I used to hate my true nature.
I've always felt sensitive and desired deep intimate connections with others.
I've always felt deeply.
When I was a child I felt so naturally tuned into my inner guidance, my intuition.
I knew what was right and wrong.

For me.
However, I didn't feel safe to be authentic and began hiding this sensitive part of me, disowning it, shoving it under the carpet of my conscious mind, which profoundly affected the choices I was making. For years and years to come....

I decided to hide my nature from my parents when I realised that deep feeling and thinking, expressing my authentic self wasn’t very welcome at home.
I felt judged, misunderstood and felt as though I couldn’t find any emotional connection with them.
I know now that they did the best they could, with the level of awareness they had.
They could not give me more than they were given.
They bought into beliefs that life wasn’t fun and magical - from their parents.
They bought into beliefs that there wasn’t such thing as uniqueness and that following one’s heart’s desires was worth only throwing it out the window of one’s awareness.
They felt miserable most of the time.
And so did I.
I could always sense people’s needs (for good or bad of it) and - looking back now - I decided I didn’t want to disappoint my parents.

I chose to be loyal.

Out of fear of getting in trouble and out of fear of feeling like an outcast.

Though I felt that most of the time, anyway.
I chose to keep my truths, feelings and intuitive hunches to myself.

I learnt to lie whenever I felt that telling the truth would bring more criticism onto my fragile psyche.
Sensitivity has always been my gift.
The gift I could not recognise for many many years.

Because like every gift, this too has come into this life of mine hidden in the challenge.
This challenge is all about accepting the gift itself, accepting my sensitive nature.
In teenage years I began to enact my internal conflict - on one hand unconsciously staying loyal to my parents, on the other - raging in and out.
I started drinking, smoking; I became a young version of my dad.
That was his way of dealing with suppressed emotions and carrying the weight of abandoned dreams.
I did what I learnt.
As a child, I made another decision which would greatly affect my levels of happiness and fulfilment in life. For three decades.
I abandoned my drawing practice, telling myself that you’d never be good enough artist for doing it professionally in future.
That was my self judgment. Judgment I experienced all around me, judgment that my mind quickly internalised.
My ego mind was already back then trying to protect me from any possible disappointments.
It told me to stop practicing. It told me that if I couldn’t draw a human hand with use of correct proportions, then what was the point.

My mind didn’t value the pleasure of the process. It valued final effect. It valued what success could buy me.

It wanted recognition, acceptance…
I was eight. Maybe ten.
These pattern of self sabotage continued.

When I picked up football.

Making music.

Writing stories.
Each time was the same.
Each time my suppressed sensitivity was the missing piece.

I could never expressed myself to the fullest because I wasn’t ready to show my true nature.
And I didn’t know that back then.

I didn’t know that the reason I felt creatively constricted was because I felt constricted by self judgment.
Once again, my mind told me I would never be successful because I wasn’t good enough.

You see, our ego mind cares only about survival. Its own, survival of our body, it cares about our emotional and mental health.

That’s its job. The rest isn’t that important.

It doesn’t see the harm it’s creating by cutting off connection between heart and brain.
My mind wouldn’t let me show my true sensitive nature in front of others because it had learnt that that part of myself wasn’t safe to be seen and heard.
Drinking became a game.
Damaging my mental and physical health.
I could drink as much as 'the tough boys' on estate but the next day I always felt like dying.
Sensitivity has saved me from becoming a proper alcoholic on many occasions throughout my teenage and adult life.
I couldn’t simply keeping on drinking because I knew it would have eventually killed me.
Sensitivity has been my litmus paper in regards to what is good and what isn’t for my body, mind and soul.
However, in teenage my mind would see it as a curse and judge my body for it even harder.
The prescription it gave me for belonging, finding my tribe, turned out to be a poison…
I could go on and on but will leave other stories for future entries.
About five years ago I decided to start painting abstract art, the very thing I’d thought I wasn’t capable of; I didn’t have enough imagination for that, I thought as a child, and continued thinking until that point of my life.
I loved it. It felt exciting to know what’s going to look like at the end.

I felt free doing it.
Self judgment has caught up with me again though.
But this time I was already waking up to my true nature so I became curious and observant of my mind’s inner dialogue.
I painted and listened to my inner critic.
I had massive realisations in regards to fear of rejection and being judged by others.
Gradually I started writing stories once again.
Self judgment continued by with more awareness emerging during my processes of self inquiry, I began to reach depths of my self expression that I’d never experienced before.
The more I leant onto my emotional openness and listened to my body, the more clarity I had.
I realised that I didn’t have to think my way through creative expression but simply stay patient and allow my body to tell me what to do and when to do it.
I’ve found out that my sensitivity allowed me to become an open channel for what love wanted to create through me.
Ever since many more pieces have fallen into place.
With more gentleness, patience and ultimately self acceptance I’ve found depths of my imagination and authentic expression.
These days I find my sensitivity as a gift.
It’s my doorway to perceiving multidimensionality of life, which in turns fuels my natural curiosity and urges me to pursue what is dear to my heart - co-creating future world where each if us can freely be who they are and express their talents and gifts.
The more people accept their uniqueness and work through challenges that hold them back... simply imagine such world!
What do you like about yourself?
What do you not like about yourself?
These two questions can become a gateway for you to discover what holds you back from fulfilling your dreams.

These two questions are included in my free to download ebook ''Accepting yourself and your unique life's journey'' which I'd love to offer to you.
It's a short guidebook for self inquiry and contemplations, the processes which have been absolutely instrumental on my own sf acceptance journey.

With love,
Krzysiek Mlodzik
Self Acceptance Artist Storyteller