If you are highly sensitive, it is personality trait, not a disease, condition, disorder or syndrome, it is a gift but maybe all your life this gift has felt like a curse that you and others just didn’t know how to handle. You thought there was something wrong with you, others thought there was something wrong with you, maybe you have been through several types of therapy, or bullied for being different or countless other experiences that have piled up the hurt and pain. All of this hasn’t helped you to love who you are, to truly appreciate what you bring, it has stopped you doing what you were designed to do – society needs you and your gifts and before you can truly step out into your own power, you need to start with appreciation of you, love of you, and you need to totally let go of the pain of the past and the fear of the future.

 

It is too easy to portray the highly sensitive as a victim – a victim of the empathy you feel, a victim of the sensory overload, the victim of being misunderstood – it is easy to live in this victim mentality and want everyone else around us to change, it is time to take responsibility, to step up and claim your gift an appreciate it’s beauty and value and use our creativity and wisdom to overcome its vulnerabilities.

 

Elaine Aron in her book The Highly Sensitive Person says that is possible for a highly sensitive person to become less sensitive even though she believes that it is unlikely that the underlying trait is ever totally gone. I like the fact that change is possible, only that I want to retain the sensitivities that will contribute to my success and happiness and reduce the tendency to emotions that hinder and frustrate me.

 

High sensitivity, also abbreviated as HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), is a character characteristic in which you experience stimuli such as sounds, smells, atmospheres and images intensely.

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High sensitivity has many benefits that you might recognise:

• you have strong empathy

• you have great insight

• you see and create opportunities 

• you can turn your passion into plans and actions

• you are very adaptable

• you can enjoy intensely

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The dark side of high sensitivity, where you struggle, is that you want to do everything perfectly, do not want to disappoint, are very conscientious and easily overstimulated by your high pace and your high commitment, but also because all the stimuli are experienced so intensely. This is where highly sensitive women get trapped in negative emotional patterns that intensify over time.

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The good news is that you can break these negative emotional patterns for good and help you to experience a groundedness where you are centered and in control in situations where you previously felt overwhelmed or overstimulated.

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