For the last few weeks I’ve suffered from a condition I can't quite name but seems to flare up from time to time, especially when a new year approaches. It impairs my ability to get words from my mind onto the actual page, to get my yoga pant-clad bottom to the place where the yoga actually happens.

​You see, it’s not an issue of intention, it’s one of execution.

There’s fortunately nothing physically wrong with me—my right (write) hand isn’t paralyzed and I’m thankful to have the ability to exercise my body. I can’t claim writer’s block because the ideas are there, just as I can’t blame my procrastination around exercising on not knowing how to do it…it’s just that I come up with every excuse in the world to NOT ACTUALLY DO IT.

And this is where the shame comes in.

"You're so sensitive."

Three little words I've heard over and over again throughout my life.  In Kindergarten I cried every time the teacher reprimanded the class because I thought she was surely talking directly to me.  Kids in school said I didn't know how to take a joke.  Boyfriends accused me of being overly sensitive when we fought.  Believe me, I've been told on way more than one occasion that I need to lighten up or toughen up. 

Do something to stop being "too much"--too sensitive, too anxious, too nice.

I spent thirty-some years being ashamed of my sensitive nature, trying to put on a front that things didn't really bother me when they did, acting as if I had a thick skin when I didn't, pretending jokes rolled off my back when they stuck to me like glue.