☕Days when encouragement stings. The story of how a sensitive person's heart has a 7-octave range

Until yesterday, I was thinking about some pretty grand things.

What is life?
What is love?
Why can't people understand each other?
Things like that.

And yet today,

I'm feeling down over a single remark,
feeling as small as an ant.

……Seriously, what is up with this range?

The scale of my emotions,
I wish they wouldn't suddenly drop from the universe back down to the ground.

But, doesn't this happen to you?

You can think about big things,
but you also get properly hurt by a tiny remark.

It's like being a singer who can hit seven octaves,
the range of my heart is just too wide.

What kind of analogy is that, really.

But, sensitive people probably have this side to them, don't they?

The bandwidth of what we feel is wide.

We can think about things far away.
We can think about deep things.
But at the same time,
we also react properly to the slight nuances in people's words.

So today, I'm going to talk about that ☕

☕Days when someone tries to encourage you, but for some reason, it stings

The other day, in the flow of conversation, we ended up talking about how to have confidence.

Even when I'm praised,
I tend to say, "No, no, that's not true,"
and I have trouble fully accepting it.

As an extension of that,
we started talking about how I see myself,
and in the middle of that,
a certain word really stung.

Because your heart is weak.

It was a word with that kind of nuance.

I'll say this first:
They probably didn't mean any harm with those words.

I don't think they intended to hurt you either.
I think they wanted to encourage you.
I think they were trying to cheer you on.

I understand that.

I understand, but still.

What stings, stings.
It's not about logic anymore.

My heart is weak...

These words started to slowly well up inside me later.

After I got home,
huh,
I realized I was more bothered by it
than I thought.

I was grateful.
I know they didn't mean any harm.
But I still feel uneasy.

This feeling of being both.

I think this happens quite often to sensitive people.

☕ The problem where if they didn't mean harm, you feel like you shouldn't be hurt

This is really troublesome, but

when you know the other person didn't mean any harm,
sometimes you try to pretend
that you weren't even hurt in the first place.

They were cheering me on.
They didn't do it on purpose.
Am I being petty for getting hung up on something like that?
Am I overthinking it?

That's what I think.

No, no, no.

Wait a minute.

That just makes things twice as hard for you.

You get hurt once,
and then,
you start blaming yourself, thinking, 'Am I just difficult for getting hurt by something like this?'

What is with that follow-up?

I wish you wouldn't land a self-combo in my heart.

And besides, in times like these, it can look like a small thing to those around me.

But for me, it's different.

The problem isn't the word count.
It's not about whether it's a single word or a long sentence.
It's the punching power.

Even with short words,
if the angle of impact is just right,
they can strike perfectly deep.

And if the other person is kind,
or someone you trust,
it stings even more.

A kitchen knife is useful when it's in the kitchen, but if you accidentally cut your finger, it hurts, right?

It's a bit like that.

Even if the words come from someone helpful,
depending on the timing or the angle,
there are times when it just plain hurts.

So,

the fact that they didn't mean any harm and the fact that I was hurt,
both can be true at the same time.

This is very important.

☕ Days when being told you have a weak heart sounds a bit crude

I think what bothered me the most was the
roughness in the phrase 'having a weak heart'.

Not being able to have confidence,
dwelling on the past,
if you had to sum it all up in one word,
it's like saying that's weakness.

But you know,

there are days when I feel like saying,
could you please not lump it all together so crudely?

I mean, I've got a lot going on here too.

The things you've been hurt by,
the nature of being easily bothered,
the efforts you've made to recover,
the things you've swallowed down,
and the things you really wanted to say but couldn't.

When all of that is lumped together,
and dismissed as having a weak heart,

No, that's not it.
I want you to look at that a little more carefully.

That's when my heart suddenly rises up.

Perhaps what I wanted
wasn't 'you're weak,' but rather,

words like 'you've been carrying so much,' or
'you're cautious because you've been hurt,' or
'you've still managed to keep going.'

Maybe that's the kind of thing I wanted to hear.

Calling someone 'weak' feels
a bit like a report card.

I don't want you to grade my heart.

Besides, I'm at a loss
when you tell me that now with a look like I've failed a test I've never seen before.

I know.
The person themselves knows that best.
That's exactly why I wanted you to wrap that part up a little more gently.

Humans are selfish.

But we all have that side to us, don't we?

☕ A sensitive person's heart probably has 7 octaves

Returning to the earlier topic.

I really think sensitive people
have a very wide range of emotional notes.

They can think about incredibly big things.

Life,
love,
loneliness,
the distance between people,
they have the power to think about such things.

But at the same time,

thinking 'oh, that way of saying it hurt a little,' or
'that one word is sticking with me more than I thought,' or
'I laughed it off, but this is going to hit me when I get home.'

I end up picking up on those millimeter-level discrepancies.

That's why,
I think it must seem strange from the outside.

Even though you can think about such deep things,
why do you worry about such small things?
It can look like that sometimes.

No, I do worry.

Because I receive it all.

To someone with high radio sensitivity,
if you ask why they can hear such faint sounds,
well,
what you hear, you hear.

It's not like I enjoy picking up the noise either.

But in exchange,
I notice kindness often,
and I can notice small warmth too.

So I think this wide range of sensitivity,
while it can be a cause of exhaustion,
is also a charm.

The problem is just that the person themselves gets tired.
Really, that's it.

Good work today, me.

☕ I want to pretend not to care because I don't want to lose friends

When talking about things like this,
this is probably another difficult part.

If I worry about things even this much,
I might lose my friends,
that kind of anxiety.

It happens, doesn't it?

It really does.

Since they are my few friends,
I think I have to swallow this much,
and so on.

But you know,
I don't think you need to think in extremes here either.

Become someone who doesn't care.
Or cut off your friends.

It's not just these two choices.

In between, there is a proper middle ground.

For example,

This person didn't mean any harm.
But I was a little hurt.
So from now on, I will take this person's words with a little more caution.

This is fine.

There is no need to declare that we are no longer friends,
and there is no need to pretend that everything didn't happen by saying I was just overthinking it.

Adult relationships,
it's rare to be able to understand each other perfectly every single time, isn't it?

A little off,
a little stinging,
thinking, 'Oh, that's not quite right,' while still,
seeing if there are parts where we can still be together.

That's probably how it is.

So this time too,

you don't have to go as far as saying,
that person was bad,
and you don't have to go as far as saying,
I was being difficult.

The middle is fine.

That stung a little.
I'll keep that in mind for myself.

That much is enough.

☕ Days when good intentions sting are secretly exhausting

And besides, with things like this,
you can't even get angry, can you?

That part, too, is quietly exhausting.

If someone said something rude, that would be,
easier to understand, right?

But you know,
they are praising me.
They are encouraging me.
They are supporting me.

And yet,
it hurts just a little bit.

This exhaustion that is hard to explain.

I feel like this is something highly sensitive people encounter all the time in daily life.

Only the person themselves knows,
that tiny little snag.

But that tiny little thing,
stays in your heart.

That's why it slowly creeps up on you later, isn't it?

You were laughing during the conversation, but
after getting home, you feel a bit uneasy.

Wait, am I still worrying about this?
That's what happens.

It's so relatable,
I almost want to applaud.

No, I don't actually want to.
Because it's exhausting.

☕ So, what should you do?

What's important here is,
to yourself

not to say that you're weak for getting hurt by something like this.
Because that really makes things tough.

First,
admit that you were a little hurt by those words.

Even if the other person didn't mean any harm,
if that's how you felt,
you can treat those feelings as valid.

On top of that,

if you can see that they probably wanted to encourage you,
that's enough.

It's painful when the order is reversed.

If you try to understand the other person's good intentions first,
your own pain is easily left behind.

So, start with yourself first.

I was stung.
It hurt a little.
I see, I see.

That's where you can start.

It's not coddling, it's first aid.

To the wound,
please don't say things like,
no, no, they were a good person.

Stop the bleeding first.

We can talk after that.

☕ Maybe it's not that your heart is weak, but that you just feel things deeply

I don't think my heart is weak,
I think I just have a strong capacity to feel.

Of course, there are days when I get down easily,
days when I lose confidence,
and days when I remember the past and feel dejected.

But that's not a story that ends with,
because I'm weak.

Because I feel things deeply,
they leave a deep impression.

And because they remain,
I think about them again.

Because of that, I become sensitive to words,
and I'm more likely to notice people's kindness.

It's tough,
but it's not all bad.

So, here is today's conclusion.

It's okay to have days when encouragement stings.
It's okay to be hurt by the words of someone who meant no harm.
And you don't have to blame yourself for that.

A sensitive person's heart
probably has seven octaves.

So, depending on the day,
it flies to the universe,
or it becomes as small as an ant.

But, with that entire range,
you're doing a great job living today, aren't you?

Truly.

I also write about how to receive words and the pain of being misunderstood in this article ☕
Please feel free to continue reading if you'd like ☺️

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