How often in a day do you dumb yourself down?
How many times in a week do you dim your light, so that you can shine less brightly?
How many times in your life have you been told that you’re ‘just a bit too much,’ and that you need to bring it down a notch?
If you’re like most of us, it’s innumerable.
As women we dim ourselves everyday, and so many times without even noticing it.
We’ll be just a little bit less of ourselves, of who we really are, for fear that if we are too loud, too bright, too much, that we’ll be scolded, laughed at, despised even.
That there will be consequences for being who we really are and being seen for it.
We have seen this from the beginning of time.
I mean, they used to burn us at the stake remember?
We do remember.
That’s the point.
We remember all too well.
It’s burned into our consciousness, scarred deep into our collective feminine memory.
The warnings are there everyday.
Don’t be too brilliant, too beautiful, too outspoken, too talented.
Don’t be too much.
Because the price you will pay is potentially the highest price in the land.
It may just cost you everything.
To hell with that. It’s time to be done with that patriarchal thinking.
It’s time for you, for me, for all of us as women to stand in all our glory.
To embrace our too-muchness for the world to see.
To be loud and proud and opinionated and sassy and strong and vibrant and challenging and powerful.
To be all the things we know we are and have been perhaps too afraid to even witness for ourselves.
Go out into the world with all of the pieces of you gloriously on show.
And revel in as much of your too-much as you possibly can.
