Sensitivity is not your weakest link, it's your greatest opportunity.

Apr 21

In my years of experience as a therapist and as your beloved Captain Sensitive, I’m keenly aware of the recurring challenges you’ll experience as a sensitive woman.

You may notice within yourself that you get pulled down, frustrated or anxious about the shame challenges, over and over again but not be clear on what's actually happening or causing the problems for you.

As I’m on a mission to support you in your sensitivity, we need to clearly know the key problems that trip us up, time and time again.

I want to say firstly, I’m not going to write here about THE PROBLEM WITH YOU.

I’m not about to highlight your DEFICITS, what you need to FIX, what is WRONG with you, what is BURDEN about you.

Ah, no. I’m not here to add to the already abundant criticism of sensitive women’s experiences.

I’m here to SEE YOU.

To validate your experience, and give it words when you not have been able to.

I’m extremely clear that the problem is not that you’re a sensitive woman, the problem is usually your environment, lifestyle, relationships and how you respond to your own inner world and experiences.

I’m going to say that again, there is nothing wrong with you.

Many other people want you to shut the fk up about your challenges and just get on with it.

I am not one of those people.

I am deeply interested and curious about your experience.

From this day forward, we commit to no longer hiding, ignoring, dismissing or being in denial about our challenges or experience, but we turn towards them with love, curiosity and reverence.

The first challenge I want to shed light on:

You spend a lot of time rejecting your sensitivity and wishing you were someone else. Aka you reject yourself and are disconnected from who you are innately.

And that just breaks my heart.

You spend so much of your life striving for more, wanting to look a certain way, climbing your career ladder, making relationships and families happen AND working on your self-growth- which I love.

But the truth is, you probably also spend a lot of time wishing you weren’t sensitive at all. And that’s not self-growth and it’s not self-loving.

Self-growth is working on the things you can change, but I hate to break it to you, but you’ll probably be sensitive forever!

So if you keep trying to change something you can’t, you are just beating yourself up. That is so disempowering to your spirit, your uniqueness and your authentic self. Essentially, you’re just bulling yourself like a kid could bully someone with a big nose that they can't change.

So no more self-bullying, pwease?

Instead, If you took all that energy you spend wishing you weren’t sensitive, and made an empowering and radical decision to love, embrace and support your sensitivity- everything would change for you.

Instead of ignoring your need for quiet time and self-reflection, what if you made journaling, meditation or long walks part of your routine?
Instead of trying to be like everyone else who has the energy of a hyperactive grasshopper, what if you acted like yourself and only chose selective, nourishing things to do that didn’t burn you out?
Instead of dying from superficial conversations at pubs, what if you invited one epic new friend over for a tea and oracle cards night?

You have all the possibilities of a nourishing, connected and loving relationship with yourself.

Just take the first step to accept you’re sensitive and own it.

I promise you, you were NOT in the sh*t queue of left-over personality traits when the Universe designed you.

You were in the MAGICAL queue who were granted a special mission in life.

You are a beautiful, thoughtful, kind, multi-faceted, dynamic, strong, and empowered woman.

Don’t let your secret sensitivity be part of you that you think is your weakest link.

I promise you, it's the key to some wonderful pathways.

I’ll leave you with some journal prompts for you to reflect on:

What has been your own life journey and relationship with your sensitivity?
How much of yourself do you actually embrace, accept deeply and show the world?
Which parts of you are you hiding or rejecting?
Are you still fighting with your sensitivity and wish it would stop following you around? What are the consequences of this on you?
Could there be one small thing you could do to this week to be more authentic and hide yourself a little less?
Could there be one small step you could take towards embracing or accepting who you are just quietly to yourself?

I think a lot of women have had to hide their sensitivity so they’re not rejected by others, and perhaps that has been internalised: A rejection of the sensitive parts of you because it feels safer to reject it, rather than embrace it?

Just like we all hate being rejected by others, if you’re rejecting parts of yourself, that is oh so painful too, we are just doing it to ourselves.

Don’t be a bully to yourself, be the brilliant BFF that cheers you on.

And if you don’t have an epic BFF, I’m here for you and you're about to meet a whole bunch of sensational women soon.

With loving kindness, unconditional positive regard and a mission to get you to love yourself,

Your beloved Captain Sensitive,

Gabriella