Why are you so …..? Why are you so sensitive? What’s all the fuss about? Why are you making such a fuss? Sound familiar?
Why are you such a fusspot? Why the huge over-reaction? What’s the big deal? You’re such a princess! You’re making a mountain over a molehill. What is it with you? Smile, it might never happen …
Like being sensitive is some kind of accusation …
When you’re triggered, when you’re put on the back foot and feel you have to justify who you are and how you show up, it can feel hard to love your highly sensitive life.
So what do you do? What can you do to feel better?
If I’ve learnt anything in this journey through HSPville it’s that whilst non-HSPs might lump us all together as “different”, with our community we’re as different and diverse from each other as any other population.
Every human being is unique and comes with its very own deck of qualities and value. When you belong to a minority group it can be easy to feel that you are marginalised and somehow “less than” simply because you seem different to the dominant majority.
Feeling “less than” can mess with your self-esteem, self-confidence, sense of value and your leverage. When you think you hold no value, you feel unqualified to ask for what you want.
So step 1 – or Steps 1 and 2 are to accept and cherish yourself in your uniqueness. Yeah I can hear you shouting at me – “easier said than done when you’ve faced a lifetime of being told you’re too …… ” fill in the blanks.
And yet it is essential and it can be done – even though it doesn’t always feel like it. To achieve it takes the paradox of being gently loving and compassionate with yourself whilst at the same time accepting risk and challenge and discomfort.
It’s so easy for our minds to stay in the familiar grooves of the messages we’ve heard and the filters through which we’ve understood and felt what’s happened to us in the past. That familiarity, that default, can seem easier than change even when it holds us hostage to fear that the same old story may happen to us again and again in the future.
Are you aware of the passive language here? I am as I write it ….. “happen to us …” It’s as if we have no power, no agency, no control. As if we are helpless children like we once were.And when your’e an HSP and the world seems designed to aggravate and agitate with noise and busyness and goodness knows what else, it can feel like you’re powerless. I know …
But if you want to bring about changes, if you want to live a life among people who respect you, who value you, who will honour and meet your needs as well as their own, then first comes the major step of learning to cherish, love and value yourself.
Learning the science behind Sensory Processing Sensitivity and having it at your fingertips to communicate to loved ones, friends and colleagues is great – and I’d encourage you to learn all you can. And, I urge you to remember that there’s no need to go on the defensive. No need to justify who you are and how you are as a highly sensitive person.
You bring so many great qualities. Empathy, kindness, compassion, intuition, creativity, imagination, observing things that others miss, understanding complexity and subtle nuances. You have a high moral and social compass and conscience.
When life throws you the inevitable challenging curved ball, it’s so easy to get ground down and feel down. I know only too well.
And I know that there is value in all that sensitivity. That whilst it can be a right royal pain in the tush (butt) it also offers you a priceless set of assets.
I’m not generally minded to order folk around (even if my brother might sometimes say I’m bossy! – but then I’d say he’s the bossy one, lol) so I’m going to ask nicely and suggest, not command…..
…. Wise Word from Wiggi (me not my brother, before anyone gets confused) is to suggest you make an Inventory of all your positive great qualities, your value – what you bring – and shift your focus onto a “come from” from this standpoint.
Learn to bring these to the fore so that when the taunts fly, when the “Why are you so …..” appears again, you’re not goaded into reacting from wounded child mode. Change might not happen overnight but in time your accusers will find themselves off balance – your response will be different to what they’ve grown accustomed to. And they’re more highly likely to give up, to start responding to you differently.
It’s not about turning the other cheek in some meek resignation of your fate. No, it’s coming from a place where you feel greater self-acceptance, more self-empowered, knowing your own true value and exuding and emitting that to the world around you.
Celebrate your difference, your uniqueness. You can make a start by yourself. And if you’d welcome the support of a coach, then contact me on info@anniewigman.com – you can learn to love your highly sensitive life. Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.
With Love and Sensitivity
© Annie Wigman – March 2018