I used to think I was the strangest person in the world...
As many of you know, I send snail-mail letters out in the mail, just for sensitive women (If you've missed this- get yours here ).
So far over 95 letters have gone out all over the world!
I've had requests from New York, New Jersey, Ontario, Montreal, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Adelaide, Sydney, New Zealand, Greece, Maldives and Mauritius.
When women sign up for the mail, I asked them:
'What's the number one challenge you're experiencing about being a sensitive woman?'
This is what they say the most:
Being sensitive is lonely and isolating.
Wooooo Child!
Why?
It's because being sensitive is so misunderstood, undervalued and seen as a bad thing.
It's because people perceive sensitive women to be 'too much' and so they move away from you. They want to be with you when you're 'good' or 'up'.
Over time when you consistently get the message that you're too much, what are you going to do to maintain those relationships?
You're going to pretend like you're not too much.
You're going to hide that you're crying from tears of tenderness from a poem written in 1877 you found on Insta, or when a bird perches near you and you're certain they're here to deliver you a special message.
You're going to try and keep it together and not tear up over tapas with the family.
You're going to try and pretend like everything's fine and just slap your face around a little in the bathroom to pull it together before work.
You're going to cancel that date because you don't want your lover to know that you don't have it all together all the time. You just don't have the energy for a 'Jazz hands' production tonight of your 'best self' hat and cane dance.
And little by little day by day, you start to build up a mask.
A mask that says "Not sensitive here."
A mask that says 'I'm just like you, I swear, let's keep hanging out.'
A mask that says 'I really don't want to overwhelm you, so I'm going to keep it inside and I'll deal with it myself.'
And this works in not overwhelming other people, but it has drastic impacts on YOU beloved.
When you're showing up in the world, in your relationships, your friendships and your workplace wearing a mask, you're not being authentic.
And I'm not judging that- because being authentic in unsafe places is nearly impossible.
I just want to note the impact of it though: Even if people like, love, support or promote you, if they're doing that from the mask version of you, it never actually feels good and it doesn't always feel like love.
Recognition maybe.
Acceptance maybe.
Rewards maybe.
But rarely love.
That's because they're loving, supporting and encouraging a version of you that is minimised, is smaller or the more palatable version of you.
It's the version of you that shrinks the abundance of your beautiful personality and capacity into this cookie cutter 'customer service representative' that operates 24/7.
When you go through the world feeling like that no one is connecting to the true you, the authentic you, that is what feels isolating, even if you have 100 people in the room.
They can't fully see the beautiful woman who thinks deeply about the world, what's going wrong and the patterns you can see and sense.
The woman who cares so deeply for vulnerable, marginalised people, abandoned animals and the strained environment.
The woman who wants to talk about how touched she is by an art house film, a moving art installation, a modern poem, an old song, a mandala she painted at a weekend workshop with other women.
They can't see the woman who can think so deeply and so critically that she can solve problems and find answers and solutions that no one else can. (They threw their hands up along time ago.)
They don't recognise your efforts as the woman who can forward think about someone's needs so perceptively, and meet those needs before they even realise that they're going to have that need.
And I don't know why that can't be considered special and magnificent in this world. But I do know it's driving sensitive women underground.
And so you have to show up with this tougher outer shell.
You have to show up being more palatable and pretend like you're not thinking, analysing, caring and giving a shit about the world when you are.
And I don't agree with that.
If people around you would turn to you and say, "Show me your magic.
Show me what you've been contemplating.
Show me all the people you've been caring for.
Show me what problem you're stuck with.
Show me what has moved you to tears recently.
Show me the world you're trying to change.
They would get to know you on such a deeper level.
They would move past the mask, take the time to get to know you, and give you space to be your full wild, intuitive, bendy, grey, brilliant, creative, spontaneous, quirky, maverick self.
That my friend, feels like authentic love, the antithesis of loneliness and isolation.
and that loneliness, is a major problem I'm going to solve.
If you're feeling:
Disconnected from those around you.
Like few people know the real you.
That you have to be this version of yourself to be loved and accepted.
You're shrinking and hiding yourself on the regular...
I want you to know that you are not alone.
The women in my inbox and DMs are all saying the same thing...and... you're pretty much as cool a Frida Kahlo who wrote:
“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.” ~ Frida Kahlo
(Thank you to a dear client who sent this to me.)
I don't want this loneliness to go on any longer, which is exactly why I've created the online community: The Secret Society for Sensationally Sensitive Women: Join the membership here.
Captain Sensitive,
Gabriella
PS. Remember, you, me and Frida Kahlo makes three, and three makes a party.
