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I am a sensitive person.
A deep feeler.
An empath.
A highly sensitive person.
I feel everything: people, places, music, colors, plants. I cry easily.
My mood can change quickly. My grief can bring tears to any eyes that dare look into my own. My rage can burn up all the oxygen in a room. My emotions come in tidal waves that will wash me, and any person close enough, out to sea.
I see things.
The pale film of a lie made even more subtle if they are lying to themselves. The shimmer of an unspoken prayer. The mist of confusion when the subconscious wounds take over. The clear line of pain through the body leading to a core trauma when someone lashes out.
I have learned to hide my emotions.
I have developed the skill to become energetically invisible. I created a habit of making myself smaller so that others would be more comfortable in my presence. And I have paid for this.
I made myself ill by holding back my truths. I made myself feel less-than because I believed those who told me I was too much. I stifled my growth, subdued my voice, pushed down the tiger in me into impossibly small quarters until it became resentful and listless with depression.
They call us by many names, us deep feelers:
Overly sensitive, dramatic, depressive, hysterical, moody, sissy, drama queen, princess, cry-baby.
We have been shamed for how much we feel. We are blamed for making others uncomfortable. We are ridiculed for our need to protect ourselves from the too much out there that makes us feel too much inside.
We are diagnosed with disorders that pathologize our sensitivity.
We are medicated to make us able to act like everyone else. We self-medicate when we feel the pressure is too great to bear. We numb out, hide, dull our sensitivities with drugs, alcohol, entertainment, distractions. We get really busy so we don’t have time to feel what we are feeling. We confuse our need for understanding with the need for things, and we consume without fulfillment. When it all gets too much, some of us commit suicide.
Our bodies are finely tuned to pick up the invisible languages of the universe.
Not knowing how to interpret that information, we feel it as noise. It overwhelms us, like so many people shouting directions at us in a tongue we don’t understand. The more we shrug our shoulders, the louder and more demanding they speak.
The universe speaks in energy.
We interpret energy in our bodies as a feeling/sensation, either physically, emotionally, mentally, or on the more subtle planes.
The deep feelers of the world are the portals for this information coming from the invisible realms. When these realms have something to say, we sense it. Sometimes it is soft and subtle, sometimes like a thousand marching bands playing in our chest.
We have forgotten the raw power we possess.
We don’t remember how to use our gifts, and we mistake them for madness. Those who came before us, who would be our mentors, were silenced, killed, tortured, and they disappeared. Those who would call us by our true names—healer, oracle, wise one, shaman, medicine person, witch, magician, soothsayer, sorcerer, and other names from many different cultures.
Our lineages have been broken, and we have been left to try to make sense of our differences on our own.
Not having the teachers, mentors, and role models who could help us understand our gifts, we have decided we are somehow defective. When we do not experience the world the way the others do, we feel there must be something wrong with us. We resist the feelings, we fall into the traps of despair, we get caught up in webs of depression, anger, and grief.
We can’t understand what we are feeling and think we must be crazy. When we see/feel/experience things that others do not, we believe ourselves delusional rather than knowing that what we see is as real as what they do.
We were not built to suffer for our gifts.
Our abilities are precise instruments for healing. We have just not had the opportunity to learn how to use them. We have had no one to teach us to interpret the invisible languages so that we can use them for transformation. We are here to heal—ourselves, the planet, the collective. We are here to awaken the others to their own healing. We irritate them so deeply because they are afraid.
But what they fear is their inability to feel. We stir their shadows and the depths they would rather not go to.
And we fear those depths ourselves.
Our culture is afraid of the darkness and wants only to stay in the light. But it is in the fertile darkness that alchemical transformation occurs. When we cease to fear the shadow, the mystery, or the deep and seemingly harsh feelings that overtake us, we can learn to use the intensity to burn away the illusions that keep us bound to ignorance. It can free us from our self-sabotaging cycles and destructive patterns.
The universe speaks to us; it tells us all we need to know to live up to our highest potential. It gives us the blueprint for healing. It guides us with a steady hand to all that we need. We need only learn to listen and not block out its messages. Instead of hiding from it, we need to interpret the languages so we can use the information rather than be overwhelmed by it.
How do we interpret the languages of the invisible realm?
We must learn to trust our wisdom.
It doesn’t always make sense; it’s often not logical or appropriate. You must commit to bravely feel whatever you feel without judgment. I understand there are days when it feels like you will be consumed if you let yourself go there. But the more you freely feel what you feel, the less overwhelming it becomes. The resistance to it is what brings the most uncomfortable parts.
We begin to bypass the messages when we think, I wish I wasn’t feeling this, I want it to stop, I can’t feel like this and function, I need to stop this before it interferes with my life.
Interfering with your life is the plan. It is the wisdom that brings to light the things that aren’t working for us but we are reluctant to change. It pushes our fears and insecurities to the surface because that is what it is asking us to give up.
We must take responsibility for our triggers and unconscious behaviors and reactions.
They are the secret scripts we run on that keep us stuck in cycles of self-sabotage and acting out. We must become aware of and brutally honest with ourselves. Know what your baggage is and know how to not project it onto others.
Being highly sensitive does not permit you to abuse others. Yes, our emotions are big and overwhelming; yes, they affect us deeply. But we should not project our overwhelm on others.
Be clear about what is bothering you, make good boundaries, take responsibility. Those close to us may need to be coached in how to hold space for our big emotions without getting taken in. Don’t repress your emotions, but find a way to hold them with compassion and reverence so that others may do the same.
Know we are here to awaken the others.
This can make our relationships uncomfortable. We can be convinced that we are too much. Those who are not willing to face their shadows with grace will make their discomfort our problem. Don’t believe them.
Walk away from those who cannot respect your gifts. Find those who hold us in reverence, even if they cannot understand our experiences. The discomfort that comes up is an opportunity for growth, for all of us.
My love, you have magic that you have kept hidden for too long.
I feel your longing to be seen and understood exactly as you are. Let yourself be cracked open. Your deep feelings are magic. You have been living in a too-small house, built by your ancestors who could not do what you have the privilege to do now. Let your wings rip the roof off of the polite space you have kept them in.
Don’t waste your gifts, don’t let them torment you.
Don’t try to hold yourself back or make yourself smaller to make others more comfortable.
We are counting on you to rise up and see the magnificence we have been waiting for you to claim.
Go feel it all.
~
Here is a playlist of songs to celebrate and inspire your deep feels.
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