I can relate to what you're expressing here. I have realized there's a difference between being empathic / sensitive (which the world could do with more of, I think!) and being too acquiescent / passive (which just works against us). They are often talked about as if they were almost the same thing, which is simply not true! For me, passivity simply means: not taking action when I should be for my own good. In my own experience, it seems to have its roots in low self-esteem, low assertiveness, too much pessimistic thinking, over-analyzing things, and past experience where either passivity had a payoff or repeated disappointments were encountered. Plain old anxiety plays a role, too. I imagine people have different personal reasons for being too passive, but I think these are the common reasons.

Here are some articles and websites that you may find useful:

About sensitivity as a (desirable) personality trait:
(I identify as a "Highly Sensitive Person", the concept may or may not ring true for your own experiences)
http://www.hsperson.com/
http://www.highlysensitivepeople.com/

Building assertiveness and self-esteem:
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/***...l-view-part-1/
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...ss-in-4-steps/
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/how...r-self-esteem/

A great tool to keep anyone on an even emotional keel and plan for how to handle a crisis:
http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publi...pubs/SMA-3720/

An excellent site to get you thinking about what's important to you and how to get more out of life:
http://www.happiness-project.com

Best of luck to you in this. It's a fixable problem ... I'm working on it myself.