Anthem to the Highly Sensitive, the Neurodivergent, and the Gentle-Hearted
A Reclamation for Humanity
If you’ve ever been told that you’re “too sensitive,” “too soft,” “too much,” if you’ve ever been called “weird,” “wrong,” “crazy,” if everything you’ve ever wanted to do, be, and have has been called “irrational,” “impossible,” and “unrealistic,” if you’ve ever been shamed into hiding, shrinking, and silencing yourself because you felt you “had to,” because someone told you “that’s just the way things are and have always been and will always be,” believe me when I say… nothing could be further from the truth.
It is the opposite of truth.
It is a lie to keep big-hearts small and small-minds big.
That is why I know you are not “too much” of anything. The people who use the phrase “too much” are just afraid that they’re “not enough,” and so they project their shame onto you. For this reason, there’s no such thing as “caring too much,” either. The world is in chaos because of those who care too little.
Most importantly, remember that the system we are currently struggling within is not “just the way things are,” not “the way it’s always been,” and certainly not how “it will always be.”
4.6 billion years ago, the Earth was formed from cosmic dust and molten fire. As the air cooled, oceans formed. 4 billion years ago, single-celled life appeared in the water, releasing oxygen. 2.5 billion years ago, there was enough oxygen in the atmosphere to form multicellular animals. 541 million years ago, plants, fish, and amphibians emerged. 66 million years, mammals emerged. And 300,000 years ago—just 300,000 years ago—Homo sapiens evolved in Africa.
For 97% of human history, all humans—all of our ancestors—lived in egalitarian, partnership-centered communities. The cultural stories of early humans reflect a deep, spiritual connection with all life. It has only been in the last 12,000 years, since we began to form male-dominated, sharply-stratified social systems, that we invented what is now called “patriarchy.”
In patriarchy, an elite class of men use violent weapons and shame-based ideas to hold everyone else hostage. In this hostage situation, women, minorities, and all of nature are reduced to “private property,” to be bought and sold, consumed and exploited. This system both breeds and rewards sociopaths, those who have been severed from empathy.
In patriarchy, there is only one way of being in the world that is “right,” accepted, and promulgated. All other ways of being are persecuted as “bad,” “wrong,” and “dangerous.” But as the current state of the world has made all too painfully clear, the only real danger is the current system that is tearing us apart.
Let us remember, patriarchy is not the only way we have lived in the world. It is not the inevitable, unavoidable structure of human society. And it is clearly not sustainable.
As we’ve heard many times before, within a 24-hour clock representing Earth’s entire history, humans have only been on Earth for only 0.0067% of its existence—which means our current, patriarchal system has only existed for .0012 SECONDS.
Patriarchy is a blip of a fragment of a fractured moment of a time is that is now coming to an end.
I know this because patriarchy is a violation of all the ecological systems the Earth spent over four-billion years putting in place.
Unlike everything in nature, patriarchy venerates the separate self, a machine-like who exists alone inside the top-most tower of a concrete fortress, cut off from feeling, creativity, and nature, a machine-like self that has been scattershot into over 300 mental disorders as defined in the DSM-5. But this machine-like self is not only cold and calculating. It is also lonely, sad, and insatiably hungry—not for money, as it obsessively thinks, but for the aliveness of its own soul, a soul it has long since repressed.
The patriarchy is maintained by all the soul-starved, machine-like selves who band together, forming hierarchical institutions based on judgment and conformity, and it is these institutions—composed of so many soul-starved, machine-like selves—who demand so much of us. It’s these institutions who demand we wake up before sunrise to put on uncomfortable clothing and withstand long, grueling commutes so we can sit or stand in offices, stores, or factories for at least eight hours a day, every single day, doing meaningless work for very little money, barely able to afford food or shelter and denying our grief and our rage—all so the machine-like selves can make more money to try to fill the emptiness of their own, self-severed souls.
That is no way to live.
Well, as I think most of us can agree, it’s not living at all. But the system can’t continue if we refuse to support it. And we can refuse. In fact, if we really want to, we can reclaim our power and change the system, alchemically transforming the world from something cold and dead back into something warm and alive… and completely beautiful. It all starts with you and I and everyone we love.
We are the antidote.
You and me with our big feelings and natural rhythms and soul-filled, creative expressions.
We are the antidote every time we stop breaking ourselves to conform to a system that doesn’t care about us, every time we care about each other and our own creative, intuitive, soulful nature, every time we focus on the things we love and know to be true and right and good.
Now more than ever, we need the highly sensitive, the neurodivergent, and gentle-hearted to lead us forward, we who are the bellwethers and the visionaries, the ones who can feel the pain of the problem and also the possibilities of the solution.
After all, the food we can’t digest shouldn’t be sold to anyone—and the cruelty our psyches cannot sustain shouldn’t be imposed anywhere. Likewise, the compassion we seek should be shared with everyone—and the health and healing we need should be the birthright of every single Soul on earth.
The very qualities the world has rejected in us can now be the medicine, exactly what the world needs most… but only if we can believe in ourselves, trust ourselves, love ourselves enough to be who we really are, to unmask our sensitivities, assert our voices, and share our dreams.
For at least 10,000 years, we have been made to feel stupid, crazy and unworthy. But now the tide is turning. I believe that it is our sensitivity, Neurodivergence, and gentleness that contains the blueprint for the world to come.
Take a moment to think about the kind of world you would like to live in.
Once you have your vision, write about it. Talk about it. Share it. And then let’s support the heck out of each other, bolster each other, advocate for each other, remind each other of our value and wisdom, finally empowered to speak our truth and co-create the world we want and need to live in.
There is a reason we keep dreaming of a better life for all people. There is a reason we keep talking about “crazy” things like regenerative farming, restorative justice, renewable energy, peace mediation, morning meditation, protected wilderness, free health care for everyone, free therapy for everyone, a universal basic income, clean air and water, emotional intelligence, and creative expression for everyone. What the world has been calling “crazy” and “impossible” are now the very things we need most. Our dreams contain the DNA for the world that needs to be born.
Now more than ever, it is time for us to trust our dreams. Trust our needs. Trust our intuition. It is time for us to reclaim our gifts and strengths and highest ideals. It is time to co-create the compassionate, prosperous, harmonious world we all need to thrive.