Unearthing the Diamond

Sensitivity, Strength, and the Alchemy of Emotion

For a number of years, I existed in a strange kind of emotional purgatory. The rhythm of the salaried life, the relentless churn of the corporate treadmill, seemed to sand down the edges of my affective experience. Joy and sorrow became muted echoes, distant whispers in a soundproof room. The only emotion that seemed to pierce the veil, to break through the numbness, was anger. It flared up with surprising ease, a sudden combustion in the face of inefficiency, injustice, or perceived disrespect.

Looking back, it's as if I was living in monochrome, the vibrant spectrum of human feeling reduced to a dull, utilitarian gray.

It took almost a year after escaping the corporate machine to detoxify from its peculiar poison. And that detoxification process was, in essence, a re-learning of how to feel. It demanded a conscious choice, a deliberate act of lowering my defenses and allowing myself to be vulnerable. To crack open the long-sealed chambers of my heart and invite the full tide of emotion to flow through me, the good and the "bad."

The result was a profound and, at times, overwhelming surge in sensitivity. The world became sharper, more vivid, more immediate. The highs were higher, the lows lower. This heightened capacity for feeling is, in itself, a gift. But it's a gift that requires careful handling, a kind of emotional dexterity that doesn't come naturally to someone who has spent years suppressing their inner landscape.

This newfound sensitivity has also fundamentally altered the way I interact with others, particularly in the realm of feedback. Where once there might have been a detached, almost clinical delivery of information, there's now a greater awareness of the emotional impact of my words.

However, this emphasis on empathy can sometimes be misconstrued.

Recently, I encountered a situation where my friendly demeanor, my willingness to listen and understand, was interpreted as weakness. Some individuals mistook kindness for a lack of resolve, confusing compassion with being a pushover.

In that moment, a long-dormant part of myself stirred. The need to assert myself, to draw a firm line, became paramount. And the way that assertion manifested surprised even me. The "going for the jugular" tactic, a primal intensity, rose from within me with startling force.

It worked. The message was delivered, the boundary established. But the aftermath was unexpected. The surge of anger didn't dissipate as quickly as it once had. It lingered, a low-frequency hum in my system. I was scheduled to speak to another group shortly after, and the last thing I wanted was for them to become collateral damage, to be subjected to the residue of my unresolved emotions.

This experience brought into sharp focus the flawed way we often categorize emotions as "positive" and "negative." This binary approach is not only simplistic but ultimately damaging. It encourages us to suppress or deny those feelings we deem undesirable, to exile them to the shadowy corners of our psyche.

But the truth is, these so-called "negative" emotions are not going anywhere. Whether we acknowledge them or not, they are an intrinsic part of us, interwoven into the fabric of our being. To deny them is to deny a part of ourselves, to diminish the richness and complexity of our human experience.

The key lies not in suppressing these emotions, but in learning to recognize them, to understand their origins and their purpose. Anger, sadness, fear – they are all messengers, carrying vital information about our needs, our boundaries, and our relationship to the world.

We may not always be proud of how we express these emotions, of the actions they sometimes drive us to. But that doesn't diminish our inherent worth. We are, each and every one of us, like a diamond: multifaceted, complex, and capable of reflecting light in myriad ways. Even our flaws, our imperfections, contribute to our unique brilliance.