Strength in sensitivity
For a very long time, society has allowed empathy and sensitivity to become synonymous with weakness. As a deep feeler myself, this label of weakness did more damage as I grew up attempting to suppress the waves of emotion that came so naturally to me. Despite the inauthenticity, I cut away the deep feeling, empathetic, caring, and compassionate labels and squeezed myself into boxes labeled ‘dramatic’ and ‘ weak’ for others to “understand” me better.
Stigma is painful in this way. It’s a snowball of misconceptions and, unfortunately, many of us are forced to identify with a misguided opinion about ourselves. For those who were not given an opportunity to express or observe their feelings and emotions as they came and went, they too are likely to have grown up believing the lie that feelings = weakness. This lie is dangerous, not only because it affects the individual themself, but it can also affect how they perceive the people around them.
This stigma surrounding deep feelers typically begins in childhood. As children and teenagers, we go through many changes, all of which elicit a variety of emotions. At times, these are not taken seriously and are often downplayed by those around us. Whilst it can come from good intentions for our parents, caregivers, and guardians to want us to be strong and resilient, it is a common misconception that these qualities cannot exist within deep feelers.
For those of us who had our feelings shut down and diminished at a young age, we may have grown accustomed to hearing things like:
“ugh, you’re being so dramatic”
“stop crying, you’re acting like a child”
“what is it now?”
A lot of the time, when we haven’t had a safe environment to express our emotions, we may learn to bottle these up. As you can imagine, bottled emotions will tend to escape in a catastrophic manner and our suppressed sadness, hurt and betrayal can come out with anger and resentment.
It is difficult to weed out the damaging beliefs that have been instilled in us and break free from limiting perceptions. As such, we, the deep feelers, may have walked along the tightrope of our teenage and adult years struggling between expressing “too much” and expressing “too little”.
We may express outbursts of emotions when we have been forced to keep them bottled up.
We may avoid expressing necessary emotions when we have been taught that this is better than showing vulnerability.
For those of us still stuck in this limbo, I want you to think about who you are benefitting by withholding vulnerability. More often than not, the answer to this question is that you are attempting to accommodate other people. It is natural for us to feel our emotions and even healthy to consciously watch them as they come and go.
How can we avoid pleasing people at our own expense?
As with anything in self-growth and development, it will take time. But, this should not discourage you. It should motivate you to understand that your vulnerability and empathy is not a burden, it is your power. You deserve to take up space as a vulnerable, empathetic, deep feeler and you are allowed to assert this confidence. In this season of growth, let go of the idea that your feelings make you weak. They don’t. They make you human.
Warmly,
Ruchi.