12 ways it helps to know you’re a Highly Sensitive Person

I often talk in my blogs about the importance of discovering you’re an HSP.  Because before you do, lots of things are difficult or don’t make sense.

Like being more affected by things than others. Wondering why, and why you don’t fit in.   Finding your views are often unwelcome or misunderstood.

It’s bewildering.  And leaves you with a question: “What’s wrong with me?”.

Because you must be wrong, right?

For a start, you’re outnumbered (maybe even alone).   With how you feel, what you need, what you think is important.

Then there’s the fact your way of being attracts comment and judgement.  And not in a good way!

Finally, there are all the messages you receive.  That you need to be different.  More X, less Y.  Something other than yourself.   Something … better.

It’s a recipe for self-doubt and inner conflict.  Who you are becomes a source of shame.  And a source of confusion.

But the one thing you’re not confused about is that it must be your fault.

Because everything points to that, doesn’t it?.  That YOU NEED TO CHANGE.  No one else, just you.

You can only conclude that you’re individually and personally ‘defective’.  You can’t trust your emotions, your perspective, basically yourself.

Then, one day, you discover the term ‘Highly Sensitive Person’.  What it means and encompasses.  And you recognise yourself, what you feel and what you experience.

It’s a revelation!  Suddenly:

  1. What you are is a ‘thing’ (not a weakness or an indulgence or imagined)
  2. There’s a reason for how you feel, react and see the world (you’re not just being difficult)
  3. You learn you’re born with this sensitivity, it has a genetic basis (it’s not your fault or flaw)
  4. You’re actually ‘1 in 5’ of the population (no longer alone)
  5. You find out that being an HSP has benefits (it’s not all challenges and downsides)
  6. You realise you can trust your emotions after all (wow – that’s new!)

Now:

  1. You understand yourself at last (self-compassion replaces self-berating)
  2. You have a new sense of “no wonder I found that difficult or reacted that way…” (more clarity, less confusion)
  3. You can stand taller in the world (because there’s nothing more shrinking than shame)
  4. That relentless battle of pretending to be OK when you’re not is so much less (which naturally reduces exhaustion)
  5. You’re more likely to find, recognise and connect with others like you (now you know there’s a tribe out there)
  6. Your thinking becomes about who you really are and what you really want (less about fitting in and more about what fits you)

Fundamentally, what changes when you realise you’re an HSP is that your sensitivity becomes something to explore, embrace and enjoy.  It’s your essence, not your enemy.

So go be your highly sensitive self!  The world awaits, possibilities abound …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grit and graduationHSPs and aesthetic sensitivity