Yes, I said I am Highly Sensitive (TM).
No, that is not a diagnosis. Or a deficit. Or a disability.
It\’s a trait.
A trait that research shows exists in about 1/5 of the U.S. population.
What does it mean?
Well, you can take a self-test here and see if you are one.
I can tell you a few of the ways in which my trait manifests:
- I\’m sensitive to smells, light, and sounds. You will rarely find a florescent light on in my home, and never in my office. I sleep with a sound machine. Heavy perfume smells give me migraines.
- I feel things very deeply-all emotions. Joy, grief, anger, fear. I was told for most of my life I was \”taking things too hard\” or \”too personally\” or being \”too sensitive\”. I\’m not. I\’m feeling my feelings deeply, and now I accept that. Some people can deal with it. Some can\’t. That\’s cool.
- My mind is always processing. I always thought it was hard for me to fall asleep because I had insomnia. And I guess it\’s true. by the medical definition. But Highly Sensitive people often have trouble falling/staying asleep, because you have to let go and let your brain shift out of processing in order to rest. And our brains don\’t do well at that.
- I pick up on subtleties that many other people do not. This is a part of the trait that also freaks people out, but usually they are impressed. It\’s not something I do on purpose–although, it\’s certainly helped by decades of being a therapist, meditating, and doing yoga. Good intuition is baked into High Sensitivity to begin with…and mine got pretty well-honed by all of those things.
I\’ve been called psychic, and a witch. I\’m totally okay with both of those.
When I first found the book the Highly Sensitive Person (Elaine Aron), I felt a bit overwhelmed. I certainly identified with it, but I also felt flooded by this new information and insight.
Being Highly Sensitive can take a lot of extra energy. It can get a lot of eye rolls from others who are not also HSP and do not understand.
It can also be a huge gift. I think my *trait* has helped me be a good therapist. It makes me compassionate, and able to sit with the intense emotions of others. It helps me be an effective trainer at my job; I can read the room and have a better idea when to shift the energy, or when to keep it going in the same direction. I think it makes me a good yoga teacher; yoga is all about subtle energy, all about offering a safe space for people to connect to themselves.
Whatever the case, it\’s neither good nor bad, but it is a big part of who I am. And finding that out, and learning to lean on the strengths, and care for the higher needs, has made my life infinitely easier.
oh! And according to the research a whopping 70% of Highly Sensitive folks are introverts, which I am NOT. So that\’s an extra layer of challenge: I draw my energy from external sources, and often those sources drain me.
So if you\’ve ever been told \”you\’re too sensitive\” or \”lighten up\” or \”why do you get SO upset?\” It could be that you are simply one of the 20% of us that has this trait. If that is you, do yourself a favor and check out the self-test on the website. If you\’re not, you\’re not.
But if you are, and you get the book, I can almost guarantee you won\’t be sorry.