People Often Confuse Their Wounds With Their Nature

As a highly sensitive person, I’ve been in countless situations where I wished I were less permeable and more resilient. In many ways, I’ve found peace by accepting that my sensitivities are also my gifts. At the same time, I’ve dug deeply into what makes me sensitive and continue to work at healing the aspects of my sensitivity that rest on my wounds.
.
We all have wounds. Life didn’t treat any of us perfectly and we’ve all had to adapt to varying degrees of struggle and trauma. Our adaptations influenced our personality. So doesn’t it make sense that if we deconstruct the adaptations that are no longer needed, we can change some aspects of who we are?
.
Somebody who has always been permeable can learn to hold boundaries when the learned behaviour of continual sensing is explored and supported. If a child was living with a volatile parent, she may have been trained to sense and feel emotions continually to alert her to danger. As an adult, she will struggle to turn off her sensing and may become entangled in unhealthy relationships. Is that her nature or her adaptations influencing her personality?
.
How much can we learn and grow and how much is ‘just who we are’? Each of us has to answer that question. I’ve been frustrated recently listening to people re-hash struggles that keep repeating, knowing that they could be helped.
.
The challenge is access. People can easily get anti-depressants if their struggles fall into that domain. What about people whose symptoms are subclinical? These are the people who are too insecure to step forward in their lives in a way that would fulfil them. They are the people who can’t be vulnerable enough to create real intimate relationships. They are unfulfilled in their careers because they lack the confidence to follow their dreams. For these people, the prescription is much less obvious.
.
What’s your take on changing deeper aspects of our traits and ways of being?

Previous
Previous

How Do You Reconcile These two Mantras?

Next
Next

Contracted Living vs. Empowered Living