“Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage. It is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
- BRENÉ BROWN

Due to collective conditioning, psychic, energetic, emotional and mental sensitivity have been perceived as a weakness of character, as a fundamental flaw in the nature of the individual, and as something that must be combated in order to become a “strong and admirable human being”, capable of thriving in the human world.

Many of us who were born highly sensitive and showed from a young age signs of an empathic nature, have often been told we “feel too much”, “are too vulnerable, soft or weak”, “are too intense”, “break easily”, “are too deep”, are “too irritatingly inquisitive”, or are “not fun”. We have been conditioned to ‘toughen up’ if we are to survive and thrive in this world, and have been taught that we shouldn’t cry, feel or express our intense feelings and emotions.

As a defense mechanism against our terrifyingly deep, overpoweringly intense and bewilderingly irrational emotional worlds, we have hyper-developed our intellect. Some of us have become addicted to knowing, wanting to study, learn and acquire more and more knowledge, moving our minds and conscious awareness further and further away from our emotional bodies and our intrinsic deep knowing. Some of us have become addicted to doing, in the constant need to be engaged in ongoing activities, -of a productive, social or entertaining nature-, in order to avoid moments of stillness, where inevitably emotions will come up to haunt us. Some of us have developed an addiction to intimate relationships and sex and feel a compulsive need to be constantly engaging with another, unconsciously avoiding solitude, and/or preventing sexual energy from ascending into its transmutational path.

In the effort to survive, fit in, and belong to our families, schools, groups of friends and society at large, we have created a split within ourselves between our mental and emotional bodies. We have left the conscious connection with our physical and emotional bodies and have locked ourselves up in our mental space and its mental ‘realities’ (illusions) in order to “not feel so much” or “not suffer”. This is why most of us live in a dissociated state, mostly identified with a mental concept of self rather than with the embodied, experiential, feeling self.

Many of us have developed a mental image of ourselves as strong, intelligent, and socially savvy, unconsciously condemning our emotional bodies as chaotic and troublesome, and perceiving our sensitivity and empathic nature as something negative, something to hide from others, avoid, or repress altogether.

So collectively we have managed to turn THE POWER OF THE OPEN HEART, -and the psychic, emotional and energetic sensitivity that come with it-, into a curse. We applaud and admire narcissistic sociopathy while reproving emotional sensitivity. We elevate and praise closed-hearted ego-centered individuals while we deprecate and condemn as inferior and weak the soft, tender, open-hearted natures. We collectively perceive the open heart as a vulnerability and a flaw, and the closed-off heart as a strength of character.

Until we don’t flip this social formula around within ourselves, we won’t be able to love, appreciate and respect ourselves. We won’t be able to have healthy relationships or live a fulfilling life. We won’t be able to live in inner peace or discover the wisdom and creative power hidden in the emotional depths of our being. And that is because we are negating a vital aspect of our natures.

As part of our healing and self-empowerment journeys, it is imperative we acknowledge the strength that lives in vulnerability, the power yielded from feeling life intensely, and the deep satisfaction that comes from accepting our sensitive nature.

It is time to shift our sensitivity and empathy from a curse to the blessing and portal to higher living it really is.

It is time to master this sensitivity, and to turn negative hypersensitivity into fully empowered healthy empathy. We can do this by learning the tools needed to courageously open to and reverentially embrace our emotional world. By changing our mental programming, we can stop fighting against our True Nature, and embrace the full power that emerges from a mind that works in unison with a fully awakened heart.