You are brave for wearing your heart on your sleeve. You are brave for choosing to get in touch with your feelings instead of running away from them, instead of raising your walls and locking your heart in a cage. It’s rare to find someone strong enough to be their authentic self, to unleash their truth into the cosmos.
Every time you get your heart broken, it becomes more and more tempting to change your ways. To stop caring. To stop trying. But you have managed to push through your abandonment fears. You have summoned the strength to keep thinking positive, to keep loving loudly.
Most people are not brave enough to wear their heart on their sleeve. They have convinced themselves they are better off pretending. They have convinced themselves hardening their heart will protect it from harm.
These are the same people who misjudge you. They mistake your courage for weakness. They assume you are soft because you wear your heart on your sleeve — but really, the opposite is true. It’s so much easier to pretend you are heartless, to pretend you don’t care about anything, than it is to be vulnerable.
Looking someone in the eyes and telling the truth is hard. Lying is easy. Taking the time to work through problems is hard. Walking away as soon as a problem appears is easy.
It takes guts to talk through your feelings, to let your guard down, to reveal your secrets. It takes strength to be your true, raw self instead of acting like you are heartless, like you don’t care about anyone, like nothing in the world bothers you.
When you wear your heart on your sleeve, you put yourself in a vulnerable position. There have been plenty of times when you were stuck as the one who cares more, the one who puts in the most effort, the one who gets screwed over. That could have turned you off from being raw and real and vulnerable, but you would rather put your faith in the wrong person than push away the right one. You would rather take a risk and have it backfire on you than miss out on your forever person because you were too busy trying not to care.
Even though you have been heartbroken before, it hasn’t stopped you from loving with your whole heart. It hasn’t put a dent in your optimism. No matter who hurts you, you will never understand the point in playing games, in sending mixed signals, in pretending not to care about someone who means the world to you.
You don’t know how to hide your feelings — and you don’t want to learn. Your loved ones deserve to hear about how much you appreciate them. They deserve to be spoiled with your attention. You wouldn’t have it any other way.
You are proud to say you wear your heart on your sleeve. Even if other people look at you like you are weak, you know the truth. You know how strong you are.