A dear friend texted me tonight. She had an experience that, well, unsettled her. And on top of feeling unsettled, she couldn\’t put her finger on why it did. Which was more…unsettling. And it wasn\’t anything earth-shattering, or really bad. Which made it more confusing, to her.
She said things like: I don\’t know if it\’s because we were rushed, or just the situation itself, or maybe it\’s work, or my head space, but it just didn\’t feel good.
I said to her: it\’s like, getting into a car accident that is not terrible. You\’re okay, but you\’re shaken. And now you have to get the car fixed. Figure out who\’s at fault, deal with insurance companies.
You had an emotional fender-bender.
\”YES!!!!\” she texted back, all in caps. She also said she was going to bed. I commended her on her self-care-because that\’s what you need when you have a fender-bender. Rest, a hot bath, perhaps. Tea, or a glass of wine. Something to help you even out your breathing, a soft place to land when something kinda shitty–but not truly bad–happens.
This got me thinking about how many of these I have, and how often. For those of us that are Highly Sensitive, or Empaths, or (lucky me!) both, this can happen daily. Someone says something that hits me strangely, or DOESN\’T say something that is loud and clear (or just loud, but not at all clear). Something as simple as the weather or too much to do at work on a given day or a strange conversation with someone I care about changes my lens on everything. It gets cloudy, things look distorted. Us Highly Sensitives pick up on EVERY LITTLE THING and then it takes a lot of effort not to let it get in our heads (or our bodies).
So emotional fender-benders are common for us.
Have you ever had an emotional fender-bender?
How do you deal with it?