Day 65- Embrace My Highly Sensitive Nature

Today I got a phone call at work. It was having to do with a subject that has nothing to do what-so-ever with my job as a music director, and so I didn't have an answer for her. I did the correct thing and referred her to the correct person, but instead of accepting that answer she just kept on going on and on, and wanted an answer from me. And trying to be the polite person that I am, I just kept on listening and repeatedly telling her 'I am the music director you need to speak to...' She did not seem to be happy with that answer and kept on asking me for a solution. She began to get more and more upset with me, and I in turn began to get flustered and started crying.

I have decided that I am just a highly sensitive person, and I think that's ok. I need to embrace that aspect of myself. I recently found this article about highly sensitive people, and these are the characteristics that they list:

1. Being conscientious sometimes to the point of being a perfectionist
2. Having a heightened awareness to subtleties in their environment
3. Can become overwhelmed and need to 'get away' to be by themselves
4. May feel compelled to file and organize things and thoughts
5. Appreciate simplicity and may become over stimulated or immobolized by chaos, clutter or stress
6. Are very uncomfortable when they feel things are getting out of control
7. Have a deep, rich, inner life, are very spiritual, and experience vivid dreams
8. Are very intuitive and can usually sense if someone isn't telling the truth or if something is wrong
9. Become easily concerned and think or worry about things
10. May have also had the experience of 'cutting people' out of their life
11. Are startled and cautious in new situations
12. May have trouble sleeping
13. May be extra sensitive to pain
14. Don't like crowds
15. Often avoid violent movies or TV shows
16. Have a deep respect for nature, art and music
17. Need alone time

Some of these characteristics don't fit with who I am at all, but others fit very well. Being highly sensitive is not a bad thing, but sometimes I feel that it gets in the way, and I think that sometimes I try to suppress what I'm feeling, because I don't want to be perceived as weak.

I think this goes back to my childhood. I always wanted to pretend I was tougher than I was. During one particular incident when I was a little girl, I remember watching 'Little House On the Prairie' and during a particularly emotional moment my brother would look to see if my sister or I were crying or not. That was an emotional show. I mean who didn't cry when Mary went blind or when she lost her baby. So I'd always pretend I wasn't crying when I really was.

So I will embrace and accept this part of me. I will not apologize for being who I am. If I cry, I cry. If I get flustered or overwhelmed, so be it. But I am who I am, and neither you nor I can change that. In a year of changing my life some things are about not changing, but about accepting and embracing certain aspects of my life, and this is one of them.