Sensitivity

I go tender when I decide to live for myself; not live for anyone else.

kisses make me tender

I go tender when someone tries to understand why I am angry

I go tender when I wake up in the morning and see my daughter next to me; I look at her and I’m filled with all the tenderness in the world.

I do not go tender; my rage grows cold. I cannot feel tenderness.

I go tender when I recognize that there’s too much beauty,

I don’t want to be

Burning.

-feminist movement in Tunisia.

It is expected that women should be the bearers of peace, and not peace within, but bring peace out into the world and offer the gifts of tenderness outwards.  I do think that women do have the gift of tenderness and project it more than do our conditioned brothers who were disallowed tenderness in the upbringing.  I do not think we respond, emotionally, any differently but that our brothers and sons have been conditioned to only show 'the manly' emotions that go with protection and stiff spine, do not cry, 'man up', ways.  God bless the mothers who taught their sons to be free to be tender.  Earlier generations have been taught that tenderness, in males, was weakness.  Further, women were taught to be tender and, then, if a girl or woman was, she was considered fragile, irrational and overly sensitive. 

Those of us who are highly sensitive seem to project almost a panic when a trigger is switched and we have no coping tools to turn off the response until it is said.  And, for those of us who are over-sensitive (which, I might add, seems to happen less and less as we age) are not wrong or right in our reactions, but HOW we react probably might be.  We compromise all that we are through our emotional reactions.  That is just the way it is. It is not easy for others to accept that we are who we are, and those that love us, know enough of us that they are gentler with us as we work through our triggers.  If they are not, they are not for us. 

For those of us who are overly sensitive, we need to take a step back from our emotional responses and learn how to get positive reactions from others, in highly triggered situations, that push our buttons.  We have a right to our emotions and our expressions.  Our expressions is part of the core of who we are.  We are, either needy, whiny, miserable sap suckers, or we are women who can express what needs to be expressed in less volatile ways.  Somehow, we need to walk away from being used and spit out.  We need to express boundaries, for sure.  and, if someone matters enough to you, you need to let them know areas that are triggering, and hope that they lsiten, or not.  "I cannot talk about this anymore", or "We can talk about anything but __________.  This keeps the relationship secure and, if they care enough, they will understand that you simply have not gotten through the triggers yet.  We do not need to mute our feelings, but be honest about why we feel what we feel and learn a key word or phrase, previously agreed on between you, that cues another to know this is a trigger area.  There is that moment between trigger and expression and I need to find that space and really work on that.

It is, in that space, where I need to be more emotionally aware and more sensitive rather than reactive.  Change is needed and I must find a way to do that.  We are not static and we are driven to change as much as a child is driven to rise from the floor and walk.  No one else is responsible to change for me.  My past is my past and my filters are my filters, and I own my reactions to whatever life hands me.  Others own their own actions and reactions, their words and their own sensitivities.   We either realize how others walk or we walk away.  When we walk away, there is a lesson to be learned and I am danged well going to find my "wait!, my pause before the reaction, some way and some how.

Challenge:  Can you do a page about how you feel about reactions and relationships?  Do we always be happy happy or do we be authentic?  Is our overly-sensitive emotions us or are we them?  Can you express how you feel about this all?

Note:  I have done an airy fairy character, with shadows across her moon, to express that everything might not be happy happy.

©Carol Desjarlais 11.5.19