Stay Away from People Who Think It’s Too Hard to Love You

By Leslii Stevens ERYT500, YACEP, Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher

You are not too much. You are just too real for the wrong people.


You are not too much. 


Let me say that again for the people in the back and for the version of you that still tiptoes around the room trying not to take up space: You. Are. Not. Too. Much. 


You are not too emotional, too intense, too broken, too honest, too sensitive, too loud, too deep, too messy, too wild, too weird, or too complicated. You’re just too real for the wrong people. 


Here’s the thing: Love—real love—doesn’t flinch at the scar tissue or the tangled roots. It doesn’t whimper at your past, your trauma, your anxiety spiral, or the fact that sometimes you need quiet for three days just to feel okay again. It doesn’t pack up and leave when your ADHD brain forgets where it put the keys and the coffee and the entire point of the story you were telling. 


Love pulls up a chair. Love listens. Love stays. 


So why do we keep entertaining the ones who say we’re too hard to love? 


I’ve been there. I’ve been told I ask for too much, too much presence, too much patience, too much truth. I’ve learned the hard way that “too much” is just code for “more than they were ever willing to give.” And the more I tried to shrink to fit into their version of "easy love," the more I disappeared. 


Let me tell you something I’ve learned in the trenches: 

You were never meant to be easy. You were meant to be worth it. 

You were never meant to be easy. You were meant to be worth it.


We live in a world obsessed with convenience. Swipe left, swipe right, ghost, breadcrumb, repeat. But you? You’re not a snack. You’re a full-course meal with wild spice and soul. You come with depth. With stories. With healing hands and fierce boundaries and a laugh that could knock the dust off dead things. You’re the kind of love people write songs about, if they can stay still long enough to know what real music sounds like. 


So stay away from the ones who sigh too loud when you speak your truth. 


Stay away from the ones who call your standards “drama,” your needs “needy,” your voice “too much.” 


Stay away from the ones who only love the light, but bail when the storm hits. 


You are not a burden. You are a revolution wrapped in skin. 


If someone tells you loving you is “too hard,” thank them for the clarity, and let them go. Their exit makes room for the ones who will dance through your chaos and still call it beautiful. The ones who will see you in your cracked and crooked glory and say, “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.” 


And if you haven’t found them yet? 


Then be that person for yourself. 


Show up. Stay. Love yourself with a loyalty no one can shake. 


Because when you do, you’ll realize something game-changing: 

The hardest part was never being too much. It was believing the ones who couldn’t hold you. 


Stay wild. Stay worthy. Stay the hell away from anyone who makes you doubt it. 


—Leslii 

Let them go. Your wings were never meant to fit in someone else’s cage.