The Life of a (Too Much) Girl

In honor of the eve of Taylor’s new album release, “The Life of a Showgirl” (I didn’t plan it that way on purpose… you’ve got to strike when the inspiration hits):

The timing makes sense, really, because so many of us have lived our own “life of a showgirl”—our sensitivity mistaken for drama, our courage misread as a threat.

I want to talk about the “dangerous woman” problem.

Many of my clients and readers have experienced it: something about you gets clocked as threatening—especially to certain men in power, and especially in religious settings. Maybe it happened to you in big, obvious ways: being called a “Jezebel,” accused of undermining authority, or even pushed out of a community for not complying, or for naming problems out loud. Or maybe it showed up more subtly—harder to put your finger on—just a lingering sense of not quite fitting in with your church. Over time, maybe you began, without even consciously choosing so, to make yourself smaller, quieter, more palatable. (If this describes you, I’d love to hear from you on my website.)

I’m talking about more than just regular “masking,” the kind we all do sometimes to adapt without losing our authenticity.

And I’m not just talking about the environments where any woman is automatically treated as a threat to men, as happens in patriarchal or hierarchical religious cultures.

I mean something more specific: deeply sensitive, perceptive, courageous women who are made to feel small, shameful, and pressured to adapt to the message that their very existence is intolerable or threatening to male leaders in religious spaces.

Some of us have given a pastor feedback, only to be shamed, blamed, or dismissed. Some of us called out injustice, hypocrisy, or abuse, and tried to address it, only to be scapegoated. Some of us risked disclosing marital or family abuse, only to be told, “You need our help to forgive,” or “You just need to give your husband more sex.” Some of us were told we’re “too emotional” to lead or speak, or even be heard.

All of us have had a sense: something wasn’t right.

Remember the fairy tale of the princess and the pea? She tries to sleep on multiple layers of mattresses and bedding, with a single pea hidden underneath. She tosses and turns all night long, feeling the discomfort of the tiny pea. This single pea proves her “sensitivity” and, in the story, that she is fit for royalty.

I have a working theory that the Venn diagram of these “dangerous women” overlaps with that princess.1 We notice things others don’t. We feel things others don’t. And often, we are the ones with the courage to say it out loud.

Anecdotally, this shows up often in my client work: women who have been continually told (in their families, in their churches, or both) that they are too much, too wrong, too opinionated, too sensitive, too dangerous.

And viscerally, it’s my story too.

If my life were a movie (or album), the title would be, “The Life of a (Too Much) Girl.” @taylorswift, thanks for timing your brilliant album perfectly with my memoir-form Instagram and Substack posts for today. Appreciate it, girl.

(And no, don’t worry, I won’t untangle my 17,000 trains of thought to elaborate on my hot-take that Biblical prophets—men and women—were basically highly sensitive, neuro-divergent showgirls of their own time. Dramatic, often despised, but speaking the truth that people should have listened to instead of, you know, murdering the messenger. Let’s just say: voices on the margins matter. They always have. They’re the prophets of our time. And many—especially racial and sexual minorities—have been courageously seeing and calling out injustice—and suffering for it—for millennia.)

Last summer, I wrote this poem to others like us, inspired by my clients:

If you’ve spoken up about injustice or abuse—and suffered because of it:

You are a force of nature.

People who are threatened by your truth-telling will try to tame you and subdue you. Even crush you.

Your courage has been a curse—your boldness has been called “brash”—your truthtelling is labelled as terrible, your sensitivity squashed.

I hope you know:

Your courage, tenderness, boldness, and integrity are beautiful.

I hope they never tame you.

And so today, to any of you (women or not—we’re inclusive here) who have been called:

“too-much” (while somehow, at the same time, “not enough”)

“too sensitive,”

“too loud,”

“too opinionated,”

“You give a drama-queen showgirl a run for her money,” (no? just me? too specific?)

To those whose trauma, story, and past have been called a liability or a reason to dismiss you. To those who have been silenced, shamed, ignored, and even shunned because you spoke truth to power, asked questions, dared to be a bit different:

You are welcome here.

All parts of you— your deep feelings, strong intuition, love for justice, your quirky brilliance, and your body’s wisdom to sense what others miss. We need your wildly wonderful out-of-the-box ways of being in the world.

I hope you continue healing, shedding shame, and reclaiming the beauty of your sensitivity and depth. I hope you find safe pockets of people who delight in your quirks, your wisdom, and your deep sense of knowing.

And of the people who are threatened by your goodness?

From one “dangerous woman” to another:

I hope they never tame you.

1. And perhaps even triple overlap with “neurocomplex women” (but that’s another conversation for another time).