Are these things familiar? 
- You’re too sensitive
- Don’t take things to heart
- Lighten up or toughen up.
When you are a sensitive artistic soul these statements can really hurt.
It feels like who you are is wrong!
When I was in my early 20′s and tutoring at a music camp in Tasmania, one of the young rather attractive young men told me that “I was the most intense people that he had ever met.”
I was horrified. I didn’t want to be intense. I wanted him to tell me I was pretty, fun …. You get the idea.
I had always felt ‘different’ growing up, like I didn’t quite fit the norm. Of course I generalised his comment as we often do…My sensitivity and intensity pushes people away. It is a bad thing. So I tried to hide this side of who I was.
Have you ever ‘pretended’ that you don’t feel deeply or passionately about the world?
It is near on impossible and only leaves you feeling more and more disconnected from who you really are!
After all… You want to live life with intensity! You want to feel deeply and leave your mark in the world.
I want you to know this…
You do not need to defend your emotional sensitivity!
And you certainly don’t need to change or hide it!
As a society we are disconnected from our feelings, from our bodies and from our purpose in life. Numb. Struggling to ‘fill the void’ with things and activities that really don’t mean anything.
It is time to give yourself freedom to be sensitive, deep, emotional, intense… Whatever your words, celebrate these qualities in you. They are beautiful!
We need people with courage to change the status quo. We need the beauty you bring to the world.
This is what it means to be truly alive.
I’ll let you in on another secret. When you don’t deal with your emotional pain, or hide your feelings, your passions, they don’t go away. They stay stored in your body. They make you sick, tired and cause you physical pain.
You deserve to treat yourself with the kindness you always give to others.
This is my ‘prescription’ for loving your sensitivity.
1. Dance, Sing, Walk, Practice Yoga or Hang Upside Down!
It is so easy to get stuck in your head or in despondent feelings.
Moving gets you in touch with your body, reconnecting you to what is important to you.
2. Write down all the wonderful things your sensitivity has brought to your life!
Your sensitivity brings feeling to your art and allows you to connect deeply with your audience.
Can you write down 50 things? 100 things? Make that your aim. It will completely change your perspective of your sensitivity.
3. When people tell you that you’re too sensitive, try this line…
Thank you, it is one of the things I love most about myself.
I get that this will be a hard one! Practice. If that is too big a stretch, stay silent. Their comment is about them, not about you.
Remember, you have absolutely nothing to defend.
This is one of my favourite quotes…
“Mother nature never repeats herself and the possibilities of one human soul with never be found in another.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton.