If I’m Too Much For You Babes, Then Go Find Less!
aka fuck hiding, shrinking, & minimising, you ravenous, devouring, hungry beast!!!
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Let’s talk about The Goldilocks Phenomenon.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with her story, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is a well-known Western fairy tale that has been interpreted in various ways over the years. While traditionally seen as a cautionary tale about curiosity and manners, that is, Goldilocks basically broke into the three bears’ house and helped herself to porridge and a bed (what a badass, slightly crazed, indulgently immoral move, hey?!), the story also serves as an allegory for the Goldilocks Zone in astronomy; a concept that refers to the habitable zone around a star where conditions may be just right ~ neither too hot nor too cold ~ for life as we know it to exist.
Therefore, we can cite Goldilocks as the princess of just enough. Not too much. Not too little. But just right.
Just right. Which for some reason now makes me think of Mary Poppins.
We want it just so. Just enough. Just right. Or do we? We know what just enough, just right looks like. What it feels like. And each and every day, as we are different and changed and wake up on the right side of the bed or have the best cup of morning coffee ever or the sky’s light is luminously lit or we just had a wonderful sleep or the stars are aligned or whatever the fuck floats our proverbial boat on that particular day, our just enough, just right will be in alignment with that.
We might have a preference though. Generally, we do. A favourite sex position. A certain way of needing a lick to touch that exact spot with that exact rhythm and pressure. A certain temperature. A piece of clothing or texture or look. A sound. The right words. And this extends beyond the mere measures of our carnal delights. Obviously!
Pleasure is a fickle mistress. And yes, maybe Goldilocks is a little entitled. But still. What if our boundaries of what we’ve been told is too much is simply a very limited, fear-based definition, of the imposed precautions of feasting upon life’s tasty banquet?
What if being in our own integrity and authenticity is simply being in alignment with more than just enough, just right, just because?
And actually, isn’t simply settling (shudder) for just enough, just right, meaning that we’re betraying our own soul’s true aches, longings and desires?
Is it just me that is struck by the belief that this is a sad way to live?
What if just enough, just right has kept us in some kind of middling ground of comfortable niceness that’s pleasant all around and ‘could you pass the crackers’ and ‘what great weather we’re having today’ and small talk about this and that is a whole load of absolute nothingness that hides a void valley of dissatisfaction and hunger beneath the unrippled surface of our complex and astounding humanness!?
What if just enough, just right is the strained smile that holds just the correct amount of tepid levels of emotion so as not to spill the tea, so to speak, upon that lovely white lace tablecloth that was your nans, who also would you believe it, kept her strained smile as she strained the tea leaves and went about her Ps and Qs for the day all the while seething into a boiling burning furious silent whistling steam inside of her?!
What if just enough, just right is stooping low so as not to bang your forehead upon those beams of brilliance that blind others with your boldness and bravery and badass-ness?!
And what if just enough, just right is simply an excuse to remain all origami-folded over into a neat and proper shape like a frog or a sailboat when you’re actually meant to be a rocket ship and be launched into space as a satellite for other’s growth!?
I mean, what if, right?!
God forbid we should be too much.
Too loud. Waking up and taking up too much space. Too many words. Too much gesticulation of wild passion conducted so magnificently through the movements dancing of our arms, legs, belly and whole body.
Too much and we’re the storm blowing in that no one remembers how it cleared the path and swept away those stubborn cobwebs and laid to rest that which was tenuous in its holding on and no longer meant for us or this world.
~~
How many of us live in the dance between not enough and too much? Ping ponging back and forth; playing out this dynamic in a tiny space of potentiality. Of possibility. Of permission.
I want. I want. I want.
‘I want’, is a part of my decade long writing prayer practice that I come to religiously as my point of intimate connection between myself and God.
‘What do I want?’ is the second question.
What do I want?
I want. I want. I want….
Look. We’re told it’s selfish to want, right?!
I want and it burns at the edges. It’s like a pimple. A pleasure pimple, ready to burst its thick sweet cream all over my face reflected back in the bathroom mirror.
It’s like a balloon expanded, extended, too much and it’s going to burst. But it doesn’t. Not yet. A tension. A flood. A dam breaking. Like the moment of orgasm.
The relief. The flush. The exquisite soaking wet of it all. A la the Herbal Essences shampoo ads of the 90s.
I think we’re embarrassed of our more. I mean, I was. Maybe we’re as embarrassed of our more-ness as much as we are embarrassed by the look of pleasure in our faces as we cum?!
To be washed and soaked by it all. By the more. To be absolutely soaking, glistening, wet by desire. Like a Vaseline smeared 80s commercial for insurance or washing-up liquid, for sunscreen, holidays, or a sofa.
A few days ago, I facilitated one of my new Writing The Revolution writing workshops on The 7 Deadly Sins. I chose to explore the ‘sin’ of greed. Of this desire for more. Using the energy and prompt of what indulgence would feel or look like to fuel my greed confession like the finest gliding lubricant of can, not can’t, I felt so alive. Sensual. Of substance. Shimmering my solid sass. My belly a globed earth. My senses satiated. My joy sparked by simple pleasures and magical gold coins that appeared from behind my ears like a ‘poof’ of the magician’s sleight of hand.
~~
I will no longer stay small so as not to upset you. Sorry. Not sorry.
There is an art to the Art of Too Much. The art of wanting. Desiring. Of being ravenous for more.
More.
More money. More success. More adventure. More freedom. More respect. More visibility. More equality. More love. More cake. More luxury. More opportunities. More. More. More.
Sure, some mores might be more personal and thus lean towards what could be called selfish mores, but most mores actually, if you scratch and sniff at their superficial surface, are profoundly impactful beyond the ‘me, myself and I’ story of their becoming.
Why?
Well ~
More money equals more health, wellbeing, safety inside, calm, and thus how one shows up for one’s nearest and dearests.
More money equals more opportunity to invest, to support others, to give, to create, to make and craft legacies.
More visibility equals more people finding your gifts. A greater audience. A selfless act in service to what you’re here to be generous with your time to those who might need what you have to offer and be changed by it.
More rest equals more capacity to be present. To feel stronger on the inside. To enjoy the life that is waiting for your attention, wonder, awe and all those good things that remind us that a more beautiful world is possible beyond the fear-mongering anxiety and dread pedalled by those in such places of (faux) power.
And more equality for what we stand for and wish to see in the world, means actions create results. Responsibility becomes our right and not a burden of a few. And that we each have the power to be the change we know makes sense.
(A shout out to here, and a firecracker of absolute ownership that all my work is about the ownership of the above desires for more in our creative lives. If these words are touching something deep within you my loves, then consider joining The 8% Club! It’s for all of us who are done denying our deity in devotion to our gifts and time on this earth.)
This is all about our relationship with indulgence. Allowing indulgence to inflate our heart and to be tenderly and gratefully and devotionally on board with a more that builds love and care for and with each other.
And yet, it’s inevitable, for so many of us, that once we’ve touched and tasted this burning hot stove top of the desire for more; the more the pull back, contraction, the belief, the story, and the delusional illusion slaps our hands in disgrace, that we cannot, should not, want for this more.
It’s not nice.
It’s not right.
It’s greedy.
It’s selfish.
Did we learn nothing from the Goldilocks story?!
You could argue that there is a middle way. I mean, hell, the Buddhists have been harping on about this for years!
The middle path of moderation. A balance between extremes.
For surely, excess without care is destruction. Yet is not moderation without joy a repression?
To walk in moderation just because it’s ‘right’, might bring that sense of equilibrium to our lives and health and wellbeing, sure. But I for one have never been built for the middle way.
I can’t help it.
So how about we try another option. One that honours both the desire for more and the act of humility. For the thing is, it’s this latter word that is key in all of this enquiry.
Humility.
To walk with one foot in gratitude and one foot in desire.
‘…humility doesn’t mean to be a doormat. Humility is compatible with a sense of pride and confidence. A healthy self-esteem is a balance between the extremes of arrogance on one hand and a lack of self-respect on the other. There’s a Goldilocks point in the middle that allows for confidence and pride yet is filled with humility.’ (1)
Tipping over into either extreme and becoming rigid and setting up camp there is never healthy. If life is constant waves of ebb and flow, of opening and closing, of the dance of polarities, then to get stuck on one side means that we have lost our ability to surf the cosmic dancefloor, and our place at the table of tantalising temptations will surely be revoked. An honouring of the balance of all means that we kneel before life’s cornucopia with our mouths open and with devotion at our hearts.
The thing is, some of us get caught in the stifle of what being spiritual means and thus lose touch of the mission to connect with the physical realm where we live. Others of us get lost in the masturbation of the meaty physical side of life but forget to infuse the divine with the dirty and make it all holy.
Finding that perfect spot on the tightrope of it all is a moment of pure soul poise. A pause. A still place in the centre of the turning world. You could call this the Goldilocks zone of where heaven and earth meet.
~~
So how shall one begin to indulge a little more? To stretchy pants one’s more waistband of life?
Start with noticing how you respond to compliments.
For it is the ability and capacity to receive that holds the medicine here.
Do you feel guilty? Shame? Do you fob the gift of appreciation off with a ‘oh this old thing’, or ‘it needs washing’ (hair that is folks), or ‘I could have done better’.
Do you not know what to do with this compliment? Where does it go in you? Why is it so hard to hold? Is this joy? The joy of being seen as brilliant, beautiful, with great taste, good hair, a winning smile, a job well done. Are we not good with holding our joy and appreciation? Why does it make us so uncomfortable?
Stop. It.
Or I’ll personally come over and bitch slap your sticky limp fingers.
Seize the compliment and hold it aloft so that the light catches it and it dazzles your mirrored magnificence back at you.
And ask yourself, why am I so uncomfortable with joy? With being seen in my beauty?
For it’s not just the uncomfortable we’re not comfortable with bearing (bear with me darling). It’s the comfortable too. We think what if it goes, disappears, I lose it all, it’s gone tomorrow. For sure it changes like the clouds passing over the sun, like the next wave that rises and rouses with such power and pride and force commanding our attention, before crashing and falling away. It’s just how it is darling. We cannot, to quote Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, catch a cloud upon the sand. It’s not possible. And it’s not the point. This isn’t about attaching to our mores, our indulgences. But about enjoying them fully and being willing to blessedly, let them go.
Bearing joy, pleasure, our light, is just as, if not more so, challenging as holding and bearing our pain. It’s what we cannot avoid. So, why avoid at all?
~~
The next step is to really get curious with the question:
What if I WAS too much?
Too much in the ownership of my creative gifts, of my beauty, my glistening eyes, my laughter, my clumsiness, my big mouth, my balls (or ovaries), my genius, my skills, my ability to lead, my choice to shout from the rooftops about my latest offers, my disco moves whilst wearing a tiny thong and glitter all over my body. Just because!
What if your too muchness caused others to let out a sigh of relief, pull out the stick from their ass and join you on the golden tiled dancefloor of fabulousness?
What if you just blew a kiss at the haters, or those with fear in their hearts and mean words at their lips and yearning in their pelvis to be doing exactly the same?
What if you played with this mischievousness with what your indulgence might look like or feel like? How it moves through your body?
What if too much was simply code for being simply you without holding your breath, or your belly in, or not speaking out or going for what you desire because it thrills you, or following your bliss like that dude Joseph Campbell advised many years ago?!
What if it’s actually making the gods blush and smile and clap their hands in glee and be super proud of us, like a parent swelling with the joy of seeing their child bloom?
What if, my darling one, your freedom and joy lie on the other side of your stick in the mud stories, and that it’s you, only you, that can decide that it’s now or never to leave these beliefs to their own devices? I’m sure they’ll find some moderate ‘fun’ to be had whilst you’re feasting upon life with a heart full of thank yous.
Don’t you?
Aho X
Tell me, what is your relationship with too much, indulgence and more? What might it be, feel or look like to give these parts of you your permission? Let me know in the comments below X Thank you for reading :-)
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Thank you so much. I appreciate your divine generosity.
Now enjoy my darling. And remember, pleasure is the portal. Creation is the spell.
Here’s to your Creative Revolution,
HH X
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