Tenderhearted in a Self-Promote Culture

It's been there my whole life, the deep feelings and the sensitivity to conflict. Many people might see it as being thin skinned. That's what the culture has taught them. We have to fight for ourselves, because no one else will. I've always been too quiet, too nice, too sweet, unaggressive, and weak. I'm very much a reserved person, and don't show my feelings to everyone unless they've, in a way, earned the right to them. I won't lie. These particular sayings hurt, and as a teen before I'd come to peace with myself, those sayings sent me through some difficult and dark times. It is through my personal experience that people who say these things are people who only know one side of me, because most people who know me well have learned to either look past those or have seen my strengths and know there's more to me than that.

I have some questions that I would like to explain, but be aware that not all people react the same, so these answers will not apply to everyone.

1. Where does the soft-hearted individual excel in this society? There are plenty of places where I've had my so-called moments of glory. Most of the time it's in places where I'm helping people, whether it's just to offer a listening ear or helping someone solve a problem. Because of the competitive society, some people are overlooked, and I've often found myself most satisfied among those people. There are plenty of other things. This website is excellent in bringing out a few points I hadn't thought of: 8 Problems You Face When You Have a Soft Heart
2. What strengths have I discovered? A lot of people have this misconception that loudness is strength and quiet is weakness. As a quiet person I can say by experience that this isn't true. One of the parts of being quiet is that my feelings are processed internally, so even if I'm not reacting, I'm certainly feeling your message, and I'm feeling it deeply. That's why conflict is so difficult to deal with, but in saying that I've been surprised how strong I can be when I'm forced to deal with the emotions those situations bring up. In addition to that, another strength is that I practically lack the ability to let the pain fester into anger. Because of this, I'm usually able to work through situations with a clear mind and leave them with no regrets on my own behavior. I'm a calm person and have had situations in the recent past that have taught me another strength that I had no idea I had. That is the ability to remain calm when someone treated me unkindly, sometimes even to the point of feeling entirely at peace. There are so many more strengths and I think the articles I link to in the other questions seems to pick out some of those things. I may have even addressed some of those strengths in previous posts.
3. When dealing with conflict, how do I handle it when my immediate reaction is to flee the situation? Yes, I try to avoid conflict whenever possible; however, there are instances where it is unavoidable. I've had a few experiences with this in the past few months. I'm usually not an outspoken person, but I had a few matters of concern in the political spectrum that I couldn't stay silent on. Everyone knows how heated that can get. I made a few statements that I knew could possibly get some uncivil responses, and for most everyone was civil on the discussions. There's always at least one person though, and I got that a few times. They were rude to me and I deleted those messages, not necessarily because they were rude to me as much as they broke my rules of being civil in the discussion. I did end up crying over it all, because I was so tired of the incivility, but as soon as that was worked out, I was fine again. This was one of many lessons that taught me that even as uncomfortable as those situations can be, I'm still quite capable of dealing with it when I need to.
4. Why competition doesn't matter. Ah, the days of co-ed volleyball when the competitive guy would nearly run me over to get to the ball when it was clearly coming in my direction! How I hated that! Volleyball was one of the few sports I liked to play, because I was fairly decent at it. I did amazing saves (even caught some spikes) and had a powerful underhand and overhand serve. That being said, I hated it when people got so competitive they didn't give turns. I understand why some people love competition, because it drives them, but my particular personality isn't driven that way. I don't like having to be better or higher than someone else. People motivate me, helping them, assisting them, and being there for them. I'd rather be by someone's side helping them rather than trying to out do them. Perhaps my ideal situation is where the two, or three, or how many of us grow and succeed together rather than just me succeeding alone. I'm not looking to be on the top of the hierarchy as much as I am about being where I'm needed.
5. How emotions affects me. As any other human, I've experienced emotions on many levels, so the question is what is so different about feeling emotions deeply? One difference is that I not only hear words people are speaking, but I feel them also. That's why conflict is so hard. I can be quite sensitive to the people around me, and there are even times when complete silence was even more powerful than words. I think one of my strengths is the ability to consider and understand other people's situations and viewpoints. It's possibly one of the reasons I don't get angry easily. Many times when I have become angry often involved situations where I wanted to help and saw that I couldn't. The ultimate question here though is how could I stay so soft after experiencing pain, grief, trauma, and disappointment? I don't really know if I could make a pure logical explanation, but I've just been a happy person in general throughout life and have learned long ago the benefits of looking to the bright side. I'm well aware of the difficult things that happen in life and have had some dark periods personally. I've learned that seeing those particular things have strengthened me and helped me through. That doesn't mean forgetting the feelings. Heaven knows when a feeling hits me that hard, it's really hard for me to ignore it anyway, but having that positive perspective makes the processing journey a little bit more bearable. On the other side, the beautiful feelings come just as strongly, and life is absolutely the most beautiful thing ever in those moments. They might make me cry and they might not, but still so amazingly beautiful that you wish other people could feel it, too. This link adds some other things I haven't thought about: 13 Things Only People Who Feel Deeply Can Understand

Posting this video from my channel, because I like the music, and it's very much like me in some ways.