Lessons from an Oyster Garden: Pearls of Wisdom

What credentials do i have to write lessons or give advice? I’m not a therapist or a licensed anybody. I have no formal training nor a lifetime of gathered data (oh, actually, that last one isn’t true). What i do have is a highly attuned, sensitive nervous system that enables me to feel my way deeply through life.  I am a highly sensitive, empathic person, which means my senses are flooded with more information than the average person.  Picture an octopus using her multitudes of suctions to feel her way through her world, navigating safety, connection, love, every aspect of life. 

I’m not unusual, lots of people are this way. But the problem is that we have lost our place in society.  Our culture has evolved to value bullies with the loudest voices and the biggest sticks. By losing reverence for sensitives, who were once the ‘kings advisors’, deeply respected for their intuitions and ability to forecast consequences, we’ve lost our ability to connect - with each other, with our Selves, and with the natural world. Why is this important? Because I feel connection is the meaning of life. The ability to love unconditionally, and receive love unconditionally. But, connection is born in vulnerability & stillness, through soft spoken words and tenderness with one another. Not a might makes right ideology. This is what sensitives do when coming from a place of Self. Connect deeply through vulnerability and felt experiences.

For a long time, sensitivity has been disregarded as weakness. But, the truth is in devaluing vulnerability, we ‘threw the baby out with the bath water’. We traded connection for the feeling of safety (notice i said the feeling of, not real safety). I feel the meaning of life is to connect with life. Without this connection, there is nothing but isolation and walls of protections. Take a look around you. Who do you know living in this kind of real connection with honest communication and authenticity ( in other words, integrity)? Telling the truth for the purpose of love? (not out of fear or protections). Isn’t this the definition of intimacy (into me, you see)? Isn’t this the definition of unconditional love?  no protections? Telling the truth and holding space for other people’s truths is real safety in our lives. But it takes vulnerability to have this kind of integrity in all aspects of life.

This is where we empaths come in. We are the way back to integrity by being the vehicles for connection.  That’s not to say every highly sensitive empath knows how to use her gifts. After all, we are the devalued underdogs, remember? But, for those who’ve done the hard work of healing and have the courage to live in integrity, we know the way home. It’s taken me this long to understand and trust my Self.  The messages were always there, but my thoughts, born from culture, overrode them.

Ready for the big tie in to JO’s Oyster Garden? The role of an empath in society is like an oyster in the natural system. An oyster colony filters pollution out of its environment to restore health and balance. Empaths do the same in culture. We filter out pollution (protections, lies, divisiveness, fear) with truths and this integrity reconnects the system back to health and love. But we have to heal first so that we show up connected to our Selves. At JO’s Oyster Garden, my hope is that we can gather together and bond as a colony to feel like true bedrock of a new, emerging connected system. That is why i’m sharing this very personal reflection. As a call to empaths to do the work, heal your hearts, and join us so that we can help this disconnected world find its way back home. Through the alchemy of deeply connecting through unconditional love of truth. Like an oyster colony, we too can convert grains of sand into beautiful pearls.  Pearls of wisdom to be shared. 

Love, Jenny