I may very well be shedding another skin—another old self.
Lately, I’ve felt the need to bring more of myself into the work I do. Not because the needs of my amazing clients matter any less, but because I’m beginning to understand that my voice—and the life behind it—belongs here too.
I had a family engagement in Durban this past weekend and, let me assure you, when they say family has a way of reopening our oldest wounds—“they” were not kidding.
Sometimes we recognise what wounded us and realise that the people throwing the spears don’t even know they’re armed.
Delicate & Sensitive. This is our August focus point.
Our—because our emotional bodies deserve the same care and attention we so readily give everything else.
For many years, I carried hurt, pain and abandonment without understanding how deeply they were affecting me. At 43, I can still remember how the seven-year-old little girl felt when she packed her schoolbag to move out—and I can also understand the perspective and resignation of the 23-year-old woman I was becoming.
Those memories no longer control me—but they remain part of the body and the woman I am learning to understand.
So, am I being delicate and sensitive—or am I finally paying attention to how being dismissed feels?
Sensitivity can reveal an unmet need, but it does not make you needy or defective.
The complicated thing about knowing yourself more deeply is that you begin to understand why people behave as they do. That understanding can bring compassion, but it does not make harmful behaviour right.
Years ago, I adopted the belief that “people cannot give you what they don’t have.” It has helped me tremendously—but I no longer allow understanding to replace recognition.
I can recognise another person’s limitations without denying the effect their actions had on me.
Perhaps your delicate and sensitive skin has also been trying to tell you something.
Perhaps our bodies communicate in a language we once understood—a language we began to forget as we learned to live inside these bodies, protect ourselves in whichever ways we knew how, and cling to the ego without realising how little protection it could truly offer us.
We become so busy living, working, finishing and answering that we forget how to feel. We lose the ability to sit with a difficult emotion long enough to understand what it needs from us—before we lash out, shut down or carry it silently.
Perhaps therapy, reflection and emotional care are not signs that something is wrong with us. Perhaps they are simply ways of returning to ourselves.
What did I learn this weekend?
Forgiveness is not always something we do once. It can also be a decision we make as often as necessary—to continue forgiving without abandoning ourselves.
I am also learning that people understand, feel and process things differently—and that I can honour those differences without abandoning my own experience.
This is what I bring back to my work: a deeper respect for sensitivity.
Not as weakness.
Not as overreaction.
But as information.
So, I’ll leave you with this:
Do you still think our Delicate & Sensitive facial is only about your skin’s current state?
Maybe, while we care for the outside, you’ll find a little soothing for the delicate parts on the inside too.
Laurien E
