“Toughen up,” they told me…

Ever since I can remember, I was told I was too sensitive.

As a teenager, I wanted to avoid things that seemed unnecessarily negative, so I refused to watch the 11:00 p.m. news. It just didn’t seem like a good idea for my last thoughts of the day to be about crime, gossip, and political corruption. 

“You’ll get to the point where you can’t see or hear anything about real life, Darcy!” was my mother’s fear.

Which is funny, given that I’m a therapist who tolerates more emotion in a day than most people do in months.

You’re too sensitive comes in lots of varieties:

“You need to toughen up.”
“Grow some thicker skin.”
“Why are you being a weirdo?”

 It’s always an insult – at best veiled, and at worst openly hostile. Actually, I’m not sure I shouldn’t reverse that because I prefer open hostility to the kind I have to analyze. But I digress.

Sensitivity and logic are often pitted against each other as mutually exclusive.

Telling someone they’re too sensitive invalidates their feelings, tells them they’re being irrational and labels them dramatic.

It’s also a no-win situation because if one responds by pushing back, the point is proven. And if one responds by accepting the criticism, well, you get it.

The result is silencing.

So, in support of my fellow cohorts who’ve been criticized as being too sensitive, today’s post takes some jabs at the messenger of that affront.

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Why You Lack Self-Awareness

If you find yourself having the same issues in your relationships – intimate or platonic – it’s not a coincidence: It’s a lack of self-awareness.

 People with self-awareness know what their strengths and weaknesses are, and they know how those weaknesses affect others. 

 You have opportunities on a daily basis to learn about yourself, to gain valuable insights from the world so that you make new mistakes. 

 If you can’t rattle off 5 of your biggest weaknesses within 2 minutes (I just tried to confirm that’s a reasonable timeframe), it means there’s a way you’re moving through the world that’s keeping you from coming face to face with reality. Click below to read 7 things you’re doing to avoid the truth.

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Why LOVE is irrelevant to the success of your relationship

Relationship success is a science.

Long-term love has less to do with the falling part than it does with the maintaining part.

We’re all familiar with the falling, if not through first-hand experience then from movies, music, and social media. Media of every kind loves to highlight the beginnings of relationships: The meeting, the dating, and if the planets are aligned, the marrying.

And that’s where society loses interest – just when the relationship starts getting real.

Love isn’t all you need. Because like all emotions, love ebbs and flows. It’s not sustainable.

Click below to learn the only thing relevant to the success of a long-term relationship.

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