Unapologetically too much

A declaration to the universe

Elin Petronella

Mar 07, 2025

Hi there,

Welcome to Follow Your Gut, a newsletter about the artist life and business from soon a decade in the game. Come join!

To listen to the audio of today’s personal essay hit play below:

1×

0:00

-4:55

I’ve never been much into Astrology, but the last couple months have thrown me a curveball. Not necessarily in a bad way. Mostly in good ways. Though the old friend called “You’re too much” inevitably came knocking the door.

It usually says something like:

“Oh God, you’re too much. You talk too much, you think too much, you do too much, you feel too much. You’re simply TOO MUCH”.

The paradox is equally present telling me “You’re not good enough”. You’re not a good enough

artist,
entrepreneur,
mother,
daughter,
sister,
friend,
wife,
WOMAN

These are traces from the past, I know. Unhealed insecurities that no longer deserve space in my mind. It’s just that I forget sometimes in the business of daily life.

I’ve learnt to silence the self-scrutiny for the large part, but somehow these past weeks it’s been growing louder. Like a nudge from within telling me that I need to adress this. Maybe, once and for all, I need to hunt it down and flip the script to:

“You’re NOT too much. You never were and you’ll never be. You are enough, perfectly so, in the beauty of being a human. You are human, love”.

I want to rewrite my internal story about self to be titled “Unapologetically too much”.

Because I can’t take the too much-ness away (and I don’t want to), which means I can’t neglect its presence. Instead I want to accept and embrace it as one of my superpowers. Never to apologise for it again. Unapologetically.

What I can take away, however, is the uneasy feeling of not being enough. I’m declaring myself enough in my too-much-ness. Unapologetically.

I think a lot of us creatives and artists have felt at one time or another that we’re too much for the world.

That we feel too much, think too much. It’s not that too-much-ness is a prerequisite for an artist life. More so that it’s a general trait, which should be comforting (yet for the initiated it’s still wildly overwhelming).

I get all of this. I do. None of us are broken for being this way.

What does astrology have to do with this?

I don’t quite know yet, but here’s what happened:

I received a blessing to get a birth-chart reading by my mentee

Steph Wright

, a brilliant writer, illustrator and crocheter. First, it was accurate to the point of “I’ll freak out now”.

But more so it opened a portal to reflect on astrology as a tool rather than an absolute truth, which resonated with me at this stage of life. Especially considering the emotional turmoil of old patterns resurfacing demanding their space again.

Then my dear friend

Danusia Malina-Derben

suggested that I may have my Saturn Return, which would mean that the Saturn returns to the exact same position as it was at the time of my birth (turns out this will happen 30th of March this year).

As a result it’s supposed to mark a period of growth and personal reflections around unresolved issues in order for me to realign into integrity with myself moving forward. Break old patterns. Throw out what doesn’t serve me and solidify what does.

If all of these things are true, I want to declare to the universe that I don’t want to feel like I’m too much anymore, nor that I’m not enough.

That I’m perfect in the reality of both truths and that that’s precisely what makes me human.

I’ll continue to dive head first into unreasonable projects, pursue my passions and live life on my terms. Unapologetically.

I’ll pick up conversations with those that fill me with love, drop those that drains me. I’ll prioritize the dreams again, giving them the attention they deserve no matter how unreasonable. How unsuitable.