being more available to myself requires me to be less available to others

One thing that has been interesting about working for myself is that many of the patterns and unconscious parts of myself that were reasonably contained by systems I was in (i.e. work, school, athletics) are no longer contained in the path I have chosen. This path is as close to complete freedom as it gets, where I manage my life, time, world and become both the employer, employee, manager, creator, marketer, etc. The result of this is that I am having to entertain and face parts of myself that until this point, I have managed to avoid “dealing with” head on. The biggest one among these has been what I would call the shadow side of my hyper-sensitivity to others. I intend to write about this in more depth at some point, but at a high level, I will just say that I am incredibly sensitive to the emotions of others. So much so that I will often unconsciously prioritize others’ feelings over my own needs, desires, and priorities — in part, because it is incredibly painful for me to feel th

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• Novia Chao