Have you ever felt like you're too sensitive, too emotional, too loud… or somehow just not enough?
You're not alone—and you're not broken.

In this episode of The Peaceful Home Podcast, we’re pulling back the curtain on one of the most universal and unspoken wounds carried by women and passed down through generations: the belief that we are either “too much” or “not enough.”

We explore:
✨ How these beliefs are planted in girlhood and reinforced over time
✨ The emotional and nervous system cost of suppressing our true selves
✨ How this old conditioning lives in the body as stress, anxiety, and burnout
✨ The ways we unconsciously pass these beliefs to our children—and how to break the cycle
✨ Practical, healing ways to reconnect with your inner knowing and reclaim your worth

This episode blends neuroscience, soul wisdom, and storytelling to help you return to the truth:
You were never too much.
You were always enough.
And you are allowed to take up space.

👣 Ready to take the next step?
Join us inside Living CALM, a sacred space for moms doing the deep healing work—nervous system support, emotional reparenting, and conscious parenting all wrapped into one grounded, supportive community.

🌿 Link to Join Living CALM

✨ Follow Me on Instagram – Daily tools & insights for emotional wellness, nervous system regulation, and breaking the burnout cycle.
✨ Share This Episode! If this resonates, screenshot it and share it on Instagram—tag me @ParentingTherapistPam so I can cheer you on!

💌 If this episode speaks to you, please share it with a friend or fellow mama. Let’s stop suffering in silence and start healing—together.

The best thing you can do for yourself and your kids is effectively regulate your nervous system. And a great place to start >> to wire the brain for gratitude. Research tells us that gratitude increases happiness and a peaceful mindset. Make the shift and watch how things in your life start to change. Sign up today! www.pamgodbois.com/gratitude

Transcript

Pamela: 0:00

Welcome back to The Peaceful Home Podcast. Today we're diving into something that feels big and tender, like the ache that sits in your chest, but doesn't have a name. The thing that surfaces at the end of the day when you're wiped out, but still scrolling for answers. The whisper in your mind that says you are too much or you're not enough, too emotional. Too intense, too loud, too sensitive, or not organized enough, not calm enough, not consistent, patient, successful, spiritual, maternal, beautiful. Disciplined enough, or maybe like a lot of us, you felt both of these things at the same time. Like somehow you're simultaneously overbearing and invisible. Like you need to shrink and prove yourself all at once. Yeah, me too. And here's what I want you to know before we go any further. You are not alone and you are not broken. These feelings. They're not just your story. They're part of a much bigger story, A cultural inheritance that we were handed in girlhood one we've quietly carried and often unconsciously pass on to our own kids. But that story, we don't have to keep repeating it because we are the turning point. So today we're gonna explore how these beliefs were planted in us, how they live in our bodies, how they impact our parenting and our health, and most importantly, how we start healing them for ourselves and our children. Let's breathe into this one together. Let's go back way back to when you were a little girl. Close your eyes for a moment if it feels safe, and just picture her, your younger self. See her clearly before the world told her who she should be. She's vibrant, full of life, maybe loud, maybe tender. Maybe both. She's curious, asking questions about everything. She's full of feelings, joy, that bursts out in squeals and dances, tears that fall, like summer, rain. She's honest, playful, creative, A little wild, a little messy. A lot of magic. Now, imagine how the world responded to her. When she cried hard, someone said, you're too sensitive. When she got excited and asked endless questions, stop talking so much, or don't be so nosy when she wanted to be seen, really seen. Don't be dramatic. Don't show off. Tone it down. When she got mad or said, no, that's not very nice. Don't talk back. Be a good girl. She wasn't trying to cause trouble. She was just being herself. Expressing, exploring, trusting her inner world. But when those big feelings, bold truths, Or raw needs were met with disapproval, discomfort, or dismissal, she started to get the message. Maybe I am too much. Maybe my needs are a problem. Maybe love comes when I make things easier for everyone else, and so she adapted as we all do. She smiled when she wanted to cry. She helped out even when she was exhausted. She swallowed her truth to avoid conflict. She stayed quiet to keep the peace. She became easygoing, polite, or helpful. She learned that approval feels safer than authenticity, and she started editing herself, shrinking to fit, smoothing her edges, chasing worthiness by being who others needed her to be. If you pause for a moment, you can still feel her in you. She's the voice that wants to speak up, but gets caught in your throat. She's the knot in your belly when you say yes, but mean no. She's the tears. You wipe away because someone taught you it wasn't okay to feel that deeply. That little girl, she's still here, still trying to be good, still trying to belong, still asking is it safe to be all of me? And here's the thing, this didn't happen in isolation. This isn't just your story, it's our story. It's a collective inheritance passed down through generations of women, taught to be small, agreeable, easy to love, taught that quiet girls are good girls and angry girls are bad. Taught that being liked is more important than being honest. Taught that their power, their truth, their voice might be dangerous. This belief I'm too much or I'm not enough, didn't start with you. It's cultural, familial, generational. Maybe your mom held it and her mom and the line goes back and back and back, but right here, right now, you have the opportunity to see it. To name it, to meet it with compassion, because this story, it can end with you, not in one moment, not in one podcast, but gently over time through remembering, reclaiming, repairing, with tenderness for the little girl in you who was always enough and never too much. Let's shift gears for a moment and talk about what's happening under the surface in our bodies and our nervous system. Here's the sciency part that makes my therapist's brain light up. Our nervous system is wired to seek safety through connection let me say that again because it's key to understanding so much of what we struggle with as adults. We are biologically designed to feel safe with others. We need connection, not as a want, but as a survival imperative. As children, this wiring plays out in powerful ways. We will do whatever it takes to stay in the good graces of our caregivers, even if it means cutting off parts of ourselves. So imagine this, a child expresses sadness, starts to cry, and the parent says, stop crying. You're fine. Or they get angry and someone responds, go to your room. I don't wanna see that attitude. Or they're bouncing with excitement or told, calm down. You're too much. What the child hears in their body is this part of me, this emotion, this expression isn't welcome here. It threatens my connection. It might get me rejected or left out or unloved. Now, that's not a conscious thought. It's not like a toddler is sitting there analyzing their style of attachment. This is a body level of response. Their nervous system clocks that moment as unsafe. So what do they do? Because we're brilliant little beings. We adapt, we tighten, we shrink, we become hyper aware of what others need from us. We please, we achieve. We go quiet. We make ourselves more digestible. We shapeshift into who we think we need to be to stay safe and connected. But here's the thing, and this part is so important. The emotions we suppress, they don't just evaporate into thin air. They get stored, they settle in the body. They become tension in the jaw, tightness in the chest, a pit in the stomach. They live in our shoulders. Our digestion, our menstrual cycles, our sleep patterns, they become the stress that we can't shake, the anxiety, we can't name the rage. We don't feel like we have permission to express. They become the stories our bodies keep repeating. Even when our mind is saying, but everything's fine. I have a good life. I should be happy. Why am I so tired all the time? Because we're not weak, we're not lazy, we're not broken. We're dysregulated. We're carrying survival patterns that made sense back then, but are wreaking havoc now. Let me just pause here to say, this isn't your fault. None of us choose to disconnect from ourselves. We did it to survive, to stay loved, and to belong. And now as adults, especially as women, as moms and caregivers, as leaders, we're feeling the consequences of all that survival. The good news is the nervous system can heal. In fact, it wants to heal. It's wired for healing, but not through force, not by pushing through or faking it till you make it. It heals through safety, through slowness, through connection. It heals when we stop abandoning ourselves. When we stop overriding the signals of the body. When we listen, when we get curious, when we invite in softness and stillness and space, it heals through co-regulation with safe people, safe spaces, safe practices, because just like the wounding happens in relationship, the healing happens there too. So if you've ever wondered, why can't I just get it together? Or why am I always so tired, anxious, reactive, resentful, why does it feel like something's off? Even though life looks fine on the outside, this is your body talking. This is your nervous system saying, Hey, I'm still carrying this, this isn't mine to hold anymore. And you're not alone in this. We've all got something we're carrying, and the beauty is we can learn to lay it down together. Let's take a breath here right where you are. Inhale and exhale. Let yourself arrive more fully in this moment because I wanna talk about the part of you that already knows everything we've just said. Not the part that overthinks or doubts or spirals, but the part of you that has always known the truth, even when the world tried to talk you out of it, there is a deep, quiet wisdom within you, a part that never forgot who you are. She may have gone still, she may have gone underground, but she's been with you this whole time. She's the part of you that bristles when someone says, why are you being so emotional? She's the whisper inside that says, you don't have to betray yourself to belong. She's the calm knowing in your bones that say, I'm not too much. I'm not too little. I'm exactly who I was meant to be. This is your inner knowing, your soul memory, your body's truth. It doesn't live in logic. It lives in sensation, in the lump in your throat, the ache in your chest, the pull in your belly, the full body, yes or no, that you can't quite explain the feel with total clarity. It's a spark you feel when someone finally says the thing you've carried but didn't have words for. It's the chill down your spine when something feels off. It's the fear that rises when you hear someone speak their truth and think, I have a truth too. And if this conversation is stirring something in you that flutter, that ache, that rise of emotion, that's her. That's your knowing. She's stirring, she's waking up, she's stretching her arms after a long rest and saying, oh, there you are. I've been here waiting. She's not mad. You forgot. She's not judging the years you ignored her or pushed her aside. She's just so glad you're listening now, and the more you listen, the louder she gets, the steadier she becomes, the more rooted in your body, in your choices, in your life. Because this isn't about fixing anything. It's about returning, reconnecting, reclaiming what was always yours. You don't have to earn your way back to her. You are her. She's the real you, the one who is whole before the world told you otherwise. And this, this is the work of healing, not becoming someone new, but unbecoming the version of you built for someone else's comfort. Coming home to yourself. Breath by breath, moment by moment. So if your voice shakes, when you speak the truth, if your boundaries feel wobbly at first, if your body is still learning to feel safe in its fullness, that's okay. That's healing and progress. That's the remembering. Let your inner knowing guide you home. But let's bring this home now to where all of this touches the ground motherhood. If you've ever found yourself snapping, saying you're being too much, or can you just calm down if you've ever winced at your child's big emotions or praise them, then when they were compliant and easy, not because that's what you truly value but because it felt safe. You're not alone, you're not broken, you're human, and chances are you're parenting from a place that was never fully witnessed in you. That is what we mean when we talk about generational patterns, not just what's passed down in our DNA, but what was passed down in tone of voice and expectations in silence in the air we breathed growing up. So many of us were raised to believe that love is something we earn by being good, being quiet, being helpful, being less. And so when our children cry loudly or rage, honestly, we need more than we feel. We have to give something ancient stirs in us. It feels dangerous, not because they're wrong, but because we were taught that these experiences of aliveness weren't welcome. This is the unseen terrain of parenting where unresolved stories meet their fresh unfolding ones. And here's where it gets heartbreaking and holy. We want to protect them from pain desperately. But if we haven't tended to our own pain, we end up projecting it onto them, not because we want to, but because it's the only language our nervous system knows. It can show up in the smallest moments, brushing past their tears because we were never allowed to linger on our own. Apologizing for their behavior in public. Not to protect them, but to avoid the shame of being seen, correcting them for being too loud, too messy, too emotional. Well, what we're really saying is that's not safe. I know, because I learned that too. But here's the miracle. You don't have to pass it on. You don't. You can be the one who slows down. Who notices, who says, wow, I just heard my mother's voice come outta my mouth. Or I see I tried to shut down your tears because they triggered something tender in me. That's not failure. That's repair. The repair is more powerful than perfection because perfection was never the goal. The goal is connection, truth, presence. You can say, I'm learning how to make space for your whole self, even as I'm learning how to do that for me. That is generational healing. And don't underestimate what that does. When a child hears you are not too much. When they learn that it's safe to feel, to cry, to be messy, to be real, that doesn't just change their nervous system. It wires your own. Because healing doesn't just ripple outward. It ripples backward too. It speaks to the little girl in you who never got the freedom and says, sweetheart, you're finally safe now. So, no, you don't have to do this perfectly. You just have to stay in the work to stay curious, to keep choosing connection, even when it's hard. That is the path of the cycle breaker. The mother who heals forward and back, who doesn't just raise a child, she raises herself too. So here we are at the part we all long for the how. How do we begin to unhook from this ancient lie, the one that says we are too much or not enough? The one that's woven into our nervous system, etched into our inner voice, passed down like an invisible inheritance. We begin not by bulldozing through. Not by fixing or forcing, but by softening. By turning inward, by listening again to the truth that never left us only got quiet. Here are five doorways back to yourself. Number one is to name it when it shows up. So awareness is the first step of rewiring a pattern. When you hear that familiar voice like you're being too emotional, or why can't you just hold it together? This is your fault. Pause and ask, whose voice is this? Whose approval am I chasing right now? Whose discomfort am I trying to manage by abandoning myself? Often we find that this voice isn't actually ours. It belongs to an overwhelmed parent, a teacher, a peer group, a culture that rewarded us for self abandonment. When we name it, we create space between the voice and the truth, and in that space, something new can grow. Next up is to feel it in the body. We can't think our way outta shame or unworthiness. We have to feel our way through it. Our body is the original keeper of truth. So we drop in right now if it feels safe. Place a hand on your heart, hand on your belly, maybe on your throat, anywhere. The tension gathers and gently ask, where does this belief live in my body? What does it feel like? What does it need to feel safe, seen and held? Sometimes it's the heat in the chest, a flutter in the belly, a lump in the throat. Let it speak. It's not here to shame you, it's here to release you. Next up is to reparent the younger you. That little girl we met earlier, the one who learned to be quiet to please to perform, she's still waiting. She's wondering if she's finally safe to come out. Talk to her. Let her know you are not too much. Your tears are welcome here. Your anger makes sense. You're safe with me. Now, you don't have to become your mother. You get to become the mother you needed. Every time you offer yourself tenderness instead of judgment, you rewriting the story in real time. Number four is model wholeness to your kids. This is the most radical counter-cultural thing that we can do as mothers. Let them see all of you, not just the regulated smiling, get it together version, but the human version, the version who cries when she's overwhelmed, who says, I need a break? Who apologizes and repairs when she messes up, who whispers? I'm learning how to believe I'm enough too. That's not weakness. That's wholeness. Your child doesn't need a perfect mother. They need a present one. A real one. One who shows them that being fully human is safe. And finally, speak it out loud. This wound, this not enoughness, the too muchness. It thrives in silence, but when you speak it out loud, even shakily, when I cried as a kid, no one came. I still feel like I need to earn my worth. I'm afraid of being too much. You don't just set yourself free. You give other women permission to exhale'cause we are not alone in this. And healing becomes exponential when we tell the truth in safe spaces. So speak it, journal it, share it in a circle, a friendship, a whisper. Every time we name it, we untangle another thread. This is the way forward. It's not a straight line, not a quick fix, but a slow sacred remembering. The work is not to become someone new. The work is to return to. You've always been before the world told you who you had to be. You are not too much. You are not broken. You are becoming whole. Let this be your path back to yourself. Let me just say this again. Slowly like a blessing. You can tuck into your bones. You are not too much. You are never not enough. You are whole. Even when you feel cracked open, you are worthy even when it feels messy and you are healing even when it's hard, even when it's quiet, even when it doesn't look like progress and love. You don't have to do this alone. And if this episode stirred something in you, send it to a woman you care about, drop it into a group chat, start a real conversation, because every time we speak truth out loud, we make space for someone else to exhale. And if you're craving deeper support, if you're ready to unlearn the old stories, regulate your nervous system, connect with a girl you used to be and show up as the mom you want to be, then come join us inside. Living calm. It's a healing space for moms walking this path of remembering, reclaiming and realigning so that we can parent from wholeness, not survival. Inside, you'll find tools that live in your body, not just in your head. You'll find community accountability, breath, nervous system support, and maybe most importantly, you'll find you again, because when you feel calm, connected, and whole, your home begins to reflect that too. Thanks for being here with me today. I'm so glad you are, and I'll see you next time. Take care.