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When a highly sensitive man grieves what nobody sees (INFJ / INFP) · Lightbearer's Library

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, dear soul.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a highly sensitive man who is grieving something or someone or carrying a sadness that has been with you for a long time that you can't quite explain, then I think today I'd like to talk about how there are things that we grieve as highly sensitive people that are maybe not recognized as things to grieve.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because perhaps we are grieving a person who died or who we're estranged from or a relationship that ended, something that was clearly lost, that we could explain to another person and they would understand that that's, you know, what we're grieving.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we're grieving things that other people can't understand, that they don't even realize that if it happened to them, they wouldn't think it was a loss, or that they don't recognize our happening around them in the world, and so are not grieving those.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think some of those things can be grieving parts of our life that we thought might happen, but don't, and maybe a dream that never came true, or a part of us that we had to leave behind, either in childhood or in a relationship, or childhood that we didn't get to have.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And these kinds of things can be particularly difficult for highly sensitive men, and my husband being one of them, because you can feel these losses really deeply, and you know, the people around you might not be able to see why you're feeling that grief, why you're feeling that sadness.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be kind of like swept away as just like, oh, get over it, or oh, you know, it's not that big of a deal, or oh, you shouldn't still be grieving that.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, not that they'd say that out loud, maybe, but you get this sense that it's like should be over it, or that you're not quite allowed to grieve for as long as maybe you need to.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think you kind of maybe get on with it.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You continue, you know, you continue working, you continue showing up for your family, and but as the years go by, perhaps that grief is still there because it hasn't fully been felt by yourself or witnessed by others around you.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a whole world inside of you that nobody sees.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that's the hardest part about the grief that's inside of you, that sadness, is that there's no one to witness that.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in my last video, we took in the last journal intro, we talked about being friendless and having no one to see us and having, you know, the importance of witnessing.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is another layer of that many of you have shared in the comments about things that you're grieving, relationships that have ended, you know, divorce, jobs that ended, all sorts of things that the when you have no one in your life to to witness those things, that can be that can be the hardest part.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to know that I feel you because I've been there.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's things that I've, you know, I'm particularly feeling grief for something that I think most people could understand as something to grieve, an estrangement with my mother.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's her birthday next week.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so when things like birthdays for people that we've lost or estranged or that we're no longer with as partners, when important dates come up, it can stir up a bunch of things in our internal world.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: The grief can arise again.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So even though we may have processed some of it, there are moments when it overwhelms us, when it can feel all all consuming, and we can't really focus on other things.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think having people in our lives that are not highly sensitive maybe can't understand that level of feeling of grief.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that makes it even harder because it feels like we're we're we're not wrong, but that why why can't I seem to get over this?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these people they all seem to get over it.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I feeling the grief at this situation?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it can start to feel like there's something wrong with us.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know that there's nothing wrong with you for feeling a deep sense of emotion, of of and and grief, as we know, can can be all sorts of things, right?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just the sadness, but it can be the anger sometimes that arises from relationship hurt.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, from from my case with my mom, it's like she hurt me and and abandoned me and all sorts of things.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that estrangement brings up all these different emotions.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So sadness and grief, loss, the hurt and the pain, all the words, sorrow, suffering.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're going through that right now, or or you have it's it's it's okay.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to to feel that, you know, I feel like it's like this this channel here we're like anti-gaslighting ourselves to say, you know, no, my how I'm how I am on the inside is is is okay, even though others around me might not, you know, be able to understand the inside.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: My big inner world is a wonderful thing.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think sometimes the things that we don't think we are not aware of grieving or not aware of that we're we're feeling a sense of loss.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think bringing our awareness to them is is helpful in that we can understand more about ourselves and more what's happening in us.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of those things that I've been thinking about, and and my husband that we've come up with are and and that I've heard from in the comments about a loss of identity.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes this can happen because you know, we lose our jobs, but sometimes something can be so shattering in our lives that we lose a sense of who we are and what we're meant to do here, what we're meant to be, and all the things.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're going through that, it's that's that's something that is is big.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I honor you for being in that and for going through that bravely.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a lot of courage, and the people around you might not understand that.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: The loss of dreams, dreams that we had for ourselves as young people, perhaps, or dreams of a life that we thought we could have with a person.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the loss of those things, we have such big imaginations, and as intuitives, perhaps we we have these intuitions of where where life paths could could go.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when those when those things die, uh it it it it we we we feel the loss of that thing that we never even have had.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure if other people really understand that like we do.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be hard to even explain to someone else in our life, let alone have them understand and see us in that.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be really hard to not be be witnessed, um, it which then makes it even harder for us.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: It it's like another grief on top of the the grief that we're already feeling when we try to share something we're going through and we're treated like that's not a big deal.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like just get over it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it it it compile, it's like compiles onto on top of the grief already and makes it even worse.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's kind of like, okay, I just need to not share it with anyone, right?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard from many of you that sometimes the sharing with other people makes it worse.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So why would I share it with anyone?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I know I felt that as well.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think they just can't quite they don't experience the world in the same way.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, that's hard.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes when we realize that there's parts of our lives that can't be recovered, that we look back in our past and there's these times and moments in our lives that were really special or really wonderful, you know.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: My husband's time living in London for the decade that he lived there, you know, was really special and and not being able to kind of go back to that time and space, like, you know, there's there's a grief in that, and that he now lives here in Canada.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's it was a time and a place.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes there's mourning the loss of of that.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: That yeah, we're a relationship that feels if only we hadn't, if only we'd made a different decision, perhaps.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: It could be even remorse at having made decisions that led to where we are now.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we can't undo them, but sometimes it's that sticks with us and wish we could undo that or redo it or do it differently, right?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so there can be, I know a lot of us are very critical towards ourselves sometimes, and we can feel like, oh, I'm such, you know, I'm such an idiot.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I do that?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I know my husband as an INFJ, like perhaps different from me as an INFP, have different ways of thinking about the past.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And but yeah, so there can be that that grief and sorrow about things that happened in the past.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it goes further back to our childhood, perhaps grieving a childhood that we never had, a happy childhood.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you have been through traumas in childhood, or as we've spoken about bullying, all sorts of things that we wish could have been different, and mourning something that we didn't even have.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because we have big imaginations, it's it could be something that that we mourn that wasn't, you know, that we didn't have.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think another thing that that in this world of everything moving so fast now, and you know, the technology that has exploded over the last, say, 20 years, it can feel like, especially if if you're maybe older, like I'm I'm an older millennial, my husband's a Gen Xer, and I know many of you are older even into the boomers that watch.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like sometimes there's this grief and sorrow at losing losing a world that we grew up with, maybe, or that made made more sense, or that was a bit more stable.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't changing so fast, and it feels like every day there's there's kind of like these mini losses of parts of the world that made sense to us in some way.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like even just that sorrow about or the or the way the world is going, the way that children, the way children are maybe being born now and being raised in the way that this like there's just there can be so much sorrow and grief that arises.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's something that's not acknowledged or seen by other people.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're just kind of like in the world, you know, scrolling on their phones, just be like working.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're not they're not sort of looking at the bigger picture and kind of seeing where this is headed, and and so, you know, different people are gonna have different views on this, um, and especially different personality types will, you know, love the technology or not like the technology, and that's that's okay.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's okay to feel grief and sorrow about things that are shifting and changing, and we don't need to feel bad about people who say, oh, like get with the times, or you know, like it's okay to to to grieve for these things.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to give us all permission to to grieve the things that we feel sad about or and because that's what sometimes we need just someone to what I'm saying is that sometimes we don't need someone to make the loss go away or to fix it.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: We just need, you know, and we don't need someone to tell us it's going to be okay, or because sometimes we know that it's not gonna be okay, or you know, we just need someone to sit with us and can listen and say in whatever kind of a way, like I see, I see what this means to you, and I s I see and acknowledge what it is that you lost.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing about a witness.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: A witness doesn't necessarily have to agree agree with agree with the loss or agree with anything, but it's just that we can recognize as another human soul that is going through uh something that is uh deeply deeply meaningful for them.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I think we're missing in a lot of a lot of how we don't see one another.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just yeah, uh being able to just see another soul clearly and so yeah, I think that's the witnessing, and that's what we aim to do here on the in the Liberals Library.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love it if you would share in the comments something that you're grieving that maybe you didn't realize you were grieving, or maybe yeah, you haven't really acknowledged to yourself, something that is maybe not quite as obvious to someone, uh like a a a normie as we might call whatever, like whatever word you want to put on that.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but just yeah, something that's maybe more subtle or not.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: It could be something that's really big for you that's going on, like the loss of a relationship.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that we can witness one another here.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And lastly, I would like to invite you to the next Light Bears Library live uh this Sunday at 3 p.m.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Eastern time.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a that's a space where we can just share and be with one another and witness witness one another in the comments and just yeah, it's uh it's a wonderful space to be together.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I would invite you to that.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if yeah, so I I wish you so many blessings.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm signing off for now, XOXO Kate.