Sensitivity: Why Vulnerability is Your Greatest Strength

Sensitivity is often framed as a weakness.

Yet, is sensitivity really weak? Or is this approach simply a distraction from feelings that are uncomfortable?

Is this really about resistance to connection, to authenticity, to the truth of what’s actually going on?

“When vulnerability is framed as a weakness, it perpetuates a dangerous myth that undermines courage and human connection.” – Brene Brown

I recall observing an interaction whilst surfing. I saw a teenage boy assert himself when another teenage boy called him a ‘pussy’, ridiculing his sensitivity whilst at the same time demeaning and discounting a beautiful part of feminine anatomy.

I was stoked to hear the young man’s response, he said something like, “that part of a woman’s body is amazing and powerful, none of us would be here without it.”

When insensitivity shows up in human relationships, it doesn’t do much to foster healthy connection.

When we see it in our own bodies, insensitivity is usually the result of the body shutting down natural processes, systems designed to feel, to listen both internally and externally.

Across the globe, for centuries insensitivity has made its mark, leaving indelible footprints in collective, genetic memory.

Insensitivity is a response that houses pain in armour. Tensile tissue that forms around hurt parts, so that it won’t hurt as much next time.

Many of us carry armour as a result of unresolved experiences. Possibly the result of past generations’ unresolved experiences.

Can we resolve these? I believe so.

With curiousity, we can look at where we go unconscious. Deeply listening and reconnecting to the body and the aliveness within.

This is a process that is important not to rush.
Getting therapeutic professional support from someone who has integrated and established a sense of genuine health and wellbeing is a key way of healing those places where we might have inherited our share of inter-generational trauma.

Whilst we may identify with something we are carrying as our own pain, a sorrow, a grief, an anger, a lust or some shadow that seems hard to shift, often it is a pattern that needs to be acknowledged. Which may not have anything to do with us.

We bring this out into the light of day. With awareness, we reconnect the dots.
Delving into our ancestors, opening up to look at our family lineage and exploring where we have been hurting, noticing places where we habitually shut-down.

Patterns surface that connect for us the origins of our pain.
As we look at our primary childhood relationships with those who cared, or didn’t care for us, we receive essential clues supporting a return to wholeness, into healing.

Reclaiming vulnerability, a capacity to feel, is a enlivening process.
Our numbness reflects the areas of our hurts, which safely guard places inside of us that are waiting to be seen, to be held and expressed into the integrity of our being.

In order for this to happen, we need to be resourced. Adequately equipped so that we are not overwhelmed as we resolve those parts of us that hurt. This is why therapy is so helpful, ensuring we are fully supported in a trustworthy space where we can unburden.

As we return these patterns of the past back to their true origins. We can anchor into safety. Knowing its actually ok to be here, that we no longer have to drag around what was previously unresolved.

In this way we become poised, we integrate and recalibrate what we once didn’t have the resources for.

The essential thing to bear in mind, is that for many of us, the pain was not ours to begin with.

It wasn’t about us.

Healing is possible. If you or someone you love is ready to receive support, visit this link to explore possible therapies that can help.