Beautifully sensitive

Each month Joyce and Barry Vissel, a nurse and doctor couple, send out a newsletter. Their foundation is called Shared Heart. They offer workshops for couples individuals and families about opening the heart. This month the newsletter was entitled, "Are you too Sensitive?" Joyce talked about what it was like for her to be a sensitive little girl growing up in the fifties in a family where noone else was.
When she would have hurt feelings and cry her father would say to her, "Don't be so sensitive. You are too sensitive. You have to learn to take a joke." Joyce learned to invalidate her own sensitivity in this way. When she felt strong feelings or was aware of someone else's anger even when they denied it, she would say to herself, "You are too sensitive." and shame herself for being upset.
During her process of self-acceptance over the last thirty years Joyce has learned that she is beautifully sensitive rather than too sensitive.
She now sees her sensitivity as a gift that is sometimes challenging.
Do you pick up on other people's feelings even before they do sometimes? Are you sensitive and easily hurt by what other people call "teasing"? Is it easy for you to feel drained by being in a public place with lots of people? Do things move you to tears that don't seen to affect other people? Do you feel silly or embarrassed or ashamed sometimes about how strongly you are affected by your own pain or other people's pain?
My father was very sarcastic. He would tease me and when I got upset he would say, "Where's your sense of humor? Can't you take a joke?" Teasing often feels angry to me. I experience the edge of the person's anger that they are not willing to come out and be direct about. I know sometimes people can be playful and warm with their teasing. I can get into that place sometimes too. I can also get edgy and nasty and say things that I wouldn't be comfortable saying directly. Afterwards it doesn't feel good to me. I work with my own urges to be sarcastic with people so I can express anger and loving feelings directly. That is always more satisfying and connecting.
Over the years I have learned to accept my own sensitivity as a gift. I judge myself about it less. When my feelings are hurt I can more easily sooth myself. I can bring , Andie, my inner child into my inner childcare center. Then I surround her with the resource team of my spiritual core, my inner nurturing parent and my inner protective parent. With my inner nurturing parent I can reassure that little girl inside me that her strong feelings are a beautiful part of her that I treasure. With my inner protective parent I can let her know that I will protect her from hurt as best I can and reset clear boundaries with people who have crossed them. From my spiritual core I let her know that all of her is OK and that it is OK to feel deeply about experiences she has. I know that my emotional vulnerability gives other people permission to experience their feelings more. With other people who are sensitive I feel more permission to be myself too. I have lots of very sensitive people in my life now. We support each other in learning to celebrate that and to work with the challenges it brings to be a sensitive person in a less sensitive world. Where are you about your own sensitivity? If you think you are too sensitive what would help you to make the shift toward seeing yourself more as beautifully sensitive?