Laura Owen is a highly talented web designer... so talented in fact that she’s won awards for her work and can count a number of the world’s best multinationals as her former clients. However, a year ago she decided to leave her job at a leading agency and go freelance; the main reason behind her decision was that the role was overwhelming her.
“It was the type of company where last-minute briefs would regularly be handed to me and throw my day into disarray. I could cope with the intense workload when I had adequate time to prepare, but I just couldn’t handle having work given to me at the last minute – I would shut down and not know how to deal with it. However, this was the nature of the job, so I knew I had to leave it.”
Following her experience, Laura soon discovered that she is what is called a ‘highly sensitive person’ (HSP). “After I resigned, I stumbled across a blog that talked about HSPs and everything began to make sense. For years I never understood why I seem to take everything to heart, why I try my best to avoid stressful situations and why I ‘feel’ the world around me so intensely. It turns out it is also the reason why I truly get overwhelmed when I need to do a lot in a short space of time.”
What is an HSP?
If, like Laura, you seem to be overwhelmed by highly stimulating environments, become nervous when you have a lot to do in a very short space of time, get intense pleasure out of tastes, sounds and works of art, and have a rich inner life, it is very likely you are an HSP. And you’re not alone; according to Dr Elaine Aron, clinical psychologist and author of The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You (Bantam USA) around 15 to 20 per cent of the population have this trait.
In her book, Dr Aron explains how highly sensitive people have an uncommonly sensitive nervous system, which makes them easily overwhelmed and aware of subtleties in their environments. “It’s a survival strategy – being observant before acting,” says Dr Aron. She argues that just as some of us are born with perfect pitch, or with allergies, others may be born with their sensitivities effectively pre-tuned to a higher resonance, meaning they process sensory data more deeply, due to an innate biological difference in their nervous systems.
Character traits of the HSP include being easily hurt, taking longer to make decisions and being innately anxious. But it’s not all bad news. Positives include being highly creative, intuitive, conscientious and intellectually gifted. So, far from being a flaw, Dr Aron argues that being an HSP is an asset that can have many benefits once you learn how to nurture it.
Dr Saliha Afridi, licensed clinical psychologist and director of The LightHouse Arabia in Dubai, says that HSPs are quite attuned to the people and space around them, almost as if the filter through which they take in and process emotional information is thinner than others. “Due to this highly sensitive filtering system, HSPs can often get overstimulated by their environment,” Dr Afridi says. “They may also prefer quiet, smaller groups and are most likely to be introverts and/or shy.
They experience the world through their senses, which can result in intense experiences and emotions. The intensity of emotions, when coupled with negative life experiences, can often result in HSPs being depressed or anxious, as they are unable to process the force and fierceness of their emotions.”
As any highly sensitive person will know, fitting into a society that is so fast paced and brutal can be something of an ongoing challenge. “You feel like something is wrong with you for ‘feeling’ everything around you,” explains Dr Doris Jeanette, holistic psychologist with more than 35 years of experience and founder of the Centre for New Psychology (www.drjeanette.com). “You think you are too sensitive and you learn that being sensitive is a disadvantage, however, this is a false belief.”
Societal perceptions
Melanie*, 34, identifies with this, believing herself to be just too emotional for this world. “I was always an anxious child, but I’ve grown into an even more anxious adult. I constantly worry about what others think of me and fret about everything I say or do. I can spend days going over some comment I made to someone, worrying that I’ve offended them. I get called ‘touchy’ by my family all the time.”
Dr Aron says that HSPs can often feel that there’s something wrong with them because they’ve been told so often, “don’t be so sensitive”, “don’t be so touchy” and “don’t be so shy”, so they absorb society’s view of it. Dr Jeanette believes that ‘feeling’ what is around you shouldn’t be seen as negative, and that when you learn how to relax and trust your perceptions you actually have a huge advantage over others. “You are aware of more data, therefore you know more than the average person about physical reality.
You can use this in all kinds of creative and clever ways to empower yourself, and can be more successful than others by using your emotional intelligence. Examples of this kind of advanced knowledge would be reading body language, sensing non-verbal communication and feeling subtle energy. “You also have easy access to your intuition and extrasensory perceptions, which you can use for your empowerment.”
Despite the negative implications of being sensitive in a society that advocates being thick-skinned, there are pros to being a highly sensitive type. For one, it is believed that HSPs are usually very creative, as well as intellectually gifted. Dr Afridi says that HSPs are empathetic to a fault; even if they don’t want to know how others are feeling, they will pick up on the energy of the other person. “HSPs are passionate, intense, charming and able to pick up on the nuances of certain situations and people’s moods better than most.
They are generally good at picking up on non-verbal cues. Some people would say that they can ‘read the energy’ of other people and are often connected to the spiritual dimension of themselves and others,” she says. However, having this type of personality can also put you at a disadvantage. It has been found that HSPs may not contribute much to discussions at work, as they are better at processing information in their heads.
They also tend to underperform when being watched, so they work best when in quiet and calm conditions. However, this means they are sometimes overlooked for promotions at work. “Anyone who feels intensely will feel joy as well as pain in that way,” adds Dr Afridi. “Often these individuals can be emotionally labile [you have unstable emotional displays]and have difficulty managing their affect.
As children and adolescents they are often unable to cope with the intensity of their emotions and may be seen as depressed or anxious.” Dr Jeanette adds that many highly sensitive types may grow up being criticised by their parents for being so sensitive. “When a sensitive child is criticised, they grow up with low self-esteem,” she explains. “This is a serious problem that needs to be corrected by parents becoming aware of how they are relating to their children.”
Coping strategies
If you are a highly sensitive person, you may find it hard to traverse our overstimulated world. But, according to the experts, there are a number of strategies you can adopt to try to cope a bit better. Dr Afridi says that first you should learn how to recognise, accept and own the attribute. “I think it is important that people stop trying to ‘not be so sensitive’. I see people in my work who go their whole life reading books on how to be different, rather than learning about who they are and finding the power in it,” says Dr Afridi.
Next, Dr Afridi recommends you make sense of your sensitivity, and advises you not to ignore it. “Sensitivity doesn’t go away; it actually gets worse and results in a lot of distress if you try to ignore it. Find a way to make sense of it and integrate it as a part of your whole self. Seek a trained qualified mental health professional to help you with this.” Dr Afridi also says that sensitive people should recognise that they have the power to bring about positive change in the world, and that you should garner strength from this attribute and put it to positive use. “Sensitive people are the ones who get bothered about things that most other people are able to ignore.
These are the people who also get bothered about things so much that they go out and seek change and justice.” Finally, she advises you develop a vocabulary. “You are sensitive, thus you will feel a whole range of emotions. Develop a good-feelings vocabulary so that you can describe experiences and emotions and not just feel them.”
In addition to this, Dr Fran Walfish, a licensed psychotherapist and author of The Self-Aware Parent (Palgrave Macmillan), says that you should do everything possible to try to make your life more comfortable. “Cut out clothing tags if they bother you and keep the volume on music and your television low. Teach yourself that all hurts and disappointments are temporary. Live in the moment instead of worrying about what’s coming before it happens,” she advises.
