I’m an overly sensitive individual and have always been that way. Anyone who knows me could tell you this. But it’s also quite apparent actually whenever someone makes fun of me or says something negative about me. And so often I hear each of them say just after they realize their comments impacted me so greatly that I need to develop a “thicker skin”. I disagree because the more I tried to develop that trait over the years, the more my heart became hardened to everything and everyone.
I definitely don’t want to have a hardened heart or one that has any thick walls around it. To be the loving, compassionate individual I’m regularly working on becoming requires my heart to remain open. And I believe that if I truly want to channel the unconditional love of God through me in this life, I can’t walk around having a “thick skin”.
But for all the times I did have a much “thicker skin”, I’d walk around with an attitude like I didn’t care about anything. And in all honesty, I ultimately didn’t. While that did help me to deflect people’s attempts at making fun of me or saying negative things of me a lot better, I constantly found myself being angrier and less connected to the world around me because of it. That’s only because a person who has a “thicker skin” is generally living more in their mind than in their heart.
I’m sure you’ve probably heard the saying that the greatest journey in life we can take is the one where we travel from the mind to the heart. I’ve been on that journey for quite awhile now and am finding myself living more in the latter than the former lately. While I do like the way it feels to operate more from my heart these days, it has resurfaced a lot more of my over-sensitiveness again.
Case in point, a casual friend of mine greeted me one day about a month ago, not with a hello, but with a comment about how skinny I was and how he wondered if I was sick. Regardless of his intention, his words hurt and my heart felt a lot heavier afterward. But regardless, I was glad nonetheless to feel how his words impacted me rather than to dispel a “thicker skin” based comment back towards him like I once would have done.
With my heart being a lot more opened now than ever before, I’m not a fan of making fun of people or saying anything negative about them, mainly because I feel the impact within them when I do. As for those who still do these behaviors quite often themselves, I’ve realized through my own spiritual journey to have compassion for them. I know now that it’s most likely a trait they forced themselves to develop solely to deal with the harshness the world brought them at some point in their life, just like it did for me growing up in a dysfunctional family and being bullied in school.
So for anyone out there who ever tells you that you need to develop a much “thicker skin”, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and do you best to ignore them. Try staying in your heart instead, even if it hurts, because in the end, you’ll remain much closer to your Higher Power if you do, than if you develop that “thicker skin”. As then you’re only going to start shutting out the sunlight of the spirit, and trust me, I’ve been there and it’s not a very good place to be…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
I don’t believe having a thicker skin makes for a harder heart, but a more realistic view of some people around me.
I’m sure it’s probably different for some people, but at least in my case, it definitely led me to have a very hard heart and never feel like I was in touch with it. But I can see what you mean…