I am sorry if my sensitivity makes you uncomfortable.

I have been told to be less sensitive.

It’s not the first time.

I wear my feelings on my sleeve and it seems to disturb some people. If I’m upset I look upset. When I am sad I look sad. When I am angry I look angry. I have been told to not show it so much. It makes other people feel uncomfortable.

Perhaps they could say, “You look sad today, is everything ok?” I think the problem is that they think it is their fault and my feelings act as a reflection to their inner world. But my feelings are mine and belong to me processing my inner journey.

Sometimes I am too honest too. I have lost and almost lost some friends that way. You know… calling for transparency… Instead of being comfortable with a sense of pretense.

I’m far from perfect! Haha! And I write to process and affirm my truths and discern them too as a matter of my on-going journey of self-realisation and self-acceptance. 

I thought for a long time about being less sensitive and controlling myself. What would that mean?

Putting on a mask and looking and saying I’m fine when I’m hurting inside or feeling upset or angry? That doesn’t sit well with my pursuit for integrity and well… humanness especially in authentic relationships on a spiritual path.

So I started recalling…. How at medical school being too sensitive is also seen as a weakness. We need to be stoic. Level. Being seen as emotional can detract from your sense of…. Authority? Power? Will people take you less seriously?

Also it can be dangerous. It hurts to be too sensitive and you simply see too much real life tragedy and pain in medicine. It hurts too much to be too sensitive then. We need to protect ourselves – we were told. Find a way to deal or rather protect ourselves from the pain of being a feeling human so we can continue in this profession. Or do we? – we discussed the theoretical options as students.

Yeh, well I struck out on that then….

I’m the one who cries in every single birth no matter where…which can be really awkward when you are in theater with a mask on and glasses and a sterile field with an open pelvic cavity in front of you…

Or sometimes just as awkward when you smile at the mother or father and your eyes are brimming…and your throat choking – when all you want to say is “You did it! Aren’t you amazing!”

Or when someone dies and you have to tell the family.

Or when you hear a child screaming for their mother while getting blood taken but the mother has been asked to leave the room.

Or when a baby is crying in the incubator at the opposite side of the room to the mother and you want to bring them together but the nurse in charge wants her there for convenience now.

Or when you are doing a grand ward round and you are around the bed of the lady who has just delivered a stillborn and woken up to a crowd of faces in white coats around her discussing the various possible causes while summing her up with their eyes .

It sucks to be sensitive then….

It sucks to be sensitive when your head of department abuses his patients verbally in front of you. And you feel as if you share their pain…on so many levels.

When you had a fight with your loved ones and you have to work a night shift.

But it makes life real. It makes you feel alive and full.

It makes you weep with such feeling you feel you have shed a skin.

It makes you connect with such truth that your clarity and truth are a shining sword lighting up the way forward.

It is hard. It may be easier to pretend. Hide. Mask. Smile and cover it up. But people like me will soon go mad like that.

I am sensitive.

I can work on my delivery of my sentiments. But it makes it real. I’m having a human experience on a path of many lessons and I am not afraid to fully live it.

So..now what?

Living Sensitive……

On a different note – how does this fit in to being a sensitive woman? A woman who is not linear in her emotions as she is not made to be like that. A woman who feels and acts differently at different times in her natural cycle. A woman who is exquisitely moved by the phases of the moon as the tides of the sea swoon and fall too.

A woman who is sensitive to an energy that has no name and has no sound and has no form but speaks and tells.

A spiritualist who is sensitive to the empathy of all souls – no matter the outer bodily form they have arrived in – on earth. A yogi who wishes to soften his heart with a practice that embodies a self-love and a love for Divine.

What is the place for the defense of the sensitive person?

What is the place for my anger and recoil when I am exposed with my sensitivities?

The responsibility of following up on the empathy….following on from the feeling and courting of being sensitive…with a heart that is sensitive enough to embrace a forgiveness coming from a place of deep heart connecting.

Where we do not take offense and we do not recoil in a defensive anger but we open our soft sensitive hearts to the possibility of growth with inner reflection and humility…and gratitude.

Where we embrace the opportunity to start with lesson 1 – forgiveness of ourselves.

I forgive me. Deeply and wholly.

Perhaps there are two sides of being sensitive. Perhaps the path is learning to embrace both sides. Perhaps our journey of empathy and being sensitive is just that – to open our hearts in a softness of love that comes with a practice of Bhakti.

What are the possibilities?

Learn more about Dr Gauri and her work. 

I would love to hear from you! If inspired or if you feel any of this resonates with you – please leave a comment…..