Sensitively Strong

I’m not here to whine about how growing up Gen X forced us to bottle up our emotions and toughen up.  Without having lived through the generationally passed down philosophy of “sucking it up” we wouldn’t be Gen X after all, it made us who we are.  However, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t leave some kind of mark imprinted on us and the way we approached life moving into our adult years.

The age of learning to feel our feels and validate our emotions has arrived and as much as some people would love to put that genie back in the bottle, we would probably be better off learning from our past mistakes and moving into these feels.  There is a lot of research behind stored emotions being the culprit of the aches and pains we feel in our physical bodies.  Until we lean in and release these backed up feelings, we pay for its storage in our bodies…plus interest.

One of the most healing parts of my journey was the self discovery research I would embark on mostly during my "free time" back during my teaching career.  I would get lost for hours in the "interwebs" learning about enneagrams, astrological traits, spiritual awakenings, sixth senses, and the 16 personalities of the Meyers Briggs test.  Although I am no longer of the mind that we completely fit into neat tidy boxes or are even designed for labels, the assistance of this step along my path was imperative to making peace with my personality.

Highly sensitive, weird, and never feeling like I fit in were all things I felt a lot both growing up and as an adult in this more rational world than my natural daydreamer young self was born for.  Although I adapted, doing my best to fit in and play the part of strong, resilient, hard working, team player…the jersey never quite fit me just right and I ended up spending the better part of my adult life spiraling out of control while I tried desperately with two hands to hold onto the image of being in control.  The cost was not apparent all at once, and it certainly didn’t happen overnight but over time it compounded into not only emotional but also physical aches and pains.   

Doing the best impression of “myself” was exhausting, but anyone who has ever faked it till they made it knows that the inner anguish of feeling like an imposter in your own body will manifest itself in lots of ways.  Maybe it’s a stomach ache or ulcer, perhaps it’s extra weight gain or loss.  It could be arthritis, psoriasis, headaches and migraines or the dreaded IBS.  Sometimes it’s all of the above, and the list is endless. Sadly the more you ignore it the worse it gets.

Putting on a mask and hiding your authenticity from the world will eventually catch up with you.  For me it tried warning me for as long as I can remember.  It was the stomach ache after being told to “stop being so sensitive” and the shame that would flush through my body for feeling things differently or more intensely than my peers.  It was the ulcerative colitis that crept in while I was working at a job that physically pained me to walk into and eventually landed me in the hospital for almost a week.  It was the weight gain from feeling like I wasn’t good enough or that I couldn’t keep up with the insane amount of demands I brought onto myself by trying to be everything to everyone else.  

For a long time I successfully navigated running a household, being a loving wife and nurturing mother all while feeling responsible for the outcome of all of my students behaviors, emotions, and learning growth, leading teams, planning and implementing interesting hands on lessons, managing parent relationships and working with leadership and their ever changing demands.  Until one day I just couldn’t anymore.

Turns out that being a highly sensitive empath means that I was unconsciously picking up on all of those emotions from everyone in my world and internalizing them daily.  My superpower for knowing who needed what kind of help when and what mood everyone around me was feeling on any given day piled up inside until I couldn’t recognize who I really was anymore.  Bits of me would come out from time to time, but the actress was getting tired of the role and without my actual permission, she quit.  

There were signs along the way and I truly tried to get help.  I saw three councilors (the first two said they couldn’t help me because I didn’t actually have anything wrong with me and the third became my guru), I went to the Dr. and was prescribed medication to “get me through my day” 🤪, I added monthly massages and chiropractic visits to my life, and I even went so far as to find a new age wellness store that aligned my chakras for me.

As I spent all of my free time discovering what exactly my HSP and INFJ personality were like as well as leaning into my Clairsentience (among others) and Cancer personalities. I would find comfort in knowing that I wasn’t alone in feeling the way I did out in the world.  I began to find ways for empaths to ground their energy and learned how EFT or tapping could help with removing energy that I had picked up that wasn’t mine. I could also try and block with coconut essential oil and envision a protective bubble around my space.  

I would eventually burn out anyway and leave the classroom behind, but the blessing was that I was remembering who I was and the things I really enjoyed learning about that lit me up inside from the time I was young.  At the end of the day, not being authentically ourselves has consequences and though we might not see them right away they will eventually manifest themselves.  Being our truest selves, weird stuff and all, is the greatest wish of our soul and although I am still discovering the different layers of who I really am and how to be kindest to my whole self, I know that the long path of learning it took to get here was exactly the right one for me.  Now when I am called sensitive, I try and take it as a compliment and hug that inner girl who was always just being her very own real self. Then I give thanks for another perceived weakness that was always a strength hiding in my strong.