10 ways you’re not ‘too sensitive’

high sensitivity

Dec 12

de-programming beliefs about your high sensitivity + emotions

Being ‘too sensitive’ is a common refrain from well-meaning adults who were at best, trying to help you with your concerns… by inadvertently dismissing them.

Here are 10 different ways to begin releasing judgment of your highly sensitive self + increasing self-compassion and understanding:

Your highly sensitive nervous system is a dutiful problem-solver. You tend to experience your feelings more viscerally, and as a result, tend to generate a lot more thoughts. As a HSP, you probably experience more worrying and ruminating; you’re constantly thinking of a million different possibilities and scenarios. Your mind is busy trying to help you ‘fix’ those uncomfortable feelings! But instead of fixing anything when this happens, we only get more riled up, confused, lost in our thought loops. Once you know why your mind is racing, you can cut through the thoughts and begin to address the underlying feeling instead.
When others invalidate you or can’t seem to ‘get’ what you’re saying or feeling, more likely than not it’s because you’re 10 steps ahead, or just seeing something they don’t. Because of your depth of processing, sometimes you’re picking up on subtext, or noticing an undercurrent that someone who isn’t as sensitive isn’t aware of. You may also be foreseeing a potential obstacle, or trying to prevent a feared outcome. When we quit asking for others to validate us and our observations, and learn to validate ourselves no matter what, we free ourselves from feeling frustrated in relationships.
Being highly sensitive is only ‘too much’ when we don’t know how to interpret our feelings and understand our thoughts. The more you do the work of understanding your feelings, thoughts and beliefs, the less you will feel controlled by your emotions.
Correctly understanding + interpreting the language of our emotions is a skill, and has to be learned. There’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t know how to interpret them yet, or don’t have the language for it. It’s a vocabulary that many of us weren’t taught as children.
Radical responsibility is the only way we can be empowered and not feel victimized by our feelings. What is radical responsibility, you may ask? It means that as adults, no matter what we’re feeling, it’s our own responsibility to understand ourselves first. Regardless of what happened in the past, we are now responsible for our own feelings. Period.
Your parents’ comments and reactions to you are not neutral. Your parents most likely come from a culture that’s hierarchical and patriarchal. Meaning, emotions were seen as ‘weak’ or ‘feminine’ and are something to be controlled and repressed. And depending on their own personal comfort with emotions in general, whenever you brought up a concern that evoked any kind of anxiety or confusion within them, the way they respond tells you more about how they deal with their own feelings than anything about you.
Can’t seem to stop judging others or yourself? Unresolved trauma or complex-PTSD can affect your sensitivity to slights and judgments from others. If your inner critic is really strong, paired with a tendency to judge others, you may have regularly felt unsafe either physically, or most likely emotionally, when you were younger. The inner critic develops as a response to feeling threatened, and is trying to keep you safe through perfectionism and sorting through cues of danger you’re interpreting in your environment. So no, you’re not ‘judgey’ or a ‘bad person’ because of this.
You have so many gifts because of your high sensitivity. A desire to serve others. Perceptiveness. Picking up on subtlety that others miss. Intuitive abilities. Appreciation and creator of art and beauty. Wisdom and ability to guide and lead others. Imagine a future self, who, having done the work to understand and manage your emotions and nervous system, is now able to harness these gifts at an even higher level.
You’re more motivated to seek for help. (Which is probably why you’re here!) Because of how tuned in you are to your own experiences, you’re more likely to notice pain (or at least it’s way harder to ignore it!), and more likely to seek help and relief as a result. This is a strength as it helps you to change course and make corrections in a timely manner.
You can make changes and heal rapidly. Research shows that even though HSPs are more likely to be impacted by adverse childhood events, you're also more like to make progress and recover from it through therapy. Why? Because in order to heal, you need to have access to your feelings… to cry, feel sad, be angry — the process of grieving. Grieving gives us the strength to lick our wounds, assess our losses, and move on with renewed hope and perhaps even a desire to help others.