Nothing About You Is Too Much: Meeting Your Melancholy Individualist

Renae: Well, good morning, Laura. I’m excited to talk about this with you today. This is exciting. Good morning.

Laura: I’m glad to be here. Especially we’re talking about the melancholy side of yourself, the melancholy individualist. And that’s… That really hits home for me right now because it’s springtime and it’s gray in the Midwest and I feel melancholy about it. I’m ready for summer to come.

Renae: Well, and I’m, I definitely, this is a, the melancholy individualist is a big chunk of me, even though it’s not, it’s not something that I even would have known earlier in life that this was a thing. That people, other people were like this, it, parts of their lives. And so as we’re, as we’re talking through this, you know, 21 days of exploring through it and you, and you’ve done a really great introduction for us in the workbook, talking through different ways that we can understand. And so we start to notice. And as you were working through this Meeting Your Melancholy section, what were the things that were surprising to you about yourself?

Laura: Well, think that one of the things that this really explores is just this idea of you having emotions and having big emotions and often feeling like you need to make an excuse about that or that you can’t bring that to whatever space you might be in and the ways that we start to try to tamp that down. And then also the way that people’s reactions to that at some point in our life have given us some kind of story about who we are and how that, about those kinds of stories. Stories can be really difficult to unwind. You know, I, for a long time, was working at a job where I was just really backed into a corner all the time. And so I was defensive a lot. And I started thinking of myself as a because I was kind of acting like that. And so, like, that was an identity that took me a long time to unwind. So I think it’s a similar thing here where, you know, if you’re the person that has big emotions or the person that’s overly sensitive, like, A, it’s not even wrong if you have big emotions, but B, is that coloring how you’re showing up to every interaction? This story that you might have started to identify with. That was a big thing that was really interesting to me.

Renae: Yeah, I think the piece of it, the individualist piece of it, too, is when you’re experiencing life and having a, a deep response. You can feel very othered pretty quick if people around you are not having that same experience because they will use phrases about too much, too big, or that’s weird or whatever it happens to be. Like, you’re just being your authentic self in expressing or experiencing the world, and it can feel very lonely, right? They’re like, there’s, you know, what’s wrong with me? There’s other people aren’t having this. The addition of the too much and then the feeling very different and alone coming together. And then I think that those two stories just perpetuate each other a lot. And the thing I think that’s tough with this one is that it’s not wrong. So it’s not that it’s too much, but there are definitely like big, big, deep experiences that you get very confused that other people aren’t seeing the same thing or experiencing the same thing. And so that is true that you feel alone in it. It’s when the narrative of no one else is experiencing this. There’s nobody like me. And it starts to just feel really lonely. So we like, we withdraw a little bit. And I think that then adds to the melancholy, right?

Laura: Yes. Yeah. Like that, those things are kind of a vicious cycle. It’s really interesting that you bring that up because I’ve had a similar experience lately where just this whole transition of middle of life and to like the next chapter and what am I doing with that and how is that changing things? And I had been feeling really alone in that. And not necessarily, I mean, like you hear people talking about things in generic terms, like, oh, you’re having a midlife crisis or whatever that might be. But the particular way I was feeling it, I didn’t really feel like people understood it. And I think a lot of times when we think about feeling alone, you think that, oh, it’s because no one likes me or no one cares about me. No one loves And this, that was not at all the case. You know, like everyone that loved me was just like, yeah, I’m sorry that you’re feeling that way, but I just still don’t think they really got it, you know? Um, and so that wasn’t, it was a really interesting sensation of aloneness where it’s, it’s kind of like, you know, even in the midst of, of people that do care very deeply about me, still, they’re still not quite understanding, um, my feelings on a thing. And, and I did find, um, a few other people that were going through the same thing and, you know, were able to articulate it in, articulate it in a really similar way. And then just that recognition that someone else understood it, it didn’t change one single thing about the situation, but it made me just feel so much lighter about everything that was like, okay, well, this is just like a normal part of life. Other people are experiencing it. But it took me a minute to get there.

Renae: Yeah, that’s, and it’s, I would use the word like resonance, like the, like, or it’s the, the feeling of, of getting got, like that you, or that you are understood, or that you’re feeling felt like that someone else is with you in this. And that there’s a, because there’s a little bit of, when we’re trying to figure out our things about ourselves, where we’re trying to make meaning of the things that we have experienced, that’s deeply personal, actually. And we want, we want to be understood and known. And so even if our, I mean, our loved ones might be accepting, but if they, if they’re not experiencing that part of life in the same way, it can feel really lonely. And it’s not that anyone’s done anything wrong. It’s just my mirror neurons need to connect with someone else’s mirror neurons for us to go, oh, yep, we’re experiencing the same thing. It’s part of belonging as humans. It’s like a part of our makeup of interconnectedness that we will look for the behavior matching as a sign that we belong.

Laura: Yeah, and I think what’s also interesting about that too is when you especially have a feeling that you’re an individual, like part of that feels like, well, I’m unique and special, and you are, and you want to almost, you want to stay that way, right? And so you are kind of not wired to be looking for people that understand, you know, that might be a hidden desire that you have, I guess is what I’m trying to say, because you really. You being an individual. You really enjoy being, you know, the unique person that you are. And so it feels almost counterintuitive for you to seek out, like, you know, people that are like you, because then that would mean that you would be giving up that unique individuality. Yeah.

Renae: And I think all of us have a part that wants to be special. And we’ve had different, everyone’s had different experiences of how safe that is. For some people, it might not be safe to be different. They might not be in systems where it’s okay to be unique. And we want to be recognized for the things that for like our expressions in this world that only we can bring. I think that that’s really an important piece to it. to understand about this part of ourselves. I had mentioned to you that today we were able to get Starbucks because someone had given me a gift certificate and it was a thank you note that someone brought to a training that I did that was a 24-hour training that was over three days. And so I reread the note this morning and while words of affirmation are not my love language, I needed almost every word that was written in that note because it talked about how I bring compassion and transparency and humility to my work when I am helping people to understand more about neuroscience and how to care for people in the world. And that What it was is just the, yeah, I work hard that way and not mask, right? I don’t have to work as hard now as I did before. It’s becoming much more natural. But for someone to see that and then take the time to write that down, I felt so incredibly seen, right? Because the truth is, I do it in the way that I do it. And people will say, oh, I wish I could present like you. said, no, you got to present like you. The way you do it is really important for the people around you because they need to hear what your honest and real and authentic self is. You have so much wisdom.

Laura: Everybody does. And so I think that there’s that piece of it too. Yeah. I think it’s really interesting to hear you talk about that because, you know, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like you are someone that is really. committed to showing up as your full and genuine self and that you don’t really need affirmation in order to do that. That’s just something that is really important to you that you want to do. And probably you’re also modeling that for other people. But then how interesting it is that even though we’re doing a thing that we really want to do and we’re kind of not caring that much about what other people think, it’s just this is what we’re going to do. But when someone recognizes you for that, when someone thanks you for that, how rewarding that also is. Even though I was going to do it anyway, man, it sure is nice when somebody notices and appreciates it.

Renae: Yeah. And because it’s not, it’s not, I didn’t show up and go, okay, so this is the way that I’m going to do this. It was just, it was just, I was just being me. And so I think that that same piece of, for that melancholy individualist part of ourselves that. That. And even though that it’s like I want to be special or seen that I’m showing up as like myself, that is no one else, and only me shows up this way as myself, that I still want to be seen, heard, and valued. I still want to be known and in some way have that reflected to me in a way that says, yeah, there’s space in this world for you to have those feelings and express it.

Laura: When you think about, I mean, in your story, have you had times when you feel like people have thought, or did you think people thought, whatever people think, that’s not our business, right? But like, was your perception that people thought you’re too much or you’re too big for this space?

Renae: I was directly told it through a lot of my life. So yes, I have been told too much, too big, too loud, too opinionated, from childhood to adulthood. And so yes, I actually really do resonate with that. And then there was also like enough of the not enough with that made it very confusing of like, you’re also not enough. I’m like, I don’t know what to do with that. I even remember, it was, this was a while ago, but I was in an organization and I had to, my position was ending because of the reorg. And so they were looking for it, you know. So I was interviewing with all these different departments, and I interviewed with the VP of, it was a new VP in the organization, and I came in, and as I do, in my interviews, I just show up as myself, because I’m like, well, I don’t want to do bait and switch, and if they can’t handle me in the interview, they’re not going to be able to handle me in their office every day. So it just was me, right? And me is me. I am opinionated. I am loud. I am sassy. I’m respectful, and I’m all those things, right? I know where the lines are. I’m not too familiar, but I also don’t stand on ceremony with pretty much anybody. And I think… And I thought it went okay, but it was clearly for me, there was not chemistry that was there. And one of the HR people said, hey, can we have a meeting? And in that meeting said, the feedback we got is that you just come on too strong. And I hate to say this as a woman to another woman, but you need to be a little less. And at the time, I didn’t think, oh, shoot, that’s actionable. That’s actually a big problem. The human resources would come in and say, as a woman, you need to be less.

Laura: That’s a problem.

Renae: And that it was another woman saying this to me. But that was such a clear moment. And I just looked at her and said, oh, no, that’s never going to happen. I don’t need to. I’m like, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was entering my whole, like, wait a minute, I don’t need to twist myself into being someone else. I didn’t know the term masking at the time, and I didn’t know how much I had been masking. And evidently, in that space, I had felt so much mastery and so much a sense of who my identity was in the workplace, but not in other parts of my life.

Laura: Mm hmm. So I think that’s really interesting, because I think that’s flipped sometimes for people, right, that they feel like they can’t show up at work, but they can show up in home or that. But I had the opposite of that. Yeah. Right.

Renae: And I was the person who had the big feelings. I was also one of the people in the organizations that people would come and sit in my office. It wasn’t part of my job, but they come and sit in my office and basically we do therapy. I’m sorry to all clinicians that are like. You shouldn’t do that. But it was because I could hold their hard feelings without judgment. I think what they recognized is if I can express my emotions, if I can express my feelings, it will make it safe for them to do it as well. So I became trusted with other people’s icky feelings.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah, I would say also that there’s a certain type of person that enjoys just to hear things as they are, to hear honesty, and not to have things wrapped up into a nicer package, which some people also need. But I’m sure that you are attracting the type of person that’s like, I just need you to tell them to be straight. Right. You know, so I mean, the HR person obviously wasn’t that person, but there are people, you know, with whom I think that communication style really resonates, which is, I think, back to our large. Your point of being this individualist is that just because a person is not jiving with your communication style or with the way you’re expressing your emotions, that is only reflective of that person’s communication style. Not everyone on earth’s. And that doesn’t necessarily put you in a box because you, you know, are coming as a certain way. Yeah.

Renae: Well, and I think the, the part of the, the melancholy part is the gift of that is, I don’t know what we’ll move more into in this in future weeks, but the, the gift of, of being able to sit in the hard stuff, it even to the point of finding beauty in the hard, in the heart, right? Like that there’s, that there’s, whether it’s a piece of. Hope, or whether there is a piece of seeing how things work together or seeing connections. I know you were telling me a story earlier about your son, and so I’d love for you to tell that. But to me, that really resonated of what his experience was of like, oh yeah, I would totally sit and watch that and then have a, maybe not to the same extent that he had that response. But if you want to tell that story.

Laura: Yeah, I will, and I’ll add one on at the end too, because there’s another thing that’s indicative of this idea of sitting with pain. So, okay, when my son was in preschool, one day when I went to pick him up, the teacher said, I just need to tell you about something that happened today. You know, we got it resolved, but your son was watching a spider spin its web and another child came in and, you know, a child that was, you know, kind of round. And he came over and he swatted the spider away and ruined its whole web. And my son just got so upset about that, that he couldn’t, he could barely get a hold of himself. They had to really, you know, like kind of sit him down in a separate place and help him calm down. And when they told me that, I mean, I was sad for him, but also I was not surprised because that was just kind of typical behavior of his, that he would, that he would be very, that he would feel things very deeply and big. But as you were talking about people being able to sit with pain, I once had, my children were more school age at this point. So my son’s probably in junior high, my daughter probably like in, you know, like the upper grade school, like maybe fourth, fifth grade. I threw my back out. And so I was in a lot of pain and I had been trying. I was at home and both the kids were home and I had been trying to get something and then had gotten stuck, like, you know, halfway between like the bed and the floor. And I, I was just like, and at first my daughter was trying to help me and I was in so much physical pain that I was really upset. And, and she got, she’s a person that really feels a lot of stuff. And she got so upset that she could barely help me because then she started to cry. But my son, who is kind of like the pain holder, he was actually able to just be like, okay, well, you just need to tell me what you need. Like he wasn’t incapacitated by my pain. It was, and that is kind of what I needed, you know, because it wasn’t a lot. I appreciate her sympathy. It wasn’t helping me get back into the bed or get some Tylenol or whatever it I needed. Like His ability to be like, okay, this person’s in pain, but I’m seeing through that too, a need that this person has that I can now fulfill and not get so caught up. So that’s an interesting aspect, I think, too, of being able to either find beauty in pain or sit with it as it’s a natural part of being.

Renae: Yeah, and I think our, because culturally that we don’t have great grief and loss processes built into our culture of hustle or production or, you know, we have a lot of pain management or pain avoidance culturally as well. Well, it’s by design that then this piece of it’s so, you know, like normalizing that it’s okay for the hard to be there and that it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that things are bad. It just means that things are hard or that there are challenges or that there is sadness. And then on the other hand, also there’s great joy. There’s great elation. There’s great transcendence that comes with it. And I was thinking about when I see something that is true, I will cry like nobody’s business. Their truth, especially in art, just kills me. My poor husband, when he’s watching stuff with me, when there’s really good TVs or movies that is not formulaic, but there’s a truth in it, I just sit on the couch and weep. And he’s just like, do you want a tissue?

Laura: He’s just so used to it.

Renae: At this point, there was actually an episode of a show that got canceled because it did not land with the fan base of this whole, as you said, like a 60 year run of lots of iterations. So, you know, I’m about Star Trek. I’m talking about Star Trek. But the most recent thing did not land with people. And I had one of the most meaningful experiences with one of the episodes. I haven’t cried so hard in a long time. And it in like the story of it was this, this character who was dissolving because they weren’t able to hold their experiences and their feelings. They hadn’t, there’s parts that were missing for their development because of how they were created. And they were odd and they were different and they felt things very deeply and they had great joy and they had great sadness. And I just started crying because I said, oh my gosh, this is often how I have felt. This is like, it’s such a great expression of that. But, and then, you know, it went on that this person had never been parented because of their, like they hadn’t, they hadn’t had that nurturing care. And someone said, well, I will do that. I will parent her. And I just lost it. I just was like, crying, crying, crying. Because it was such a beautiful, like it was so beautiful. And I’m sure, I know people like, I read online, people are like, oh, that was pretty emotional. I’m like, you have no idea. That’s great.

Laura: I once saw Neil Diamond perform, and he was talking about writing songs, and he said when he is in his deepest pain is when he can write his most joyful songs. Just a little anecdote. I barely remember anything else about that concert, but I really remember that. I just always thought that was so interesting. What a catalyst pain is for deep creative work, even when the expression of it isn’t sad or painful. It allows you to get to a deeper place, I think.

Renae: Yeah, I think that the, it becomes the, the importance is to, so that we don’t fall into that comparison trap of why isn’t anyone else on the couch crying over this, is. The acceptance, right, that it’s touching something deeply in us because there’s a truth in it, there’s a beauty in it, and that it’s okay for us to experience things different than other people, and it’s okay for us to express that we’re having a different experience. I think that that part of it of there’s a healthy belonging includes autonomy, and I think that part gets lost. I think that when we think about belonging, we think about, you know, sporting events where we’re wearing the same color and we’re saying the same chants and you don’t dare speak up against anybody on the team or in a workplace that, like, you know, we’re a family, which is a terrible thing to say. But, like, there’s this thing of, like, but part of my belonging. is I can show up as myself and still belong if it’s a healthy system.

Laura: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you’re doing a better job of articulating what I was trying to say at the beginning, which is like you are, your individualism doesn’t have to be exclusive of belonging. You know what I mean? Like those aren’t too, you don’t have to belong or be unique.

Renae: You can be both. Right. Right. And so it, as we explore this, this part of ourselves and start to note the stories of what, what stories have been built because of how we’ve shared experiences and noticing that, um, I mean, and I think even holding a A little bit of the, if we can suppose that a reject and eject response to our expression of self in spaces, without us even having to do any work about, oh, well, where’s that person coming from? But just to say, it’s probably not a default that there’s something wrong with me thing, that maybe instead it is, oh, that person can’t hold it, and then, okay, you know, and that, you know, find my people who are a can.

Laura: Yeah, yeah, one of my friends wrote an article on his Substack recently that, and one of the, there was like, you know, 10 lessons I’ve learned in 15 years of working or whatever, but one of them was, I mean, they’re all good, but one of them was like, no one needs to. Which is kind of like, you know, like sometimes you don’t even quite get it, but you know, no one needs to quite understand for you to do the things that you want to do. And that you can, like you went further to say, like you can set those people free from, you know, needing to understand what you’re doing and you can set yourself free from trying to explain it, you know, because there’s just times when you’re the only one that gets it and that’s totally fine also.

Renae: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. It reminds me when we had the conversation of, you know, one of our episodes of I’m not for everybody, you know, you’re not like it’s, it’s okay. It’s all right. And we don’t, I don’t need to, I don’t need to hold that part of it. Right. This doesn’t mean that people, you know, again, we’re not talking about people running around with jerk like behaviors. No one is authentically a jerk. It’s that we’re talking about like. The truest expression of self, which when we get to those places, sometimes it’s really profound. And also, we’re at like L-M-N on the alphabet of our lives, and people are just being introduced at A. And so we’ll be like, why don’t you see this? And they’re like, I’m just right over here still getting to know you. And so it doesn’t say, it doesn’t mean anything about anybody. It just is an awareness, right?

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, if you guys want to, all of you friends listening would like to explore this deeper, we have a mini workbook that you can pick up and start exploring some of this for yourself, finding out, making an ally with your melancholy individualist.

Renae: Absolutely. And we’ll have that micro journey available too, for those who are going to just work on. On one little part of the time, that awareness piece and understanding, what does this look like? How has this shown up? So thank you so much, Laura, for everything that you bring to this conversation. So glad to get to spend some time with you.

Laura: Likewise.