The Sensitivity
I keep trying to tell myself that sensitivity has its superpowers. It comes with struggles of course, but the heightened sense of awareness and observation comes with its advantages. Here’s how being a highly sensitive person (HSP) can be your superpower.
Empathy - Highly sensitive people can often have a greater understanding of other people and their emotions. Some with an especially heightened sense of empathy even feel what those around them feel. If somebody is upset that they care for, they can also feel upset for that person.
Intuition, Insight, and Deeper Relationships - Highly sensitive people often note other people’s actions, subtleties, and nuances on a deeper level. This can build deeper understanding and relationships with those around us. Outside of our relationships, in any other endeavour in our lives, being a highly sensitive person can enable us to gain insights others would often miss and hence make better-informed decisions.
Creativity & Attention to Detail - Highly sensitive people often have a greater imagination and hence a sense of creativity. Through this creativity, the attention to detail noted earlier also enables highly sensitive people to succeed in areas such as research and analysis.
Heightened Sensory Perception – We notice more as HSPs. In response, we hear more, smell more, feel more. We are more immersed with our environment, and hence appreciate the beauty around us, even in the small things.
Emotional Intelligence – Through consistent empathy, we can build emotional intelligence. As a result, we can better care for ourselves and those around us. It can also help navigate tough social situations and be a more effective communicator, especially with those deeper relationships.
Problem-Solving and Analytical Skills – HSPs are great at analysing situations and considering different viewpoints. From this, HSPs can be aware of second and third-order consequences of specific choices. Hence more insightful and effective solutions can be found by HSPs.
On the flip side, being a highly sensitive person can negatively influence us. But if we’re aware of these key points we can work on negating the impact they have on us.
1. Overstimulation and Overwhelmed – In crowded rooms, or with highly energetic people, it can often get too much for highly sensitive people. Stimuli impact us greater than other people and so can lead to us removing ourselves from overwhelming situations.
2. Emotionally Vulnerable – Highly sensitive people can struggle with controlling reactions, especially when they incite emotion. For example, criticism can be tough to accept for an HSP. However, we need to accept it as just criticism and potential improvements, not attacks on us as people. We don’t need to get defensive. Also, HSPs struggle with conflict, often backing down if overwhelmed by someone who has greater social skills or is a strong character. One way in which I’ve dealt with this is by giving people one chance, but never two. And these people who hurt you twice, they don’t need to know how they hurt you. If you’re better off without them, move on from them.
3. Difficulty Setting Boundaries – Highly sensitive people can struggle to say no, as we don’t want to disappoint others. But, we need to prioritise our own needs. If saying yes is going to cause us to put ourselves second behind someone else, remember your boundaries and be brave enough to say no. Otherwise, we can easily become overcommitted and exhausted.
4. Stress and Anxiety – The buildup of being emotionally vulnerable can lead to small daily stressors adding up to create increased anxiety levels. Strategies such as meditation and curating a long-term view of my life and goals have helped me manage the stressors of everyday life.
5. Perfectionism – We often want things to be perfect. We have high personal standards and can become frustrated when we don’t meet these lofty targets. To help counter perfectionism, I always ensure I click publish on my written pieces. They might not be my best work. They might be downright terrible. But through consistency comes results. And that’s more powerful than perfectionism. So in whatever aspects of your life you exhibit perfectionism, just click publish.
6. Decision Making – Our deeper insight can lead to a lot of time taken to make decisions for HSPs. When faced with multiple options, it can be difficult to choose. So I employ the strategy of limiting myself to two strategies, no matter what. If I have a large collection of choices, narrow it down to two. Then if you can’t decide between two, flip a coin.
So, next time you get called too sensitive, remember it has its superpowers too.