People say it’s good to have thick skin. Life can be so hard and thick skin protects you from the pain of sadness, shame and despair.
It absorbs rejection and anger and negativity. It acts as a barrier between the harsh outside world and your emotional heart.
What does it mean to have thick skin? To me it means you don’t really care all that much what others say or think about you. A person with thick skin walks to the beat of their own drummer and does what they feel is right.
Part of having thick skin is believing in yourself, which is an admirable quality. You don’t need approval or validation. You trust your instincts and are willing to follow them even if your friends or coworkers think you’ve got it wrong.
The problem for me is I don’t have particularly thick skin and I don’t think I ever will. As a highly sensitive person, I’m far on the opposite side of the spectrum. I tend to take criticism really hard and I truly care what others think. If people don’t like what I’m doing I usually won’t plow forward but instead talk it through and try to find compromise.
Sometimes I wish I was firmer in my convictions. Sometimes I wish I had thicker skin.
But not at the expense of my sensitivity.
Thick skin isn’t all good. Even though it comes with a healthy dose of self-confidence, it also brings insensitivity. If your skin is too thick you won’t care how others are feeling. You won’t spend the time trying to figure out how your actions affect those around you. You’ll be so convinced you’ve got it right that you’ll be closed off to different perspectives and might not fully grasp the big picture.
If you’re thick skinned and driven to succeed, taking the time to understand and consider the needs and wants of people close to you can be a beautiful thing. It can create balance in relationships and generally make life better for everybody.
But what can the highly sensitive (and thin skinned) do to find balance?
On one hand, sensitivity breeds self awareness and empathy, which are both wonderful. But extreme sensitivity can be paralyzing. It can make it very hard to get over things when your feelings overwhelm you. Small injustices and common struggles can become all consuming and prevent you from living the life you want to live.
The strategy I’ve used to counterbalance my sensitivity is to develop a huge tolerance for pain. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this approach because it’s set me up to feel a lot of hurt, but it has given me a powerful tool to be successful in this crazy world.
The issue here is that even though my pain tolerance allows me to work through really difficult situations, I still feel the pain. And the more difficult the situation, the deeper the pain I feel. Now that I’m in my 40s and have had my heart broken again and again by tragedy, death and doomed relationships, at times I feel beaten and bloodied by life. I feel especially hurt by how cold, selfish and disrespectful human beings can be to one another.
Having a high tolerance for pain can get you through hard times, but it’s no recipe for peace and happiness, because the pain adds up and starts to tear you apart inside. I’ve also become a bit jaded as I’ve aged and I sometimes fear that continuing to grin and bear it will turn me into a grumpy old man.
So what should I do? I can’t just develop thick skin because that’s not who I am. My sensitivity is here to stay.
The best answer I’ve come up with is to stop caring so much about things that don’t really matter. And that means focusing on what’s most important and not letting the small stuff take control of my heart and mind.
I wouldn’t trade my extreme sensitivity for anything because it allows me to feel things strongly and sincerely. I can readily put myself in other people’s shoes. Kindness and beauty and courage move me so intensely and I love that.
But it can be counterproductive to get so wrapped up in whatever’s in front of me, especially if it distracts from what’s most meaningful in my life.
If I have a bad day at the office and bring all the stress home, I won’t be the person I want to be for my family. Every once in a while it’s okay and perfectly normal to let my emotions get hijacked by work, but in the grand scheme of things my kids are infinitely more important and I need to consistently be fully present for them.
Every single day there are situations like this that give us the opportunity to choose what’s most important.
It’s not easy to not care about something when your feelings tell you otherwise. But the reality is that our lives are so often governed by our choices. When we choose to give our energy and attention to something it’s always at the expense of something else.
I’m glad to be a thin skinned sensitive soul. And in a strange way I’m glad that my tolerance for pain has gotten me as far as it has. But from now on I want to be more protective of my sensitivity and save it for what really matters.