Helping Highly Sensitive Introverts and Therapists create a life outside the box that allows them to embrace their Sensitive Strengths.
As another year begins, you get flooded with messages about setting resolutions and making grand changes in your life. Starting this year on your own terms means honoring your needs as a Highly Sensitive Person to make changes more slowly and focus on self-reflection over resolutions. This approach frees you from the shame of incomplete resolutions and allows you to reconnect with what’s most important.
Why criticism is so difficult for Highly Sensitive People, typical responses when facing conflict and ways to manage without apologizing or blaming yourself.
As you begin to explore your relationship to your sensitivity more deeply, it’s common to grieve a vision of yourself as a non-HSP. You may notice yourself passing through the Five Stages of Grief that were first introduced by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying.
Overwhelmed by the onset of symptoms, more side effects of medication, worried about the meaning of the illness, and longer to transition back into a normal routine. As an HSP, it’s common to be impacted differently than others when navigating health challenges.
For highly sensitive people, boundaries can feel intimidating, scary, unfamiliar, and bring up feelings of guilt. If you haven’t built a strong relationship with boundaries yet, slowly ease into the practice setting clear limits - with yourself and others. This will preserve your downtime and ultimately strengthen your relationships.
Being highly sensitive in today’s world seems to be getting more and more difficult. The emotional toll of witnessing tragedy and suffering (mass shootings, wars, social injustice, racism, global pandemic, climate change) on a nearly daily basis is beyond heart-wrenching. It’s okay to react slowly, feel deeply, think before acting, or focus on educating rather than fighting.
Having your own timeline as a highly sensitive person is actually a gift in disguise that you can embrace! You may take fewer chances, wait longer to make big decisions, or hit those relationship and work milestones later, but your actions will be well thought out with fewer mistakes.
Whether you’re getting started or wrapping up an activity, you may notice that you feel stuck or frozen. You may also struggle with procrastination and motivation. Whether you’re getting out of bed in the mornings, trying to leave work for the day, or starting a new book, you may find yourself struggling with these changes on a subtle or more obvious level. Each time a highly sensitive person goes through a transition, your brain wants to pause and reflect on what’s about to happen. There’s nothing wrong with you!
What if you could do less and honor your needs to recharge more as a highly sensitive person? The best part is that it only takes a little something for a highly sensitive person to fill up with the same amount of joy as a non-HSP. Being so highly perceptive and a big feeler, you not only notice the little things around you, but you get to deeply experience them. It’s okay to listen inward and hibernate in bed when you need to.
Learning to put yourself first and honor your unique needs as a highly sensitive person is a process that takes time and practice. Educating yourself on what it means to be highly sensitive, practicing self-compassion and mindfulness, and surrounding yourself with people who support your growth are essential pieces of the puzzle.
How do you know if you were born with High Sensitivity, along with 20% of the population? Here are 10 signs you might be a Highly Sensitive Person who thinks and feels deeply, have higher levels of empathy, and notices the subtle details around them.
Throughout our lives many of us have been told that Sensitivity is a weakness or we have been labeled as fragile, anxious, shy or too emotional as a result of feeling deeply. The truth is being Highly Sensitive is a Strength with many advantages!
