3 Books for soft-hearted souls, struggling with self doubt
For most of my life (actually all of my life) I’ve been told I’m too sensitive, too emotional. I cry easily, feel unexpected twinges of pain while watching movies, and often get entwined in other people’s emotions. I worried about it for a long time. Was it a terrible weakness to be so… delicate?
As I grew older, I decided to re-frame my perspective and instead look at myself as being soft-hearted instead of just — soft.
But as with most other people who are soft-hearted too, I battled with a lot of self doubt. Still do. When you’re constantly told you’re weak for feeling too many feelings, you begin to question why you’re made this way. You begin to wonder if everything you do is a reflection of your bleeding heart. But what we fail to realise is that there’s beauty in it too. This is empathy. And we have an abundance of it.
For my fellow soft-hearted empaths out there who might be going through a similar struggle with self doubt, I want to recommend 3 books that really helped shape how I see myself, and my potential in this world. Give them a read, you’ll be better for it, trust me!
The Courage to be Disliked, by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
“The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked. When you have gained that courage, your interpersonal relationships will all at once change into things of lightness.”
In this book, we see the unfolding of a conversation between a young man and a vagabond philosopher that seeks to answer the question, “is happiness something you choose for yourself?” Using concepts of psychology presented by Alfred Adler (a contemporary of Freud, but one who used a different set of ideas in his explorations of the field), the philosopher guides the young man (and thus the reader) to question their own purpose in life, and their quest for happiness. A truly delightful read if you’re willing to be patient with it.
Atlas of the Heart, by Brene Brown
“Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.”
In her newest book, my personal role-model, Brene Brown, explores 87 different emotions and experiences that make us human and how they affect our feelings and in turn, our lives. She talks about her unique strategies to help use these to our advantage and build meaningful connections. She believes that emotions need a language of their own to be better understood — something I wholeheartedly agree with. And she helps us learn this language a little better by bringing forth the right words to help us express our own emotions in order to facilitate transformative connection.
Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert
“It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too.”
When self-doubt becomes an ingrained part of you, you begin to question all your abilities. Especially your creative ones. Functionality and rationalism feels like the right path to take. But in this book, Elizabeth Gilbert invites us to look at creative endeavours as a quintessential necessity for our existence. She encourages the reader to overcome their inherent fears, learn how to accept and nourish ideas, and give oneself permission to create without doubt. While I am on my 30-day journey of writing these essays, this book and its beautiful message keeps coming back to me everyday.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last 16 days of writing daily, it is that no matter how much fear I hold, no matter how often the self-doubt comes knocking, authenticity and self-acceptance are at the heart of all happiness I create for myself. And so, I needn’t be afraid to be soft-hearted. It’s not a weakness, and it doesn’t make me delicate. It makes me empathetic and expressive, that much more fiercely.
If you have any such books you would recommend me to read, I’d love to know what they are!
This piece is part of a series of 30 essays (that I’m challenging myself to write, along with Amruta Ghate) to establish a practice of publishing daily for 30 days. I am aiming to put away my fixation with perfection, and trying to be okay with putting out something that’s just ‘good enough’. Over the next month, I will write a new piece everyday, with no fixed format, across a variety of unrelated topics. If you like what I post, do like or comment, and even if you don’t, your feedback would help greatly. Cheers!
