The artist’s struggle for … integrity must be considered as a … metaphor for the struggle, which is universal and daily, of all human beings on the face of this globe to get to become human beings.
—JAMES BALDWIN
GIVEN THE STORMS that life brings, much of our work is to open our heart and lean into whatever we meet. But once open, we’re not very practiced at what to do with all the feelings and experiences that open living brings. Once sensitized to life, how do we receive and deal with the endless cascade of feelings that move through us?
To embody our sensitivity, we need to sustain a balance between what comes into us and what comes out of us, just as when we breathe. Often, we spend so much time keeping things in that we seldom realize that our fullness and strength of being is released when we complete the cycle by letting things out. When inner and outer complete each other, the incandescence of life glows. Our job as spirits in bodies is to let our individual spirit rise from within to meet and inhabit the world, every chance we get. For the art of being sensitive is not sentimental but diligent and demanding, as sweet and rigorous as a Chopin nocturne.
The art of being sensitive strengthens our resilience when we dare to love what is. Loving what is means accepting the truth of whatever moment we are in. But loving what is also means keeping our heart open long enough to feel and accept everything else that is happening at the same time—around us and beyond us. By feeling our way through what we’re given, we enter a heartfelt ring of awareness that keeps expanding. We feel the pain we’re carrying, and then the light on the oak we’re sitting near, and then the laugh of a child playing across the street, and then the wind lifting the hawk gliding above us, and how the sun casts its warmth on so many lives moving through their own pain and joy in the same exact moment.
The reward for being sensitive is that we’re held by the Universe, the way the ocean in its buoyancy holds up a raft. To love what’s beyond our own particular instant of living, we’re asked not to minimize what we’re going through or to distract ourselves from the truth of what we’re going through. More deeply, we’re asked to inform what we’re going through with the vibrancy of all other life living at the same time.
The same dynamic holds for how we love each other. If while truly listening to you, I’m drawn to the sunlight behind you and hear birdsong above you, then this is more than being distracted. If loving you leads me to the sunlight and birdsong, perhaps I’m meant to bring these resources to you in your pain, just when you can’t access them. This is one of the gifts of being sensitive and loving each other. In an immediate way, I’m called to give my full attention to you in your distress. And in a simultaneous, eternal way, I’m called to give my attention to everything around you that is not in distress. So I can be a conduit, bringing the restorative energies of life through me to you in your pain. To be sensitive is to be a thorough conduit.
Ultimately, the art of being sensitive supports our efforts to be who we are everywhere. And as warmth softens and opens the earth, another reward for being sensitive is that we are brought to the surface and made tender. Still, everyone struggles with the urge to stay hidden. In truth, the most hidden individuals in the world today are the closet authentics. The irony is that we share a great kinship in this struggle to be real, though we all think we’re alone.
In the modern world, we tend to live an either-or existence with our sensitivity, thinking we must reveal ourselves completely or not at all. We’re intimate with our small, private tribe while staying hidden in public. The great Danish philosopher Kierkegaard said, “We’re all spies for God.” I think he means that we all experience the depth and mystery of life but guard our deepest sensibilities and keep them secret. And so we live like spiritual spies.
Painfully, we don’t know how to be sensitive and authentic in public. We don’t know how to expand our tribe of intimates. We don’t know how to be in conversations about what’s true. A great challenge of our age is to develop the skills to offer respectful invitations to deeper conversations and more authentic relationships. Some people will reject our invitation, which is fine, and some will say, “Thanks, let me think about this.” And some will drop their shoulders and utter, “My God, I thought I was alone.”
Just how do we inhabit the vast, sweet terrain between being completely hidden and completely known? How do we have conversations that matter? No one knows how to do this. But this is our work in finding each other. This is our work in knitting the fabric of life back together wherever it is torn.
To be sensitive is to be a thorough conduit.