Chocolate milk splattered all over the kitchen, reaching nooks and crannies that defied physics. How did something so small create such a catastrophic mess? That question sums up having young kids most days. 

I could feel the self-control drain out of me as pure rage took its place. Somehow, I still had the wherewithal to think, “This mess should not be causing me to spin out like this. Why am I freaking out?”    

All parents have moments like this, right? I’m just convinced I am more susceptible to them, and therefore, find myself in them more frequently. 

Why? Because I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP). I notice more, process more, and, as a result, get overwhelmed more quickly and easily than less-sensitive people. Apply this equation to parenting, and the math isn’t good.

I sum up parenting while highly sensitive with one word: Intense. Parenting feels relentless — it never stops or slows or subsides. HSPs tend to throw all of themselves into parenting, leaving nothing behind for their own well-being.

What Makes Parenting While Highly Sensitive So Hard?

Learning about my sensitivity has helped me realize my parenting challenges aren’t due to weakness, but to having more to process while doing the same tasks others can float through. So I’ve conceded any hopes of being anything other than I am: a highly sensitive parent just trying to survive.

A lead researcher on high sensitivity, Dr. Elaine Aron — who coined the term “highly sensitive person” — uses the acronym DOES to outline the trait in her book, The Highly Sensitive Person. It’s easy to see how parenting magnifies each characteristic… with exhausting consequences.

• Depth of Processing. From pregnancy through cohabitating with your grown child, the decisions are endless and HSPs can’t help but analyze all available information and see the seemingly limitless possible outcomes of any given choice. Not only that, our busy brains need more downtime to recover from constantly processing in overdrive — and finding enough downtime as a parent is near impossible.
• Overstimulation. Parenting brings anyone to the outermost limits of their stimulation tolerance, and we HSPs start with a shorter range, due to how much we process and take in. This means that even the most basic parenting tasks can overwhelm us. 
• Emotional Reactivity and Empathy. Not only do we react stronger to our kids’ emotions, we also experience deeper empathy with every scraped knee, embarrassing moment, and challenging situation. 
• Sensitivity to subtle stimuli. Take your pick! The sight of clutter in the living room, the sounds of annoying toys, music, and video games, and the smells, all the smells! Even if the sensory input is objectively subtle, HSPs’ sensitivity to them makes them anything but.

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So What’s a Highly Sensitive Parent to Do?

HSPs move through the world differently — and parenting is no exception. In her book, The Highly Sensitive Parent, Dr. Aron says that admitting, accepting, and embracing the state of things as a highly sensitive parent is key to coping and, dare I say it, thriving, in parenting.

The good news is, Dr. Aron also found in her research that HSPs are often doing a much better job parenting than they perceive. While our sensitivity can cause us to feel more overwhelmed by parenting, and like we fall short of less-sensitive parents, it also equips us with highly-attuned parenting instincts.

Still, it’s always important to distinguish between simply finding parenting hard, and whether depression or anxiety are part of the equation. Parenting while highly sensitive is sure to exasperate life circumstances that can contribute to both.

So the million-dollar question is: How do you thrive as a highly sensitive parent?

And my answer is: Oh, good gracious, I have no idea.

I’m just striving for survival at this point. Surviving parenting as an HSP is equal parts accepting what is and doing our best to take care of ourselves (given the circumstances).

While I’ll never be an expert by any means, I have picked up a few tips that are helping me survive — and even enjoy parenting amidst the chaos, mess, and stress.

7 Survival Hacks for Highly Sensitive Parents

1. Let your sensitivity redefine what “thriving” in parenthood means.

Parenting must be seen through the lens of your sensitivity. Dr. Aron cautions that parenting is so all-consuming that HSPs may be able to prioritize little else, at least for a time. It can be frustrating when comparing ourselves to peers or colleagues who seem to be thriving professionally, socially, and being a super-parent all at once. 

We, as highly sensitive people, must redefine what “thriving” means for us. Perhaps it’s not mastering every aspect of life simultaneously, but experiencing a singular aspect of life immensely, such as soaking up every last drop parenting has to offer. 

2. Customize your unique parenting philosophy. 

Highly sensitive people tend to be information-seekers. It’s part of our deep processing to want all the facts before making our careful decisions, everything from what parenting style to practice or just what to pick up for dinner. 

As a chronic consumer of parenting advice, I realized quickly that no one style, trend, or philosophy spoke fully to my experience as a parent. I eventually gave up trying to master a single parenting philosophy and gave into the common HSP experience of forging my own path.

HSP parents can — and should — trust their intuition, because our sensitivity informs it. This same trait that has helped our species survive can be trusted to inform your decision-making as a parent.

It also helps to seek advice from HSP parenting experts and share your experiences with fellow HSP parents just trying to figure it out day by day. 

3. Make “treat yo self” your mantra.

Weekend getaways, a day of spa treatments, or even just a good night’s sleep might not be in the cards for most parents in their foreseeable futures. So why not indulge in treating yourself where you can, when you can? 

This hack is backed by research. The modern classic parenting book, Mother Nurture, puts it this way:

“…We recommend that you try to feel good as often as you can, at least several times a day. These experiences are more than enjoyable: they help protect your body against future stresses, improve problem-solving, and stop downward spirals. The occasional getaway for a weekend is great but regular, daily positive experiences will make much more difference for you over the long run.” (Hanson et al., p. 34)

While the phrase “Treat Yo Self” was coined by the luxury-loving Donna Meagle and Tom Haverford characters on the show Parks and Recreation, it need not be a call to lavish extravagances. It’s more about inherent worth — valuing your wants and needs just because you exist. This can be a real challenge for HSPs, especially those engaged in caretaking roles.

It took me way too long to realize how unsustainable it was to live in a constant state of depletion while another being was entirely dependent on my care. Now, I take my wants and needs seriously. 

So what’s a teeny, tiny way you can treat yourself today?

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

4. Let the sweet moments linger as long as you can.

You are at your wit’s end being up with the baby all night… again. Your kid is refusing to eat the dinner you prepared… again. Your teenager promises they’ll never speak to you… again… and again. These moments can be excruciating and can consume our waking thoughts.

In Mother Nurture, Dr. Rick Hanson explains that we are biologically wired to dwell on the negative, so we have to practice spending as much time dwelling on the sweet moments. 

When your baby finally falls back asleep in your arms, drink in their peaceful rest and the feel of their relaxed body against yours. When your kid scarfs down their dinner without batting an eye, bask in the glory of a clean plate and a full belly. When your teen spills every single detail of their night, savor their funny and insightful commentary on their friendships. 

Put your deep processing to work for you in noticing every little good thing about these moments. Let the sweetness linger in your mind. 

5. Try an “Ask for Help” challenge.

In The Highly Sensitive Parent, Dr. Aron says, “If you need help, you just need it. That doesn’t make you a less capable or worse parent.” 

That simple acknowledgment was revelatory for me.

I didn’t want to admit that I desperately needed help. HSPs tend to be people-pleasers, and therefore tend to seek help only as a last resort. Our perfectionism chimes in with its ever-so-unhelpful insistence that no one else can do it like you, so getting help is pointless anyway.

But of course, it’s not a great plan to only seek help once you are at the very, very, very end of your rope. Instead, why not practice asking for help in low-pressure situations, so it can become more natural for you?

Make asking for help your go-to move for a while until it becomes second nature. 

Is there one thing you could get help with this week? Next week, could you get help with two things? 

6. Always ask yourself, “Is this worth my energy?” 

As HSPs, we have to be extremely protective of our energy — the DOES characteristics of the trait require a lot of it. We simply cannot afford to spend our energy on just anything. Parenting only makes this more pronounced. 

Since we can’t control how our sensitivity uses our energy, conservation and recovery are the name of the game. Recovery time is usually in short supply for parents, so energy conservation becomes paramount. 

The reality is, you don’t have the same time for all the things as other parents because you require time to recover from overwhelm in ways less-sensitive parents don’t. So everything, from work opportunities to kids’ activities to household chores, needs to be evaluated for its energy-input-to-outcome ratio. If the math doesn’t come out in your favor, it’s not worth your energy.

Of course, we can’t disavow everything that drains us with minimal benefit, but as sensitive folks, we must do what we can, when we can, to spend our precious energy on what matters most.

7. Always be kind to your sensitive self.

The best way I’ve found to be a better parent is by being kinder to myself. As Dr. Aron succinctly says in The Highly Sensitive Parent, “Self-criticism is exhausting.” 

As HSPs, it’s simply not worth our energy to berate ourselves or to have unreasonable expectations. Instead, treating our sensitivity with gentleness helps it be a source, rather than a drain, in our lives.

Plus, being kind to yourself helps you be kinder to your kids while also preserving your energy. There is truly no downside! 

Tune in to your intuition for ways you can survive another chaotic day of parenting while highly sensitive. If we can care for our sensitivity just a little more day-by-day, maybe we’ll figure out how to thrive a little, too. 

You might like:

• 5 Things I Teach My Kids as a Highly Sensitive Parent
• HSP Brains Process Everything Deeply, Even at Rest, Study Finds
• What to Do When Your Highly Sensitive Soul Is in Overdrive

This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post A Survival Guide for Highly Sensitive Parents appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never understood the frenetic energy around New Year’s resolutions. 

Don’t we all know the stats? That most people don’t stick with their resolutions past January? That attempting big change all at once almost always fails?

I chalk up my cynicism to my highly sensitive person (HSP) tendency to dwell on the probable negative outcomes in any given situation. 

So when I see the hype about “NEW YEAR, NEW YOU!” forgive me for not jumping up and down — or getting on board. 

Making Small Shifts Instead of Big Resolutions 

But before you accuse me of being too much of a Debbie Downer, let me say that I do wholeheartedly embrace the idea of turning over a new leaf and starting a new chapter. I’m just not here for the hype and hustle of New Year’s resolutions. 

So instead of resolutions that stress me out so much I fail before I even begin, I’ve been thinking about small shifts that can significantly improve my life. (Since we HSPs already get overstimulated easily, just imagine all the extra pressure when we add New Year’s resolutions to the mix!)

I want to offer highly sensitive people some simple ideas to find more balance in 2024 — what we HSPs actually wish for instead of “exercising more” or “making more money” (although those would be nice, too!).

Here are 10 gentle, deep, meaningful resolutions to nurture yourself, and your amazing sensitivity, this new year. 

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10 New Year’s Resolutions for Highly Sensitive People

1. When overwhelmed, cultivate a sense of wonder and awe instead of panic and anxiety.

With all HSPs notice and process on the daily (even as we rest!), we can easily (and understandably) get overwhelmed. It’s actually a marker of our sensitivity trait. 

But with a little intention, practice, and patience, we can cultivate a sense of wonder and awe over all the stimuli we constantly take in — versus panic and anxiety.

How can you slow down and indulge your sense of wonder this year, you ask? As you prioritize your physical needs to nourish your sensitive nervous system, consider how you might also nurture your sensitive mind, heart, and spirit. This is a prescription for more art, more music, more learning, more nature, more poetry, and more imagination — all at a slower pace. 

2. Downsize your obligations to the bare minimum.

Let’s take a quick inventory of your daily tasks: How much of your life consists of things you want to do? How much of it is stuff you have to do? 

Most HSPs can easily find themselves completing all obligations since we can be such people-pleasers. It can feel like everyone always “needs” something — and something always needs doing. Yes, it makes sensitive people great caretakers and good citizens. But we are also more prone to burnout as a result.

So consider how you might loosen your obligations in 2024. What small shifts can you make so you are doing more of what you want to do and less of what you don’t? This can seem utterly impossible, but consider the consequences of doing only what drains the life out of you. It creates a deficit that is difficult to counter until there is little life (or motivation) left. It’s all about setting boundaries — and sticking to them.

We can also approach our obligations by turning the things we can’t get out of into more enjoyable experiences. For you personal development connoisseurs, Martha Beck’s book, The Way of Integrity, offers a compelling framework, as well as practical steps, to bringing what we want to do — and what we have to do — into alignment. 

3. Breathe out more often and schedule “outbreaths” into your daily routines. 

Start right now with a deep inhale… and then exhale. Ahhh. I learned this concept recently from Alane Freund, a therapist, speaker, and international consultant on high sensitivity. She talks about the need to schedule “outbreaths” in our routines, in order to give our finely-tuned nervous systems a chance to recover, replenish, and refresh. 

The idea comes from the Wardolf education philosophy, which posits that children need periods of inbreath (structure, learning, and focus), as well as outbreath (free play, unstructured activity, and even roughhousing). Ask yourself: What might your outbreath look like as an adult?

In this YouTube video, Alane reminds HSPs that “while our sensitivity might be our superpower, we aren’t superhuman.” In other words, we have to account for how much more we take in as HSPs. If you find yourself overwhelmed more often than not, try scheduling unstructured and unencumbered downtime in the coming year. And you can start with breathing… 

4. “Less is more” — leave more things undone.

This is the ultimate anti-resolution — so less, not more. HSPs already put so much pressure on ourselves that add to our stress. Why add more just because it’s a new year?

Many of us know that we put too much pressure on ourselves, but never consider doing anything about it. We can convince ourselves that this is just how life is, or even that pressure is the only means by which things get done. 

But what if it’s not? 

This year, try easing up on yourself. It can be a really hard habit to break, but make it your mission to prove to yourself that you can tackle your to-dos without your inner drill sergeant yelling at you. (Extra credit points if you can practice leaving more than a few things undone!)

Your sensitivity will probably sound the alarms over all the problems this will cause, but that’s only because we tend to see all the possible negative outcomes clearly and severely. Comfort your sensitive nerves with the promise that it will be okay to leave the dishes undone or the email unanswered… at least for the time being. 

5. Remind yourself of all the reasons you’re thankful for being a highly sensitive person.

Few of us have had the privilege of living in an environment that is supportive of our sensitivity. Instead, we have endured a lifetime of messages, and things non-HSPs say to us, about how we fall short, how we are too much, and how we simultaneously need to “toughen up” and “calm down.” 

As my prim and proper aunt used to say, “All of that is a bunch of butternut squash.” Whenever I hear someone lamenting sensitive people, I demand they look around — where has insensitivity gotten us? 

HSPs, your sensitivity is needed now more than ever. It takes intention to affirm in you what has always been berated. So practice affirming who you are and the sensitivity you bear. It’s a gift for you and the world. You can start by writing down all the reasons you’re thankful for being a highly sensitive person — your empathy, your listening skills, your creativity, and so on. And then reread this list all the time. (You can even put some of the reasons on Post-it notes around your house, like on your bathroom mirror.) Really let the reasons sink in!

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

6. Let go of perfectionism (believe me, I know it’s hard!).

If perfectionism is keeping you from setting New Year’s resolutions, consider letting it be your focus for 2024 instead of whatever it’s keeping you from. I am so passionate about all that we HSPs can offer the world, but our contribution requires us to overcome our fierce sense of  perfectionism.

Unfortunately, the only way I’ve learned to work on my perfectionism is by failing. It’s a “face your fear” sort of situation, like exposure therapy for anxiety (when you’re exposed to your fear again and again until you’re desensitized to it). 

If perfectionism has held you captive, consider dabbling in little failures this year. Try something low-stakes that you know you won’t do well. Then try something else. And something else after that. Maybe it’s playing the piano. Or learning a new language. Or actually learning how to cook. 

One phrase that’s helped me with my perfectionism is “messy action.” When I want to do something, but get overwhelmed because my deep processing goes into overdrive, I try to allow myself to take messy action. It won’t be perfect, but I’ll be a step further than I’d be otherwise.

Letting go of perfectionism will make you more at peace in yourself, as well as more effective in the world. HSPs, we need your messy action! 

7. Practice pausing more often before speaking (to give your HSP a quick rest). 

I’ve been thinking about this since Jenn Granneman, co-founder of Highly Sensitive Refuge, tweeted about it. HSPs approach social interactions differently from other folks. We are taking in so much, and processing so deeply in real time, that it can hinder our ability to effectively communicate in the moment. 

We can get flustered and frozen in conversations, in meetings, and in moments when our input really matters. So let’s forge our own path in these situations. Let’s take a breath. Let’s let the awkward silence simmer as we slow our racing thoughts, gather them up, and sort them out. Let’s honor all that deep processing and subtle sensing we do so well. We’ve spent far too long hiding our sensitivities. This year, let’s honor them in our interactions instead. 

Practice the pause. The world can wait and will be better for it. 

8. Spend more time indulging in things you enjoy, like alone time.

Living in a non-sensitive society, HSPs deprive themselves of more than they realize. Most of us have lived a life of denying our needs while trying to live like everyone else. We put up with too much work and too little sleep, constant stimulation with little downtime, and chronic stress with no reprieve.

But no more. 

When I think of an antidote to my own deprivation, indulgence comes to mind. How might you cultivate a bit more indulgence in 2024? Some of us might recoil at the thought, but consider what is truly indulgent for you — for your mind, body, and spirit. Sure, maybe it’s a Netflix-and-ice-cream binge. But, more often, it’s probably things like rest, nature, alone time, and artistic expression. It’s also probably taking time to do nothing at all (which is still something!) in order to recharge.

So take note of how you deprive your sensitive self and take steps to indulgently nourish yourself back into balance this year. 

9. Commit to being more open to new experiences and ideas.

“Open” was my “word for the year” in 2023. I’ve never really been one for practices like that, but, I don’t know, I was open to it. And as I’ve reflected on 2023, striving to be more open has increased my joy and wonder exponentially.

HSPs can get stuck in rather restrictive lives, and for good reason — we need insulation from the non-sensitive world. But if we don’t balance that out, we may miss opportunities for personal growth, exploration, and contributing to the world in a more meaningful way. 

This year, experiment with being open to new experiences and ideas. Open to new ways of caring for yourself. Open to being more authentic with your sensitive self out in the world. 

Say it out loud or journal about it: How might you cultivate more openness over the next year?  

10. Get more rest — really prioritize it.

My personal resolution is to get more rest in 2024. Now, I have a whole soapbox about how HSPs are meant to usher in a radical revolution of rest in a world that is aching for it. Our modern age needs to reevaluate our value system of productivity over people and planet — and sensitive folks not only see this in all its pervasive subtleties, but we feel it in our bodies. 

But, first and foremost, highly sensitive people should rest more. After all, we are worth the rest we require. Regardless of a pivotal part to play in the earth’s survival, we are worthy of surviving just because we exist, along with the rest of humanity. So that’s why I’m going to work on rest this year. (Plus, due to all the overstimulation we experience, we HSPs need more sleep than others anyway!)

If HSPs have a part to play in saving the world (and I believe we do), we must prioritize the care of our sensitive natures for the greater good, too. 

Tricia Hersey, author of Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, says, “Many people now want to see a world of justice. We cannot get there if we are exhausted. Exhaustion will not save us. Rest will.” 

HSPs, honor your sacred need to rest this year. It’s my New Year’s wish for you.

You might like:

• 7 Things HSPs Wish For in the New Year
• HSP Brains Process Everything Deeply, Even at Rest, Study Finds
• How ‘Doing Nothing’ Does Something Big for HSPs

This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Highly Sensitive People appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

It can sneak up on me, without warning and out of thin air. I can be minding my own business, doing dishes, driving, or daydreaming, and suddenly I am 13 again, humiliated by having to leave the school carnival early because the rides, lights, and blaring music overwhelming me and making me physically sick. 

Do you ever have painful memories that sneak up on you? My body often responds involuntarily to these memories, with a jolt of adrenaline that causes a physical twitch or pang of embarrassment deep in my stomach that makes me double-over.

Most highly sensitive people (HSPs) have embarrassing (or difficult) memories tied directly to their sensitivity. The basic components of our trait, which is identified in the research as Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS), can cause us to respond to situations in painful ways. The acronym DOES highlights these components: Depth of processing, Overstimulation, Emotionally reactive (a.k.a. Empathetic), and Sensitive to Subtle Stimuli. 

Harnessing the Power of Self-Compassion and Sensitivity

Have you ever unintentionally ostracized yourself in a social setting, just because you were observing everyone and everything around you without even realizing it? Do you regularly have to come up with an excuse to leave a friend’s get-together early because you’re embarrassed by how quickly just being there has drained you? Ever been simply overcome with emotion for another’s experience? What about feeling overwhelmed by an environment where everyone else seems unfazed? If these examples conjure up your own memories, your DOES is showing! 

These aspects of our experience can be hard to navigate in and of themselves. Add to them a rather non-sensitive society’s unawareness and unacceptance of DOES, and a life riddled with painful memories makes sense. 

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But what if we could take a closer look at those memories? What if we gave them room to teach us more about ourselves and the world? What if we could reframe the embarrassment or difficulty in light of the superpowers of our sensitivity? 

Reframing my own painful memories in this way has helped me harness the power of self-compassion, which has brought healing to my past. It has helped me forge ahead toward a courageous future — embracing my sensitivity, with all its strengths and struggles. 

Steps to Reframing the Past

To reframe a memory, first think of a particular moment, situation, or transition in your life. Transitions can be especially helpful to reframe, as HSP researcher Dr. Elaine Aron explains in her book, The Highly Sensitive Person: “…every new situation, transition, or change involves many new stimuli, and since we pick up on more stimuli because we include all the subtleties, every change is a bigger change for us than for the non-HSP.”

In terms of painful or upsetting recollection, it’s a good idea to choose a mid-range memory. Save the traumatic (or deeply wounding) ones for a trained professional, who can properly support your exploration and reframing.  

Now that you have your memory in mind, answer the following questions, as outlined by Dr. Aron in The Highly Sensitive Person’s Workbook: 

• What was the situation, and how did you respond in the moment? I was embarrassed when I got sick at the middle school carnival.

• When you think back on it, how do you feel about how you responded? I can remember how sick I’d been feeling, but I still feel like I overreacted. I should have been able to just enjoy myself like everyone else.

• Now think about all that you’ve learned about your highly sensitive trait. How does this knowledge affect how you feel about this memory? My sensitivity to everything at that carnival makes my response make total sense. Of course I was overstimulated, and of course it took a toll on my body. I often put myself through too much and then berate myself for struggling to keep up.

• How might the situation, and your response to it, have gone differently if you had known about your sensitive trait? I would have approached the whole event entirely differently had I known I was an HSP. I would have sought a way to enjoy being there with my friends while protecting my sensitive self from overstimulation. I might have planned ahead of time to leave early anyway instead of feeling ashamed that I had to leave. 

• If knowing then what you now know about your sensitivity would have helped you in the situation, allow that to sink in for a moment. It can be a powerful realization to see that your sensitivity played a big role without your knowledge. I have so much appreciation for all I have endured simply due to my lack of awareness of my sensitivity. I ignored my needs as an HSP for so long, and my body, mind, and spirit took the brunt and kept going anyway. 

• What do you think about the situation and your response now, given all this? If it helps, write down a new description of the event through the lens of your sensitivity. I put myself through too much that day at the carnival, and my body sought to protect itself. It serves as a reminder of my own limits and stirs self-compassion in me, due to all I put my sensitive self through. Going forward, I want to honor my sensitivity by prioritizing my needs, so I can thrive in my life instead of needlessly suffering in self-neglect.

Want to get one-on-one help from a trained therapist? We’ve personally used and recommend BetterHelp for therapy with real benefits for HSPs. It’s private, affordable, and takes place online. BONUS: As a Sensitive Refuge reader, you get 10% off your first month. Click here to learn more.

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Let Self-Compassion Lead the Way Forward as You Reframe Your Past

Reframing painful memories — in light of your sensitivity — can yield a more compassionate understanding of yourself. Researcher Kristin Neff has dedicated her life’s work to the study of self-compassion and its powerful effects on the human experience. She outlines three key components of it: 

• Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgment. Dr. Neff describes self-kindness as an active stance of caring for oneself, alleviating our own suffering, and comforting ourselves.

• Common Humanity vs. Isolation. People tend to be able to embrace our common humanity — until something painful happens to them. Then, all of a sudden, we become islands of our experience, convinced no one else has felt the pain we’re feeling — which can be especially common for HSPs. We convince ourselves that we are alone in our suffering, which can be isolating and frightening. 

• Mindfulness vs. Over-identification. Dr. Neff emphasizes the need to give our suffering time and space to exist instead of rushing to dull its sting or fix its problem. Approaching our pain with curiosity allows us to interact with it and tend to it instead of dismissing it or slapping a solution on it. 

When we honor our sensitivity, these self-compassion elements can flow effortlessly — and also help prevent compassion fatigue, which is all too common among HSPs. Most highly sensitive people have spent at least a portion of our lives denying our sensitivity, whether due to unawareness of the trait or in an attempt to “cure” our sensitive nature. In my experience as a lifetime self-denier, honoring my true nature has always resulted in more contentment and personal growth than denial ever has. It took me a while to get there, but it’s worth the journey, I promise.

Dr. Neff highlights ways we can cultivate self-compassion. Try one or two of these as you reframe painful memories and see how your sensitive self responds:

• Write a compassionate letter to yourself. Make sure it’s to the self from your painful memory, but written from your sensitivity-informed self. 

• When a painful memory catches you off-guard, pause and consider how you would respond if a friend had gone through the same thing. Dr. Neff adds the element of a “fierce” friend who protects and supports unabashedly, a fierce, brave, unrelenting person (i.e., self-compassion). Respond to yourself as a “fierce” friend would.

• Try keeping a self-compassion journal, making use of the three components of self-compassion. When a painful memory crops up, jot it down and note the self-judgments you put on yourself (i.e., I was so stupid for saying that or I can’t believe I got overwhelmed again). Note the ways your actions or feelings (the ones you judged in yourself) are common human experiences. Finally, write a compassionate reflection regarding the moments you were so hard on yourself about.    

Attach Positive Feelings to Painful Memories

One of the most helpful meditative practices I have learned regarding painful memories is from Psychologist and Author Dr. Rick Hanson. Dr. Hanson has dedicated much of his career to the connection between contemplative practice and neuroscience. He offers the simple method of recalling a painful memory, sitting with it in silence and acceptance, and attaching a positive feeling of loving-kindness to it — even as all its jagged edges remain. He suggests visualizing the memory floating into our awareness, tagging it with loving-kindness, then releasing it to float away. 

Yes, this may sound counter-intuitive, but it reframes the painful memory into something less painful. 

Overall, as HSPs, practicing memory reframing with fierce self-compassion can open our hearts to courageous futures. All the while, we’ll continue to embrace our sensitive trait and wield it as the superpower it was always meant to be.  

You might like:

• For Sensitive People, Self-Compassion Is the Most Radical Act of All
• For HSPs, ‘Compassion Fatigue’ Is All Too Real
• Here’s Everything Researchers Know About High Sensitivity, as of 2021

The post How HSPs Can Use Self-Compassion to Reframe a Troubled Past appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

My mom warned me that listening to music so loudly would damage my hearing. 

But I was 16 and I didn’t care. I was lucky enough to have my very own old raggedy car to drive myself to school and I wanted — no, needed — to blast my music as loud as I could in order to stand every precious second of the commute. As a highly sensitive introvert, it was my way of readying myself for another overstimulating day at school. 

This meant that not only was I a highly sensitive person — who was very affected by my environment and could get overwhelmed easily — but I was also an introvert, someone who recharged when alone. So my car drives were perfect.

The only thing that kept me from window-shattering decibels was my unwavering conscientiousness as an HSP — I didn’t want to annoy the adjacent drivers. Highly sensitive people often avoid loud noise, but I needed to feel the music deep in my soul and have it reverberate throughout my body. 

I won’t reveal my embarrassing taste-in-music back then, except to say that it was most definitely not the sugary pop songs that topped the charts during my teenage years. In true highly sensitive fashion, I could only blast music I deeply connected with.

This all-encompassing connection to the arts is more than just an adolescent phase for sensitive people. Our sensitivity to the arts is a magic portal to the gifts of the trait. 

What Is ‘Aesthetic Sensitivity’? 

When Dr. Elaine Aron began her research on the trait of high sensitivity, she and her colleagues focused on identifying sensitivity to one’s environment as a unitary construct. Since then, our understanding of what impacts sensitivity levels has expanded. One way researchers measure it now is by looking at three sensitivity subscales: ease of excitation, low sensory threshold, and aesthetic sensitivity. 

Ease of excitation refers to how prone someone is to feel overwhelmed by any stimuli, whether internal or external. A person’s low sensory threshold refers to their tendency to become easily overstimulated by external sensory stimuli, such as loud noises or bright lights. Finally, aesthetic sensitivity refers to one’s appreciation of, and connection with, the arts. 

I find it interesting — and fitting — that our connection with the arts warranted its own subcategory within sensitivity. Many artists are thought to be highly sensitive, such as Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo. It certainly tracks that, along with our deep processing, emotional reactivity, and sensitivity to subtle stimuli would also be aesthetic sensitivity; researchers simply identify it as “being deeply moved by the arts and music.” 

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Why Aesthetic Sensitivity Is Important in Regard to HSPs

When measuring these three subcategories of sensitivity, researchers discovered an important distinction. While a person’s ease of excitation, and low sensory threshold, are associated with negatively perceived experiences, like anxiety and depression, aesthetic sensitivity is associated with positively perceived experiences, like positive emotionality and openness. 

In addition, these three subcategories have been measured to activate two main systems in the brain — our behavioral activation system and behavioral inhibition system. As Dr. Aron explains in her book, The Highly Sensitive Person, our behavioral inhibition system alerts us to potential threats and urges caution. Aron refers to it as our “pause-to-check” system. Researchers, too, found that HSPs’ ease of excitation and low sensory threshold prompts this response.

Aesthetic sensitivity, on the other hand, lends itself to the behavioral activation system, making us curious and encouraging novelty and discovery. 

So while much of what makes us highly sensitive can be challenging (though I believe there is beauty in it all), our deep connection to the arts is something that studies show betters our lives as HSPs. 

Even though I’ve never considered myself to be much of an artist or an art connoisseur, this resonates with me and my sensitive sensibilities. I love how it feels to experience the arts deeply, even when they capture life’s more difficult realities. In fact, I gravitate more toward artistic expressions of life’s shadows, because they help me feel not quite so alone in my intense experience of them. 

Susan Cain, too, evidences this in her book, Bittersweet, saying: “People whose favorite songs are happy listen to them about 175 times on average. But those who favor ‘bittersweet’ songs listen almost 800 times, according to a study by University of Michigan professors Fred Conrad & Jason Corey, and they report a ‘deeper connection’ to the music than those whose favorites made them happy. They tell researchers that they associate sad songs with profound beauty, deep connection, transcendence, nostalgia, and common humanity — the so-called sublime emotions.” 

This is the study Cain referenced, and I find it fascinating.

Does the above sound like you? It was certainly me at sixteen, and remains true today, too. And, overall, calming music is so soothing for HSPs.

It seems connecting deeply with the arts is more than a “quirk” of being highly sensitive. I’m taken by the word “transcendence” in Cain’s description. Perhaps our aesthetic sensitivity is so connected to our well-being because it allows us to transcend our often-overwhelming (and irritating) experience of this world and connect with a deeper reality.

So how can we nourish our aesthetic sensitivity? Exposing ourselves to more art isn’t just a luxurious self-care hack — it’s essential for your well-being as an HSP. Here are five ways to encourage your aesthetic sensitivity.

5 Ways to Encourage Your Aesthetic Sensitivity

1. Curate your social media feeds for positivity instead of negativity.

Many of our social media algorithms have fallen prey to the news addiction that has plagued our culture over the past few years. We need to take back our feeds to break the doom-scrolling cycle and use social media for good.

Cain seems to understand this, as she now regularly shares all manner of artistic inspirations on her social media channels. I love how artists like Morgan Harper Nichols, too, are transforming the Instagram square into a portal to the deeper reality that bewitches HSPs. 

So, paring down your news intake — while increasing your artistic follows — can make those algorithms start working for your aesthetic sensitivity rather than against it. 

2. Regardless of whether or not you call yourself an “artist,” honor your creative abilities and interests.

Years ago, a dear friend and accomplished graphic designer assured me that everyone is creative in one way or another. “Yeah, easy for you to say,” I thought as I unsuccessfully tried to hide my cynicism. I did not consider myself to possess a creative bone in my body. 

But I have since come around to her way of thinking and have begun to honor my own creative stirrings. After all, highly sensitive people are naturally creative — I just had to believe (and embrace) it!

During the height of the pandemic, I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic. In it, she encourages everyone to create, and also prescribes that we expand our creative endeavors beyond our perceived skillset. (And who knows? It may help us find our purpose, too!)

Maybe the COVID-19 lockdown stir-craziness lowered my inhibitions, but I impulsively decided to follow Gilbert’s advice. I borrowed my kindergartener’s Crayola watercolors set and dabbled with its bright, kid-friendly colors. My painting was as juvenile as the watercolors I used, but it was fun and felt like a true indulgence for my long-neglected creative side. The art itself wasn’t a masterpiece, but the art of creating made me happy. 

So what creative stirrings have you let fall by the wayside? Consider dusting them off and giving them the time they deserve. Your well-being will thank you, trust me.

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

3. Explore your own flavor of “artist dates.” 

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is a great read for all HSPs, no matter their perceived artistic inclinations. Cameron urges readers to “enchant” one’s consciousness, to “woo” it into wonder through what she calls “artist dates.” 

Sensitive people, including those without much artistic calling (I count myself among you!), can consider any experience that stirs that deep connection with your aesthetic awareness as an artist date. 

Though not exactly what Cameron might qualify as one, this concept has helped me steal away spare moments throughout my day to indulge my aesthetic sensitivity. I might take the 15 minutes I spend in the school carpool line to journal, which helps HSPs make sense of our emotions. Or I may practice my painting. Or I may really sink into whatever music is currently speaking to me (at a respectable volume, of course).

Artist dates need not cost anything either, as Cameron argues that even window-shopping can inspire your inner artist. But HSPs’ positive relationships to their aesthetic sensitivity is also permission to budget for artist date splurges, like tickets to your favorite musical or art exhibition when it comes to town. 

4. Sink into your favorite works of art like your well-being depends on it — because it does!

If you’re like me, Cain’s statistic I mentioned above accurately describes your relationship to your favorite artistic expressions of the “sublime emotions.” HSPs might feel “othered” by our relationship with the arts because we don’t know many other people who cling to songs, movies, or books the way we do. This used to embarrass me, but now I see that these creative works are faithful companions to my deeply-processing mind.  

I liken sensitivity to “sinking” into life’s experiences. Sinking into art that speaks to you — even for the 800th time — benefits your sensitive spirit. Others might not get it, but that’s just life as an HSP. Don’t discount your desire to relive these meaningful works of art again and again. Your aesthetic sensitivity longs for the depths, so let yourself sink.

5. But… know when to come up for air, too.

There’s a line between nourishing your sensitivities with art that captures your emotionality and sinking too far into the depths of human despair. So while we may be so drawn to melancholia that we could live forever in its grasp, that doesn’t mean we should. 

It’s important to know the limits of your sensitivity and when to avoid overconsumption, which leads to overstimulation… which is just another term for overwhelm, an HSP’s Achilles’ heel. 

And remember: Just because it’s art doesn’t mean it’s for you. Sometimes artistic works are meant to jolt people awake to the realities of life. HSPs tend to be wide awake to life’s difficulties as it is — we don’t necessarily need to expose ourselves to that which disturbs our sensitive spirits. There is a time to look into the depths of the human experience and a time when our sensitivity does plenty for us already. So know your limits and honor them.

As an HSP who spent most of her life denying her sensitivity, understanding the importance of nourishing my aesthetic sensitivity has been incredibly healing and, as the research indicates, has made me a more expansive person. I no longer see my deep connection with the arts as frivolous; I honor it as essential.

Whatever your artistic interests, they are worth prioritizing for your own well-being. (And if you’re a teenager, take it from me: nurture your love of the arts and protect your hearing!)

You might like:

• The Science Behind Why Calming Music Is So Soothing for HSPs
• How to (Actually) Find Your Purpose as a Highly Sensitive Person
• HSP Brains Process Everything Deeply, Even at Rest, Study Finds

This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post What Is ‘Aesthetic Sensitivity,’ and Why Is It So Important for HSPs? appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

What does the word “neurotic” mean to you? If you’re like me, harmful caricatures of an overly emotional, unstable person fill your mind. It’s certainly not something to add to the ol’ resume. 

While highly sensitive people are not inherently neurotic, they still suffer this stigma. Some might hear the term “highly sensitive” as synonymous with “neurotic,” and that’s not without reason. Cultural associations wrongly link sensitivity with emotional instability and fragility. 

On top of that, a 2019 study headed by sensitivity researcher Franisco Lionetti correlates high sensitivity with the personality trait called neuroticism — which is not exactly the same thing thing as “neurotic” in a general sense. While this link might be unsettling for some sensitive people, this kind of neuroticism does come with some advantages. A sensitive person’s tendency toward neuroticism — if it exists — may even be a feature of the evolutionary advantage of a having a highly responsive, deep-processing nervous system. 

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What is Neuroticism?

As a personality trait, neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotions with greater frequency and fluctuation, particularly in response to stress. Everyone has some level of neuroticism, and it’s part of what helps us avoid taking rash or dangerous actions — you can think of it like the little voice in your head that points out risks. As such, neuroticism is seen as a defining characteristic of human personality in the widely embraced ”Big 5” personality traits model. The Big 5 traits are represented by the acronym OCEAN and are as follows:

• Openness
• Conscientiousness
• Extroversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

These traits are evaluated along a continuum to define each person’s personality. For example, the trait of “extroversion” refers to the range of introversion to extroversion, in which every person falls somewhere along the spectrum. 

For neuroticism, someone on the higher end of the scale experiences more frequent feelings of depressed mood, self-consciousness, worry, and frustration than those on the lower end of the scale.

While no one enjoys negative emotions, they are a very normal aspect of human life and nothing to be ashamed about. This is the sentiment of Susan Cain’s best-selling book Bittersweet. Cain writes, “[Bittersweetness is] an authentic and elevating response to the problem of being alive in a deeply flawed yet stubbornly beautiful world.” Or, as Sensitive Refuge co-founder Andre Sólo wrote in the Sensitive Refuge newsletter, sensitive folks are “alert, responsive, and reactive,” so their tendency toward neuroticism is simply a byfactor of paying close attention to life’s realities. 

How Are Neuroticism and Sensitivity Connected?

While neuroticism is not a marker of sensitivity, it is a common experience among highly sensitive people (HSPs). For example, in Lionetti’s study, her team pulled together data from 27 papers representing more than 11,000 of people with Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS), which is one of several terms scientists use to refer to sensitivity. They wanted to evaluate how people with SPS related to the Big 5 personality traits. They found that HSPs consistently scored a little lower than average in Extroversion, a little higher than average in Openness, and moderately higher in Neuroticism.

If you’ve been around the HSP world for any length of time, you may take issue with that personality profile because not all sensitive people are introverts. But that only serves to illustrate that, while this profile is common among HSPs, there is still plenty of variation in sensitive people’s personalities.

Even so, the correlation between sensitivity and neuroticism is important because both can be indicators of higher rates of anxiety and depression. A big caveat here, though, is that although HSPs do tend to be more responsive to negative feelings, they have also been shown to be more responsive to positive emotions and positive stimuli — like a heartwarming video or a beautiful work of art. This “positive” sensitivity is so powerful that, in some studies, HSPs are actually the ones most likely to overcome depression. 

In other words: if you’re an HSP, you are more responsive to all of life, not hopelessly captive to the negative — no matter what a personality test says. 

How do you know if you’re “neurotic”? 

Just as not all highly sensitive people are introverted, not all are neurotic. While a person’s sensitivity has a “strong biological basis,” Lionetti writes in another article — and is therefore largely fixed over the course of your life — your personality is more influenced by your experiences in addition to your genes. As such, a sensitive person may or may not develop neuroticism, largely based on their life experiences. 

In her book, The Highly Sensitive Person, Dr. Elaine Aron wrote, “HSPs with a troubled childhood are more at risk of becoming depressed, anxious, and shy than those [less sensitive] with a similar childhood.” Here, HSPs’ responsiveness to our environments — what sensitivity researchers identify as differential susceptibility — is the biggest predictor of neuroticism in HSPs. In other words, HSP’s heightened responsiveness to a difficult childhood is what makes them more likely to develop neuroticism. The good news, again, is we are also more responsive to positive environments than less sensitive people, so much so that we can use our differential susceptibility to boost far ahead of others — regardless of what kind of childhood you have. 

Some signs you may score higher for neuroticism include:

• You don’t just think things through thoroughly, which all HSPs do, you feel a high degree of worry and “overthink” things
• You are shy or socially anxious
• You tend to jump to the worst conclusion about unexpected events (for example, you see an email from your boss and assume you’re in trouble)
• You frequently doubt yourself
• You feel guilty or afraid about minor things 
• You get stressed easily
• You have a hard time rebounding from negative emotions or working through them, and a hard time seeing that they will pass (all HSPs have strong emotions, but not all feel “stuck” in negative emotions like this)
• Your natural state is worrying about things
• You feel overwhelmed by small problems
• You get frustrated, irritable or angry easily
• Your emotions are unpredictable and can change suddenly 

If you have a hard time telling which of your behaviors come from being sensitive and which may come from neuroticism, you’re not alone — in her study, even Lionetti acknowledges that the link to neuroticism isn’t definite and may simply reflect bias in the scales used to measure sensitivity. 

Whatever the answer, though, it turns out a little neuroticism may actually be a good thing.

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

Is Neuroticism Ever an Advantage? 

Neuroticism is correlated with the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS), which is often strong in HSPs. Aron coined an alternative name for the BIS, the “pause-to-check” system, pointing to HSPs’ propensity to be alert, take in their surroundings, and make careful determinations based on all the stimuli they take in. 

This is a big factor in the evolutionary advantage that your high sensitivity gives you. The BIS serves as a check and balance on another system in the brain called the Behavioral Activation System (BAS), which is the brain’s reward system and is primed for impulsivity. Left to its own devices, the rash BAS would get a species in a lot of trouble, and the careful BIS serves as the brakes. In other words, the same BIS system that correlates with neuroticism also helps a species survive through informed caution. In fact, in their Big 5 analysis, Lionetti and her team grouped neuroticism and the BIS together, citing additional research that showed a strong association between the two. 

All this is to say that highly sensitive people’s neuroticism doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s a reasonable response to our sensitivity to our surroundings, particularly when those surroundings present difficulties, and it can be a very good thing — even if it’s not always comfortable.

3 Things Every HSP Needs to Know About Neuroticism 

We shouldn’t be so quick to be ashamed of neuroticism. After all, there are plenty of reasons to have negative feelings in life. When we see that having a greater tendency toward negative emotions is simply another way of being human, we can work with neuroticism the same way we work with any personality trait: We accept who we are and we improve where we can. Here are three important things to remember about an HSP’s neuroticism:

1. So-called “neuroticism” may be an important part of fully sensing the world. 

HSPs’ skew toward neuroticism is largely attributed to their heightened responsiveness to adverse circumstances. In other words, highly sensitive people are the canaries in the coal mine. It’s our job to notice when something isn’t right. Neuroticism is not a given for highly sensitive people but it may be a byproduct of our heightened experience in the world. It’s certainly not deserving of shame but rather is worthy of our care and support.

2. You can work with your neuroticism to create change in the world.

While neuroticism has its fair share of downsides, there are some considerable benefits to experiencing negative emotionality. Neuroticism can increase our awareness and motivation to improve our lives and the world. We can approach our negative emotions with a sense of curiosity. We can ask ourselves, “Why am I feeling this way and what can I do about it? What needs to change?” By staying open and curious, can use even our negative mood toward a productive end. 

3. Neuroticism is just a part of you that needs tending, like anything else. 

Of course, negative feelings don’t always need a productive solution. Sometimes they are just there and something for us to live through. Still, it’s worth tending to our neuroticism for our own personal growth, creative expression, and stronger relationships.

I’m working on conjuring up a gentler image when thinking about my own neurotic tendencies. Noticing life as much as we sensitive folks do is hard enough without piling on ourselves for noticing. The world is so beautiful that I’m often bothered by all the ways it’s not. What’s wrong with that? 

You Might Like:

• Being ‘Sensitive’ Isn’t Considered a Personality Trait. Here’s Why That Needs to Change.
• How Sensitive Is Each Myers-Briggs Personality Type?
• 11 ‘Little’ Things That Overwhelm Highly Sensitive People

This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post The Link Between Highly Sensitive People and ‘Neuroticism,’ According to Science appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

I’ve had a lifetime of denying myself. Growing up as a very spiritual kid, I found my way to a strict interpretation of religion by age ten. I believed obedience was the only path to holiness, to the point that I abandoned my own needs. The journey to be kinder and gentler with myself has been harrowing. 

As I’ve grown in understanding myself as a highly sensitive person, I see all the ways I berated my sensitivities in the name of holiness. Religious or not, many HSPs learn to neglect their sensitivities from a very young age. We are socialized into thinking we are making too much of a situation, and that we just need to get over our sensitivities. We are taught that the problem is us. 

We try to ‘toughen up’ and magically be unbothered by all the stimuli constantly bombarding our finely-tuned nervous systems. 

We deny ourselves.

When Was the Last Time You Indulged Your Sensitivity?

All this self-denial costs us more than discomfort. When we try to ignore our sensitivities or prove we can live like everyone else, we lose connection to our true selves. We lose our ability to trust our senses and instincts after working so hard to dismiss them. We stop feeling like a whole person.

This is devastating for highly sensitive people (HSPs). Our sensitivity is an important and valuable part of ourselves. We need to nurture our awareness, empathy, and responsiveness — not neglect them.

Personally, I’m on a journey of learning about the connection between feeling good in my body and being more of who I want to be. I spent so much of my life in a state of self-imposed neglect that now I’m experimenting with something that still makes my pious inner child squire: indulgence. 

I’m indulging my sensitivity. Giving it what it wants. Nourishing it.

It turns out that indulging my sensitivities has helped me be a more resilient HSP. It’s about working with our bodies in nurturing our nervous systems so that we can endure the tough world. That, in turn, nurtures your sensitive mind and soul. It helps you stop feeling overwhelmed, and start to feel whole.

If you’re like me and struggle to even know how to begin to practice indulgence, here are 23 little ways to get you started.

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23 ‘Indulgences’ that Make HSPS Feel Whole

1. Indulge in a good vibe. 

HSPs are sensitive to emotional energy and can’t help but notice a vibe — the mood or emotion of a room, place, or group of people. Since we are more responsive to what we take in, vibes impact us more, whether it’s the tension in a meeting at work or your child’s excitement over the day’s plans. Renowned psychologist Rick Hanson advises intentionally “Taking in the good”: lingering on good feelings and positive moments to balance out the negative bias of the brain. This is such good advice for HSPs — we might not be able to help but linger on a stressful or depressing vibe, but we can intentionally sink into the good ones, too. 

2. Indulge in blood sugar-balancing treats

In The Highly Sensitive Person’s Workbook, Elaine Aron explains that HSPs can easily deplete their blood sugar levels due to frequent overstimulation and overwhelm. Being overwhelmed is essentially a stress state, so our bodies go into overdrive to compensate. 

This has been a huge revelation for me. I have always struggled with feeling hunger symptoms more frequently and more intensely than others seemed to. Now I embrace a lifestyle of frequent blood sugar-balancing snacks and treats. 

3. Indulge in ‘Buffering’

I live in an area where we have to drive everywhere, so I’ve started taking a few minutes after I arrive and before I leave at a destination to just sit in the car and let myself buffer. I sit in silence, drink some water, observe my surroundings or close my eyes, whatever feels good. It sounds insignificant, but it has done wonders for my sensitive self. It’s like I’m letting my nervous system catch up and ease into what’s happening. I feel calmer and more connected to myself when I break the frantic cycle of getting to the next thing.

4. Indulge in affirming your strengths

Plenty has been written about our many sensitive strengths. But it’s easy to forget those strengths when you are out in a world that does not value them. 

That’s why this indulgence isn’t a vanity project. It’s a necessity. We have strengths the world needs so we must do our part to nurture and put them into action! Indulge in frequently affirming your strengths. Keep a notepad on your phone to remind you of all you bring to your friendships, job, and even just being out in the world. You bring awareness and empathy everywhere you go. Indulge in the truth of your strengths often.

(Not sure where to start? Here are some of the most powerful things you can say to yourself.)

5. Indulge in a daydream

Sometimes, when my husband notices me lost in thought, he’ll gently ask what I’m thinking about. I struggle to answer. I realize I’ve thought about approximately 500 things in about 30 seconds, all interconnected to each other in the complex web of my mind.

Daydreams and even zoning out help our minds catch up on their processing. Give your extra responsive brain the gift of an indulgent, aimless daydream.

6. Indulge in more comfort 

This idea might make me squirm the most. Part of piety, for me at least, involved valiantly seeking out discomfort in the name of holiness. But as an HSP, I don’t have to look very far to find discomfort. It’s a given in this deeply feeling body. So now I indulge in any little thing I can manage to make myself more comfortable. Maybe it’s a sip of water or finding a more comfortable chair. Comfort, I’m now convinced, is not a slippery slope into hedonism. It’s a precious refuge for our sensitive bodies.

7. Indulge in self-compassion

A big part of my spiritual journey has been to shift from constantly berating myself for all the ways I fall short of a religious ideal to instead treating myself with gentleness and compassion. I’m learning to have my own back instead of constantly tearing myself down. I’m practicing interrupting all the painful self-talk I used to do with a simple message: “I’m here, I’ve got you, this is hard and you are not alone.”

8. Indulge in sensitivity breaks 

When things are getting to be too much, indulge in a sensitivity break. If the situation warrants it, set an alarm on your phone, excuse yourself, and step out for 5-10, even 15 minutes if you can. Make these breaks as simple or elaborate as you like – maybe you listen to a favorite song or two or read a few pages of a book on your phone. I tend to prefer having a snack and a big glass of water and just sitting in silence, giving my body and mind a chance to breathe. When you’re out, use a bathroom stall if you must but I like to dream bigger – an empty balcony or spare room, someplace where I feel like I am truly sneaking away. It’s just divine!

9. Indulge your favorite sensory experiences 

We spend a lot of time dealing with light that’s too bright, noise that’s too loud, smells that are too strong, the list goes on and on. What sensory experiences can you offer yourself that utterly delight you? Don’t just focus on turning down the dial on stimuli that overwhelms you, indulgence in the sensory experiences that bring you joy! 

10. Indulge in crying

Listen, HSPs have their own rules about crying. Go ahead and forget about what the rest of the world says about it. Crying is one of the most integrated somatic experiences you can have, and no training or guidance is required. Just go ahead and cry if you want to! 

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

11. Indulge in personal days

Whether you work or study remotely or at a brick-and-mortar, HSPs deserve to take time off just for the sake of our mental health. We need routine days where we take a break from our responsibilities and focus on recharging however we see fit. 

12. Indulge in saying, ‘No’ 

As people pleasers, which HSPs often are, we need to keep up a practice of saying “No.” For us, it’s an ability that atrophies without practice. When you just don’t want to do it and can afford to refuse, indulge the ‘No.’

13. Indulge in play

Unstructured playtime is not just for kids! Humans need playfulness for a lifetime. Practice being open to whatever your mind conjures up and go with it, even for just a few minutes — or try these suggestions.

14. Indulge in giving 50% 

Remind your perfectionism that it’s a facade. HSPs tend to give 110% on everything, big or small, which is just exhausting. Let 50% be enough from time to time. (You may be surprised to find that an HSP’s 50% is still an A+ by most people’s standards.)

15. Indulge in the scenic route

Yes, fuel consumption is an important consideration. But when and where you can sustainably do so, take the long way ’round. A little extra time watching the world go by, maybe even taking the scenic route just for the beauty of it, treats our sensitive souls. 

16. Indulge in sad songs

I’m all for a happy jam that turns my perpetual frown upside down. But it’s just a fact that sad songs are always going to be my favorites. They connect with a deep part of me that little else does. Of course, take care not to go too deep into depressive-inducing music if you know that’s a gateway into depressive moods for you. But as much as sad songs help you with your emotional responsiveness, indulge them. 

17. Indulge in memories

Remember number 1, taking in good vibes? Sometimes it helps to indulge the memories of the good moments. I keep a journal of funny, sweet, precious things my kids say and do, and simply the act of keeping it helps me take in the good of those fleeting moments. Put your responsive brain to work for you by indulging in memories. 

18. Indulge just being in nature

I am all for nature walks, hikes, and activities galore. Have at it. But I think we have largely lost the art of just getting out in nature and doing nothing.

I noticed this on a road trip through several national parks in the American West. Of course, people will be bustling about at the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, or Yosemite. There is so much to see and do! But my favorite moments on that trip are when I got still: Waiting for the sunset over the Grand Canyon. Taking in Old Faithful. Sitting in the grass in Yosemite Valley. I took that stillness home with me. When I go to my local park, I politely smile at the passers-by while I find the perfect spot to just sit and be. 

19. Indulge in deep-dive friend dates

Make a date with that one friend who loves to deep dive with you and let yourself go all in on what you’ve been sinking into lately. 

20. Indulge in movement 

I refuse to be prescriptive here. This is about indulgence, after all. So, what does indulgent movement look like for you? Can you even make exercise indulgent?

For me, a carefully curated playlist has always been key. Not just filled with hype, but with whatever connects my emotions to my movement. In fact, my workout playlists are shockingly melancholic. The right music, even downers, helps me find the right movement and pace to release some of that pent-up emotion I carry around all the time as an HSP. 

For others, gentle exercise like yoga, perhaps while listening to a podcast to give your mind a break, might be better. (I promise not to tell your yoga teacher!)

21. Indulge in an HSP nap…

Otherwise known as a yoga inversion, but I can personally attest to its use for HSPs. Lie on the floor with your legs up against a wall. According to HSP expert Alane Freund, a 3-minute HSP nap is the equivalent of a 30-minute actual nap. Check out her video on the HSP nap and try it for yourself! 

22. …Or indulge in an actual nap

Of course, an actual nap is also worth indulging in. Research suggests that HSPs are deeply processing even at rest, so we deserve a nap when we can indulge in one! 

23. Indulge in slowing down 

I connect my compulsion to be productive with my religious background. There was a spirit of always doing for the church and what a joy it should be to be doing more, giving more, and volunteering more, more, more. It only left me exhausted and feeling like a “slothful” failure. Now I see that keeping pace with this sense of productivity is not a moral failing. I’m learning it’s okay to move at my own pace, even though it means I will never keep up with less-sensitive people. Now I know I’m not supposed to. Sensitive strengths don’t fit into insensitive timetables.  

I used to see indulgence as akin to the deadly sins. Now I see it as essential to living a thriving HSP life. If we can balance out those inevitable hardships with a little indulgence here and there, we’ll be more connected to ourselves, more resilient in an insensitive world, and “more” of who we are meant to be. In other words: we’ll finally be our whole selves.

What are your favorite sensitivity indulgences?

You might like:

• 18 Things That Fill Highly Sensitive People With Joy
• These 8 Things Bring Peace to Highly Sensitive People
• How Being a Highly Sensitive Person Affects Your Body Physically

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The post 23 Things That Make HSPs Feel Whole Again appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

You’ve arrived. Your first day of high school, college, a new job, your wedding day, a career achievement, or moving to a new city — pick your milestone. 

Expectations are high. You may be excited and confident or nervous and cautious. Either way, you have an image in your head of how the big moment will go: what you will say and do, how others will react, and perhaps how you will feel. If nothing else, you’ve got a plan.

Then the thing happens. 

On the other side of it is the reality of what actually went down. Maybe it exceeded your expectations or miserably crashed and burned. Whatever occurred, it’s a universal truth that our expectations and realities rarely match up. 

Why Expectations Rarely Match Reality for Highly Sensitive People

For highly sensitive people, who are capable of painting entire worlds in our heads, even everyday events can misalign with our expectations. Maybe it’s just a night out with friends, a company meeting, or a concert you’ve been anticipating. Our high expectations can put too much pressure on ordinary experiences while our negative expectations can hold us back from just living life. 

Sensitive people’s expectations are influenced by our deep cognitive processing, which is a cornerstone of high sensitivity. Deep processing refers to the nervous system’s ability to thoroughly and carefully assess all sorts of stimuli, including physical, emotional, and relationships between ideas. Highly sensitive people (HSPs), who spend more mental resources on this kind of deep processing, utilize all the intel from their past experiences and present perceptions to make predictions. Oftentimes, those predictions are shockingly accurate. 

Other times, however, we see so clearly how things should go and it’s extremely frustrating when they don’t end up that way. You might call this “expectations vs. reality” syndrome — and it may hit HSPs especially hard. 

Let’s be clear: Having big expectations — or just specific expectations — isn’t a bad thing. In fact, your expectations are a tool that can shape reality. But they can also lead to a lot of heartbreak, disappointment and confusion. Here’s the thing, though: it doesn’t have to be that way.

If we can temper our expectations and be intentional in curating our reality when and where we can, those realities can exceed HSP’s expectations. It just takes a little recalibration. Here are seven examples of common “expectations vs. reality” clashes for HSPs — and how to reframe them.

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7 ‘Expectations vs. Realities’ for HSPs

1. Expectation: They’ll notice all the effort you put into the little things.

Reality: Others don’t necessarily share your attention to detail. 

Whether it’s a work project or a friend’s birthday gift, HSPs tend to go all in on our efforts. We can’t help but be meticulous and that’s a strength we bring to any situation. It can be frustrating that others don’t pick up on the details like we do. HSPs put big effort into little things and we can skillfully advocate for that effort. Instead of being hurt when our effort goes unnoticed, we can highlight the ways the thing we were so meticulous about is especially meaningful or useful, whatever the case may be. 

Silver Lining: HSPs can be confident in their meticulous effort and see it as a strength worth highlighting.

2. Expectation: Others will be moved by a book/movie/song just as deeply as you are.

Reality: You experience art on another level and others don’t always relate — even close friends.

This one really affects me. When I want to share a work of art that has impacted me, it feels like an act of vulnerability, like I am revealing a deep part of myself in sharing a meaningful song or movie recommendation. When the other person doesn’t respond as I expect, it can feel like rejection. I realize it isn’t fair to put so much pressure on someone else’s experience. They have a right to their experience as much as I do. I’m learning to appreciate my experience in its own right and removing expectations from others to feel the same way. 

Silver Lining: Your connection to artistic expression enriches your life. Even if others don’t share it, you can and should appreciate its depth.

3. Expectation: Your twenties will be the best years of your life.

Reality: Young adulthood is filled with transition and self-discovery, which can be especially intense for HSPs.

This is an expectation that everyone — HSP or not — needs to drop. There is magic and hardship throughout every decade of life and ‘the best years’ will be unique to everyone. We set ourselves up for disappointment when we put pressure on an entire decade of our lives to deliver prescribed expectations. Life is beautiful and difficult whether you are 22 or 82. While your twenties may be particularly intense, there is beauty in your intensity and you’ll get the most out of your transition into adulthood if you lean into your sensitive strengths. 

Notably, the same goes for other vaunted seasons of life, whether it be your high school or college years, your thirties, the day you finally have a baby, or your golden years when the kids are out of the house. Each will have a mix of joys and challenges.

Silver Lining: Your sensitivity ensures that you’ll squeeze every last drop out of all that your life has to offer, and that’s a gift at every age.

4. Expectation: The event will be too overwhelming so there’s no point in going.

Reality: Okay, it might be overwhelming! But if you can care for your sensitivities, the event might surprise you. 

HSPs can talk themselves out of just about anything. There are always a million reasons not to do something and HSPs can think of two million reasons. It’ll be too noisy, too crowded, too bright. The traffic! The smells! The uncertainties! And remember, our sensitivities lend themselves to psychic-like abilities on occasion so this all may not only be possible, but probable. 

The reality is, while life is full of overstimulation for HSPs, prioritizing enriching and memorable experiences is worth dealing with the ways they are overwhelming. We can exceed our expectations by caring for our sensitivities. Arrive early, get as much information ahead of time as possible, bring earplugs and a snack, step out for a sensitivity break, plan to leave early, and schedule downtime before and after. Is that a lot of effort? Sure. Is it worth it for a life filled with exploration and experiences? Absolutely. 

Silver Lining: This expectation of overwhelm may be accurate, but HSPs can exceed it by accommodating our sensitive needs.

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

5. Expectation: Your friends will want to deep dive into conversations just like you.

Reality: HSPs often feel a bit out of step with their friends when it comes to emotional depth and desired level of connection.

HSPs can and should live from our depths with confidence. We do this by inviting others to go deeper and accepting that they might not always be in a place to join in. Relationships are a give-and-take of depth and levity. We can’t always assume that others will pursue the level of connection we want but we can take charge of this expectation by extending the invitation to go deeper. 

Silver Lining: HSPs can enjoy a life of depth and meaning in our rich inner lives and by encouraging deeper connections in our relationships.

6. Expectation: Your professional and/or parenting life will flow naturally.

Reality: For HSPs, balancing work and family with the rest of life requires continual recalibration. There are ebbs and flows and it’s often messy.

HSPs long for meaning. We seek it out in every facet of our lives which may be a worthy pursuit but it also adds a lot of pressure. We can struggle with the mundanity of life’s big meaning-makers. A fulfilling career is still working a job. Raising amazing humans demands tedious tasks day after day. A satisfying relationship requires gritty intention. 

The key, then, is to learn to care for ourselves in all the little things so they can add up to the big goal of a meaningful life. Dealing with the overwhelm of the tiny steps needed for a life of purpose is hard work. It requires proper self-care on the daily and is not something many of us have examples of in our lives. It won’t come naturally at first and it will always be messy. We just have to remember that our big, lofty longings in life won’t happen without taking care of ourselves in those small steps. 

Silver Lining: Learning to take care of ourselves as we pursue a meaningful life helps us excel in all of it.

7. Expectation: Your life will look like everyone else’s.

Reality: A life like everyone else’s is overrated and is a surefire path to burnout for HSPs. 

What good is a life like everyone else’s if it makes you miserable? Partying, living on little sleep, and being on the go constantly — the sort of stimulation that others might find exhilarating and satisfying often have the opposite effect on HSPs. Are we really missing out if we don’t even enjoy the things we see everyone else doing? 

FOMO is a convincing threat, but true contentment comes when we learn to curate a life that speaks to us, regardless of how it matches up to someone else’s. HSP expert Alane Freund calls this one of the “Five to Thrive” golden rules for HSPs. 

Silver Lining: Seeking a life aligned with your sensitive nature can lead to one you actually enjoy. 

The ultimate reality is this: When HSPs embrace that our experience is unique to us, we can find and create a fulfilling life that surpasses expectations.

You Might Like:

• 16 Ways to Calm the Heck Down When You’re a Highly Sensitive Overthinker
• How to Let Go of Perfectionism as an HSP — and Strive for Excellence
• HSPs, Are You an Orchid, a Dandelion, or a Tulip?

This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post <strong>Why Expectations Rarely Match Reality for HSPs — And What to Do About It</strong> appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

My two kids are wildly different from each other. One is free-spirited, endlessly energetic, and generally carefree. The other is introspective, deeply observant, and careful. The most accurate, all-encompassing way I can explain their differences is through the Swedish terms maskrosbarn and orkidbarn, meaning “dandelion child” and “orchid child.” 

First developed by researchers Dr. Thomas Boyce and Dr. Bruce Ellis — and popularized in Boyce’s book, The Orchid and the Dandelion — these flower metaphors describe two fundamental ways in which children are influenced by their environments:

• Dandelion children are less affected by their circumstances and can find a way to flourish just about anywhere, the way the sturdy little flower might sprout up from a crack in the pavement.
• Orchid children, on the other hand, are strongly affected by their surroundings. They need a specific environment and attentive care to thrive. As sensitivity researcher Michael Pluess says, “Orchids can develop particular delicacy and beauty when raised under the right conditions.”

My own children, one a maskrosbarn and one an orkidbarn, follow this pattern. They’ve had very similar life experiences, living under the same roof with the same parents, yet their response to their environment has been as different as a dandelion and an orchid planted in the same pot.

The Three Sensitivity Flower Types

Researchers have been analyzing sensitivity for decades, with many focusing on differentiating the trait of high sensitivity from those who score “average” or “low” for sensitivity. Drawing on Boyce and Ellis’ research on “Biological Sensitivity to Context,” sensitivity levels have classified people as either “orchids” or “dandelions” to illustrate the differences between highly sensitive people — who account for nearly 30 percent of the population — vs. the other 70 percent of people.

This wasn’t an effort to be exclusionary, but simply a means of understanding how highly sensitive people (HSPs) are different from those who are less-sensitive: HSPs are very aware of, and affected by, their surroundings. Non-HSPs aren’t. For example, HSPs are more affected by emotions, more aware of subtle stimuli, and even process information more deeply than non-HSPs. They are the varsity players of deep thinking and wholehearted feeling, but — compared to rugged dandelions — they get overstimulated easily by everything they take in.

But that isn’t the whole story. 

While high-sensitive dandelions and low-sensitive orchids have helped us understand the two ends of the continuum, research has never divided people into simple “haves” and “have-nots” when it comes to sensitivity. Instead, Pluess points out that people can fall anywhere from “low” to “medium” to “high” levels of sensitivity. Lots of people, indeed the majority, are “medium.” 

So a third category was added:

• Tulip children are more sensitive to their environment than dandelions are, but not as much so as orchids are. They’re “average.”

So we can think of sensitivity as a bouquet. Dandelions are people with low levels of sensitivity, orchids have higher levels, and those somewhere in the middle are referred to as tulips. 

But just how deep do the differences go? 

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

How Does Being an Orchid, Tulip, or Dandelion Affect Your Personality?

Sensitivity is part of your temperament, meaning it’s something more deeply innate and permanent than your personality, which can change. But personality and sensitivity do affect each other. To understand how, researchers explored how sensitivity levels relate to the “Big 5” personality traits, which are identified by the acronym OCEAN:

Openness

Openness refers to one’s curiosity and willingness to explore new ideas and experiences. Orchids (HSPs) tend to be very open, perhaps due to our deep processing and empathy. Orchids naturally look at a situation from all different angles and can analyze and empathize with varying points of view. 

Dandelions might have to be more intentional to cultivate openness, because they don’t process as deeply or analyze as thoroughly as orchids. And tulips may enjoy delving into abstract ideas to a point (perhaps more than dandelions) or they may be more readily enthusiastic for novel experiences than orchids, who have much more to consider before trying something new.

Conscientiousness 

Conscientiousness often refers to someone’s thoughtfulness. Leaingd sensitivity researcher Elaine Aron has long-praised HSPs for our careful consideration of others. However, the Big 5 combines an organizational and goal-oriented aspect to thoughtfulness, resulting in someone’s level of conscientiousness. So while HSPs are usually very thoughtful by default, we are not strongly correlated with conscientiousness in the context of the Big 5. Many of us are strongly driven by our intuition, which is less concerned with staying organized or pursuing some external goal. 

Similarly, dandelions may be very driven and organized, but may not be as careful to consider how their plans might affect an array of variables as orchids would. Tulips will likely inhabit some variation of middle ground of thoughtfulness, combined with being organized and driven. 

Extroversion/Introversion 

Extroversion/Introversion is not as strongly associated with sensitivity as researchers originally thought. While orchids lean toward introversion, research confirms that they can also be extroverted. This just means where someone falls along the extroversion/introversion spectrum is less indicative of sensitivity levels than one might presume. 

Still, extroverted dandelions probably interact in a crowd quite differently from extroverted orchids. The elements of social settings that contribute to overstimulation will still affect sensitivity levels, even if someone is extroverted. For example, introverted tulips may enjoy a crowded theme park more than extroverted orchids, due to their sensitivity to the park’s atmosphere (lights, sounds, smells, etc). 

Agreeableness

Agreeableness has an interesting relationship with sensitivity. Agreeableness is the spectrum of how kind, trusting, well-meaning, and even empathetic someone is, which one would think more sensitive folks possess in droves. And that’s true to an extent, as orchids are often good friends and people-pleasers. 

But being agreeable also requires people to be easily adaptable and malleable for the sake of others. Remember, orchids are defined by their susceptibility to their surroundings. We cannot forego our needs as easily as dandelions might, even for the sake of others whom we deeply love and care about. While orchids are not strongly correlated with agreeableness, it’s unlikely that we are uncaring or unconcerned with others. It’s simply that we cannot adjust our environment as readily or easily as dandelions or tulips and still thrive. 

Neuroticism

Neuroticism measures how reactive and susceptible someone is to life circumstances, like stress, threats, and hardships. (The word “neuroticism” is misleading: as a personality trait, it’s not a bad thing, and isn’t synonymous with mental illness.) Understandably, orchids are strongly correlated with neuroticism because we need the right environment to flourish. Dandelions may be able to experience a myriad of stressors and curveballs in life — and keep on growing. Tulips, meanwhile, may struggle when hardships come their way, but can dust themselves off and move on more readily than orchids. Orchids often feel the negative effects of these things more intensely and need more time to recover. 

But there’s an upside to orchids’ “neuroticism” or emotional reactivity: We may be more responsive to life’s hardships, but studies show we are more reactive to life’s joys than dandelions or tulips, as well.

The Sensitivity Bouquet and Emotional Reactivity

In addition to the Big 5 personality traits, the researchers above also studied the differences in emotional reactivity between the sensitivity levels. Sensitivity is characterized in part by being more responsive to one’s emotions — being a deep-feeler or wearing your heart on your sleeve. If you’re an orchid, you’ve probably been teased (or even shamed) about this at some point in your life because it is generally seen as a problem. 

But when evaluating emotional reactivity, researchers found that orchids have even stronger reactions to positive emotional stimuli (researchers measured reactions to a heart-warming video clip in the study) than they do to negative emotional stimuli (a sad video clip). In fact, the study found that there wasn’t a significant difference in how dandelions, tulips, and orchids responded to the sad video clip. The differences were more evident between sensitivity levels in reactions to the heart-warming clip, with orchids reacting more strongly than tulips or dandelions.

Orchids’ positive emotional reactivity has been confirmed in children and it’s even suggested that HSPs may stay in these positive emotional states longer than less-sensitive folks.

Boyce refers to this as an orchid’s “exquisite sensitivity.” Science confirms that while everyone benefits from understanding their sensitivity levels better, it’s especially important that orchids understand theirs, for cultivating an environment in which we can thrive will have especially beneficial outcomes. Orchids may never sprout and grow from a crack in the pavement, but in the right environment — and with proper care and attention — they are exquisite. 

5 Crucial Lessons for Highly Sensitive People and ‘Orchids’

So, now what? Here are some key takeaways from the “sensitivity bouquet”:

1. Sensitivity isn’t an “all or nothing” equation. 

Everyone has varying levels of sensitivity, and orchids can be curious about others’ sensitivity to find common ground. In fact, just as tulips and dandelions can tap into their sensitivity if they focus on it, HSPs can tap into their “inner dandelion” when they absolutely need to muscle through something. Just be sure to take extra time for rest and emotional processing afterward!

2. When you’re having a hard time, compared to others, know that you aren’t “weak” or “less-than.” 

You just need the right conditions to thrive — and you deserve to pursue them. In fact, in some ways you might even be more resilient than others, because you get more of a boost out of support, resources, and mentoring, and you have the power to build those things into your life. This is what Andre Sólo, coauthor of the book Sensitive, calls the sensitive “Boost Effect,” and it’s what makes sensitive people strong. “Sensitive people can even end up being more resilient to stress than less-sensitive people are,” Sólo writes. “Sensitive people are not hothouse orchids who wither in anything but the most perfect conditions. Rather, they are akin to succulents: No drop of nourishment escapes them, and they continue to absorb it until they swell with lovely blossoms.”

3. Your “dandelion” and “tulip” friends can still be quite sensitive. 

Don’t always assume they won’t notice or be bothered by things as you are. Everyone has a sensitive site, and when tulips and dandelions get hit by theirs, they often lack the skills to navigate it the way HSPs have learned to do through a lifetime of experience. That means that your emotional intelligence, your compassion, and your willingness to talk about emotions — which many people are afraid to do — can be invaluable to those you love. 

4. Use your openness to learn from tulips and dandelions. 

How do they navigate their varying sensitivities? In light of their relationship to their “sensitive side,” how might you approach your own sensitivities with more care, acceptance, and ease? For example, you may know tulips or dandelions who are actually better at regulating their emotions than you are, or who have a life philosophy that helps make it easier to shrug off little things every once in a while. You’ll never adopt their strategies wholesale, and doing so wouldn’t be healthy, but there’s probably as much you can learn from your less-sensitive loved ones as they can learn from you.

5. Sensitivity is, at its core, an awareness. 

So honor sensitivity at whatever level it manifests for you (not what society says about it).

Every year, my orchid and dandelion kids both love to spot the first dandelion flowers of spring. I marvel at a field of tulips painting the landscape in vivid color. An orchid’s unique and delicate beauty is mesmerizing. In the wild, each flower is awe-inspiring in its own right. The same is true of the sensitivity bouquet.

It’s no small thing to pick up on something others miss. Honoring sensitivity is a willingness to say that even the little things matter. We HSPs may say this about more things than most, but the sentiment is always important. 

What do you think about the sensitivity bouquet? Does it reflect your experience of your own sensitivity and those around you? Are you a dandelion, tulip, or orchid? (I’d love to hear in the comments below!) However you identify, the most important thing is to know what you need to grow and flourish. 

You might like:

• How Being a Highly Sensitive Person Affects Your Body Physically
• Why Do So Many Highly Sensitive People Struggle with ‘Gifted Kid Syndrome’?
• 21 Signs You’re a Highly Sensitive Person

The post HSPs, Are You an Orchid, a Dandelion, or a Tulip? appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

Fragile: adjective; Easily broken or damaged. Flimsy or insubstantial. Easily Destroyed. Not strong or sturdy. Delicate and vulnerable. 

Eff that. 

If you’re a sensitive person, you’ve probably been called fragile at some point in your life. It packs a punch and carries a sting. It can shatter your self-perception and self-worth, just as the word implies. Maybe it’s a label that has followed you around, a scarlet letter “F” hung around your neck. Maybe you’ve tried to conceal it, making sure no one ever suspected it beneath your armor of defense mechanisms. 

Maybe this was even the intent of those who hurled that F-bomb at you, hoping to toughen you up by whatever means necessary — “for your own good,” of course, as I’m sure they assured themselves. 

Fragility has been at the forefront of cultural conversation in recent years, particularly in the United States. Commentaries abound on the “coddling” of college students who can’t bear to be challenged. The fragility of those with privilege whenever that privilege is critiqued. The derogatory term “snowflake,” which weaponizes one of the most stunning and intricate designs in nature and turns it into the ultimate diss. 

Perhaps the only thing our culture seems to agree on is that fragility is bad. 

So when sensitive souls are labeled fragile, we know it implies deficiency. It carries connotations of moral weakness and breaking under pressure. Fragile people — like us, we’re told — must be handled with kid gloves and never trusted to their own devices. 

No wonder people are ashamed of being sensitive. Finding out you’re a highly sensitive person (HSP) might as well mean being a highly fragile person. That’s about as close to an expletive as you can get in our toughness-obsessed culture. 

And I’m over it.  

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Are Sensitive People Fragile? 

The trait of high sensitivity does include higher-than-average levels of emotional reactivity which some researchers equate with emotional fragility. We are also more sensitive to subtle physical details in our surroundings. So yes, we might cry more easily. We might also get overstimulated in chaotic or intense environments. 

But we also think more deeply, innovate more, and see solutions that others miss. On average, we sensitive people likely make better decisions than others do. 

We also enter deeper levels of empathy. We experience our own emotions more intensely, including positive emotions, and we are capable of tremendous passion. Above all, we are resilient — we keep going. After all, we function in a society that is very often not functional for us. 

So it’s worth asking, when something shows wear and tear after being in an environment it’s not meant for, when it sometimes breaks doing a job it isn’t designed to do, does that make it fragile?

Or are we viewing sensitivity — and fragility — all wrong?

What Science Says About HSPs’ So-Called Fragility

In his book The Orchid and the Dandelion, W. Thomas Boyce outlines his extensive research differentiating people with higher levels of environmental sensitivity (which he identifies as ‘orchids’) from the majority of the population who are less affected by their environment (‘dandelions’). 

The flower metaphor beautifully illustrates the role of the environment in our sensitivity, which is a fundamental factor of Dr. Jay Belsky’s research on what he calls “differential susceptibility.” It explores the ways people are more or less “susceptible” to our environments and unsurprisingly finds that HSPs are more affected by our surroundings. 

The concept of differential susceptibility first focused on how people are affected by their childhoods. In her book The Highly Sensitive Person, psychologist Elaine Aron explains that HSPs with more difficult childhoods tend to suffer more as a result than less-sensitive folks. This is evident even in siblings who grew up in the same household. 

At face value, this makes sensitive people seem more fragile. It’s the same way a delicate orchid would wither in a crack in the sidewalk while a dandelion shoots up healthy and strong. But as Boyce importantly points out, “Orchids are not broken dandelions… Within the struggles and frailties of orchids lies an unimagined strength and redemptive beauty.”. 

And here’s the thing. Differential susceptibility doesn’t just refer to negative factors in our environment. It suggests that when HSPs have positive experiences, they benefit even more from those than less-sensitive people. This is a lifelong effect: even a sensitive person with a difficult childhood is more likely to rocket ahead when they have resources, mentoring, or social support later in life. It’s what Andre Sólo and Jenn Granneman, the coauthors of the book Sensitive, refer to as the sensitive “Boost Effect.”

In other words, the same sensitivity that makes us “fragile” also makes us even more likely to flourish in the right environment. Sólo and Granneman go so far as to say that sensitivity is an evolutionary advantage. 

Take that, fragility.

The Hard Part of Being ‘Fragile’

Many sensitive people have hearts that break wide open at the pain and suffering of the world. That is quite different from egotistically fragile people who are easily offended, their egos brittle and easily bruised. But it is difficult in its own way. 

As sensitive people, our “fragility” becomes a problem when our own emotional reactions come at the expense of other people. It is our response to fragility that matters, especially in its impact on those around us. This means practicing compassion, rather than pulling away. It means developing your emotional intelligence and learning to self-soothe. And it means that hardest lesson of all: remembering that some critique is merited, even if it stings.

This also applies to how we treat ourselves as a result of our so-called fragility. If your emotional reactivity causes you to feel inadequate, ashamed, or defective, you are using it as a weapon against yourself. 

The key, then, is in caring for our ‘fragility’ as a gardener nurtures their prized orchid. We must tend to our sensitivities so we can withstand the difficult realities of this life. That’s where resilience lives. 

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

How to Turn Your ‘Fragility’ Into a Strength

I still don’t care for the F-word. I don’t think it’s used accurately in the context of human experiences. I disagree with the popular assumption that fragility is the absence of resilience. We live in a fragile world with fragile ecosystems, a fragile climate, fragile societal structures, and fragile relationships. The evolution and endurance of all of these things prove fragility and resilience are not mutually exclusive. 

Still, as long as people insist on throwing around the F-word, I say we recognize it as a badge of honor instead of a scarlet letter. We can do this in many ways, including: 

• Recognizing your own resilience. Sensitive people may actually be more resilient than “tough” people, because of our deeper cognitive processing. (And the fact that we feel and process as deeply as we do and still keep going proves our resiliency.)

• Exercise “grit.” It’s a lie that fragility and grit can’t coexist. We just have to keep recovering from our emotional reactivity and keep pursuing an environment where we can thrive. 
• Nurture your vulnerability while disarming your defense mechanisms. Acknowledge the defenses you’ve constructed to protect yourself at the expense of others. By accepting your susceptibility to your life circumstances and honoring your needs as a result, you can protect yourself without doing harm.
• Connect to the universal reality of fragility. In nature, fragility is the rule, not the exception. Being susceptible to this fragile world doesn’t make you defective, it simply makes you part of the whole. 
• Celebrate your sensitivity. When someone uses “sensitive” as an insult, I always wonder, is their preference insensitivity? I would much rather live open to all life has to offer than be so tough that life becomes inaccessible to me.
  

HSPs, when someone hurls an F-bomb at you, remember that you notice what they miss. Life itself is full of fragility, as tender as your loving empathy, as ornate as a delicate orchid, as intricate as a vast ecosystem. Perhaps we can transform the word from a profanity into a balm, healing the wounds we bear from experiencing life as intensely as we do. 

Together, perhaps we can redefine the word:

Fragile: adjective; Easily shattered by suffering and easily moved to empathy. Sensitive to one’s surroundings, both positive and negative. Delicate and resilient. Especially capable of flourishing with the proper support. Susceptible to life’s beauty and brokenness. Brave.

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The post Why ‘Fragile’ Is a Dirty Word for HSPs appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

She can’t hang out tonight. I must have done something to upset her and now she doesn’t want to be around me anymore.

They said I’m a great friend but anyone would have done the same thing.

I said the dumbest thing in the meeting. I’m always so awkward. I shouldn’t even try for the promotion because I’m clearly not cut out for this. 

If you’re a sensitive, responsive person, you can probably think of a time or two (or three…) when you’ve had harmful thoughts like these — the kind of thoughts that hold you back — as well as a time when you’ve helped a friend through them. 

For me, it’s easy to see why these types of thoughts are harmful or inaccurate when someone else is the one expressing them about themselves. And I know what to do: I have a compassionate “reframe” ready to go to help the person realize the glitch in their thinking — and how it’s selling them short. I’m highly sensitive, after all. I can see a situation clearly and empathize with someone stuck in their harmful perspective. I can usually help lead them out of their pessimism and into a positive, clear outlook.

However, when I’m the one with these thoughts, it’s a whole other story. They become gospel truth. I dig up a lifetime of evidence to support them. Suddenly, it’s positive outlooks are for everyone else. I see my own life situations with bleak “realism” — which is typically just a way to justify tearing myself down. 

It turns out there is a reason for these conflicting interpretations of our harmful thoughts: humans are good at tricking themselves. In fact, psychology has a term for this kind of mental self-trickery: cognitive distortions.

What Are Cognitive Distortions?

Cognitive distortions are inaccurate thought patterns that distort our perception of reality, usually by making it more negative. Born out of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), one of the most widely embraced interventions in psychotherapy today, cognitive distortions are harmful — they bias us to feel bad about ourselves. 

These biases can affect sensitive people differently than others. Often, they hold us back.

Of course, as sensitive folks, we take pride in our ability to see things with pristine clarity thanks to our extra-responsive brains. In fact, science confirms that highly sensitive people’s brains really do operate differently from less-sensitive people’s. For example, a 2011 study led by neuropsychologist Jadzia Jagiellowicz utilized fMRI scans to show that sensitive people’s brains respond to visual stimuli with greater activation in parts of the brain. Likewise, a 2021 study led by neuroscientist Bianca Acevedo revealed that sensitive brains continue to process information deeply even when at rest. 

Even with our responsive brains and strong intuition, highly sensitive people (HSPs) can fall into distorted thinking just as much as the next person — and perhaps more so, given our tendency to overthink! 

So how do we know when to trust our thoughts and when to refute them? How do we know if our minds are protecting us or holding us back? 

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The Key to Stopping Harmful Thoughts

The key to stopping cognitive distortions is to get curious about your own thoughts. 

This is no easy task because, in the moment, you won’t want to to believe that these harmful thoughts aren’t accurate representations of reality. After all, they seek to validate themselves and gather mountains of (flawed) evidence to prove their accuracy. We think they’re truthful because, unchallenged, they present a convincing argument. 

Not only that, cognitive distortions become so familiar that we mistake them for safety. They quickly reinforce themselves and become habitual, so we turn to them again and again because we confuse their flawed logic for helpful self-protection. In reality, all they really do is stress us out and hold us back.

That’s why it’s so important to question, challenge, and ultimately replace harmful thoughts with helpful ones. There’s a reason CBT is so widely used in therapy: it’s designed to help you identify and challenge habitual, harmful thoughts. That’s why so many of the techniques I offer below are drawn directly from CBT. (Working with a CBT therapist is also a great option if you find yourself identifying heavily with cognitive distortions.)

So what kind of cognitive distortions should you be looking for? What do they look like, and how do you catch them — and change them? 

7 Harmful Thoughts that Hold HSPs Back the Most (and Helpful Alternatives to Get Your Brain Back on Track)

While HSPs can fall prey to any cognitive distortions, a few stand out as especially common and harmful for sensitive people. By learning to identify these harmful thought patterns, you can get your thinking back on track — and start utilizing your sensitive brain the way it was meant to be used. 

1. “It’s always my fault.”

Type of Cognitive Distortion: Personalization

Example: “My friend couldn’t hang out tonight. I must not be fun to be around.” 

We fall into this harmful thought pattern when we connect personal responsibility to outcomes that have little, or nothing, to do with us. Despite our keen ability as HSPs to see and evaluate other plausible explanations, personalization happens when you still convince yourself that you’re to blame. 

Helpful Thought Alternatives:  If they have given me a reason, I can trust it. If they haven’t, I can’t know for sure that it’s about me. What other possible explanations could there be that have nothing to do with me? 

2. “The worst will happen.”

Type of Cognitive Distortion: Catastrophizing

Example: “If my partner leaves me, I’ll be alone for the rest of my life.” 

We HSPs can see a myriad of possible outcomes from an event. But thanks to the brain’s negativity bias we can get stuck on the worst-case scenario in any given situation. It’s a gift of foresight that ends up being more of a curse. The good news is we can make our seemingly “psychic” powers work for us by staying open to other outcomes and not giving too much weight to the worst case. 

Helpful Thought Alternatives: There is always more than one possible outcome. Encourage your brain to imagine neutral-case and best-case scenarios to supplement the worst-case. Bonus points if you can plan an actionable response to your three outcomes (and gold stars if you can dwell on the fact that there are always endless possible outcomes!) 

3. “Anyone can do what I can do.”

Type of Cognitive Distortion: Disqualifying the Positive 

Example: “I got lucky on that test, anyone could have done as well on it.” 

As mentioned above, the sensitive brain actually responds differently to the stimuli it takes in. So no, your achievements, strengths, and abilities are not so easily replicable. You can acknowledge and honor the role of your effort and assets alongside any other factors for your success. 

This is a tough one for those of us who grew up with the value of humility. But humility without an adequate assessment of our effort can be as false as arrogance. Own your strengths and appreciate the role they play when things go well. 

Helpful Thought Alternatives: In her book Trust Yourself, a guide for HSP professionals, author Melody Wilding suggests using “Yes, but” thought alternatives to stop disqualifying the positive. It looks like this: “Yes, others did well on the test, but I studied hard and I also took care of myself by getting enough sleep the night before. My efforts helped the outcome.” 

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

4. “The bad outweighs the good.”

Type of Cognitive Distortion: Filtering

Example: “She assured me I’m a good friend but told me one thing I did that upset her. I’m really a terrible friend.”  

It’s important to notice when all the overthinking we do as sensitive people errs toward the negative. We can turn a situation over and over in our minds on an endless cycle and still get caught up in the negative. If you find yourself feeling like something always ends up going wrong, you’re probably filtering your experience through the negative aspects and losing sight of any positive factors in the process. 

Helpful Thought Alternatives: My positive attributes are always true, even alongside the negative ones. Both are valid and should be believed. I can honor my strengths while working on my flaws.

5. “I know what they’re thinking.” 

Type of Cognitive Distortion: Jumping to Conclusions

Example: “They all think I’m annoying because I didn’t want to go to that crowded, noisy restaurant.”

It’s true that sensitive people can be especially astute at picking up on subtle cues of others’ feelings. But this doesn’t mean we should assume we know what someone else is thinking or feeling, especially if we always jump to the negative. When we come to conclusions based on limited information, we aren’t utilizing our responsiveness as well as we could be. 

Helpful Thought Alternatives: What information am I basing this on? What information don’t I know? What are three alternative conclusions that could be just as true?

6. “I feel it, so it must be true.”  

Type of Cognitive Distortion: Emotional Reasoning

Example: “I’m feeling self-conscious at this event so everyone must be looking at me and judging me.”

Okay, deep breaths everyone. This one can be especially tricky for HSPs because emotional reactivity is a cornerstone of being sensitive. Unfortunately, many HSPs have had a lifetime of societal messaging that our feelings should not be trusted. HSPs often need to nurture a healthy reconnection with our emotions and guide our reactivity toward emotional intelligence. Our emotions are meant to inform us in balance with our bodies, minds, and spirits. However, allowing our temporary feelings to dictate our reaction or perspective often stops short of the full range of information we’re gifted with as sensitive people. 

Helpful Thought Alternatives: What does my mind say? My intuition? My body? My spirit? What is the best way to understand this situation, given all the facts, including — but not limited to — my emotions?

7. “Things should/shouldn’t be this way.” 

Type of Cognitive Distortion: “Should” Statements

Example: “I should be further along in my life goals by now.” 

HSPs can see so clearly how things should or shouldn’t be. This is an asset — it can yield well-executed plans and produce productive outcomes. But it can also be frustrating to always be confronted with how much better things could be if only things were this way or if only this would happen. With the right focus and practice, sensitive folks can harness the power of their “Shoulds” toward helpful action instead of frustrating stagnation.

Helpful Thought Alternatives: Evaluate the “Shoulds.” Where did these rules come from? Are they truly helpful in your life? What is a source of contentment for you right now?

Left to their own devices, our minds can latch onto these cognitive distortions for dear life. It’s up to us to disrupt them, question them, and bring our brains back to reality. Our responsive minds are capable of incredible insight. But just like any superpower, they must be kept in check and wielded wisely. HSPs must learn to live in a paradox: We must trust ourselves, while not believing everything we think.

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This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post These Are the Harmful Thoughts that Hold HSPs Back the Most (And How to Stop Them) appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

“Would you just lighten up?” “Maybe you’d have more fun if you weren’t so serious all the time.” “Come on! Lighten up and have some fun!” 

Sound familiar? 

If you’re a highly sensitive person (HSP), you’ve probably heard versions of these your whole life. The admonishments come from mostly well-meaning people trying to get you to enjoy life the way they do. 

So if you rage-clicked this article, ready to refute yet another attempt to get you to “just have some fun!” I see you and I’m with you. 

Who gets to decide what’s fun anyway? I don’t need to convince you that one person’s idea of “fun” is another person’s nightmare. Yet fun isn’t just for happy-go-lucky types and it isn’t one-size-fits-all. With a little reimagination, HSPs can define fun and embrace their “play ethic” in their own way.  

Why ‘Fun’ Matters Extra for HSPs

It’s important to point out — and likely reassuring to HSPs — that researchers define “fun” as “pleasure without purpose,” wherein pleasure is referred to as “doing something that you want to do.”

Similarly, Dr. Travis Tae Oh, a researcher on the psychology of fun, says, “Fun is an experience of liberating engagement.” In his work, he sees two primary characteristics that define fun: “hedonic engagement” (active involvement in something just because it’s enjoyable) and “a sense of liberation” (the freedom to enjoy the activity however we choose). 

So if the idea of “fun” feels like pressure to you, try letting go of society’s definition of the term, and instead, think about what calls you to liberating engagement. Think of having more fun as a necessary antidote for all the overwhelm you experience as a highly sensitive person. 

In fact, “liberating engagement” is the exact opposite of how I feel when I’m overwhelmed. As HSPs, we are constantly taking in so many stimuli, and as a result, we are more susceptible to overstimulation. For HSPs, overstimulation is essentially a stress response. In part, this is because we are wired to use our “pause-and-check” instinct to scan incoming stimuli and feel threatened when we can’t keep up with all the stimuli we are taking in. 

It’s easy to see why overwhelm and playfulness don’t mix. Since overstimulation is a marker of high sensitivity, HSPs must be intentional about calming our nervous systems in order to truly let down our guard, play, and have fun. 

So how can HSPs have more authentic fun in our lives? Not surprisingly, we have to do it our way. Here are 10 little ideas to get you started.

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10 Ways HSPs Can Have More Fun in Their Daily Lives — And Combat Overwhelm

1. Channel your inner Mister Rogers.

Mister Rogers, also known as Fred Rogers, exemplified HSP fun by bringing his seriousness and playfulness into harmony. He was serious about children’s need for imagination, creativity, and play, and honored his calling while never taking himself too seriously.

While we all know Fred Rogers was a kind and earnest advocate for children offscreen, too, I was surprised to learn of his affinity for humor and pranks. His wife shared that he would often humor her at a drab social gathering by catching her eye, shifting in his seat, and passing gas. I’m not one for practical jokes, but I have learned from him that having a little more fun in life doesn’t negate my serious and sensitive nature. And it doesn’t have to negate yours either.

2. Pursue a little novelty — “the HSP way.”

Novelty can be tricky for highly sensitive people. Initially, we may like the idea of trying something new, but quickly spiral into anxiety over all the unknowns and risk until it sounds worse than pulling teeth. 

HSPs love routines and are often content to stick with the familiar. But life is too short to stay stuck on dry land when you really want to swim. 

So care for your sensitive sensibilities, follow your pause-and-check instinct, and then dip your toes into a new activity or experience when you want to. Sure, sea kayaking could be scary, as you can’t necessarily see land as you can with lake kayaking. But once you talk yourself out of the what-ifs, you can focus on all the benefits instead, like the fresh sea air and the beauty of nature all around you.

3. Look for the missing “fun factor” in dreaded or mundane tasks. (And if you can’t find one, use a reward system!)

What’s something on your schedule this week that you’re dreading? Whether it’s a dentist appointment or just another day at your boring job, imagine what might make those obligations more enjoyable. Something small, like saving a favorite podcast for the dentist’s chair, can infuse a little fun into a dreaded event. 

If you’re stuck with a task, or a life circumstance, where fun feels like a facade, try implementing rewards for doing what must be done. Because research shows there is a lot of overlap in the pleasure and reward pathways in the brain, rewarding yourself can be a helpful trick to get in touch with your playful side. Break down tasks into small steps — as small as you need them to be — and then reward yourself after every single step. After all, HSPs excel at single-tasking anyway, so just focus on one at a time and see what happens.

4. Appreciate your secret silliness and inside jokes.

There’s that iconic line from The Office where Michael Scott says, “I love inside jokes, I’d love to be part of one someday.” As a viewer, the line leaves you feeling comedic pity for him, as per usual. As an HSP, it makes me think of all the inside jokes I have with myself. 

Now, I’m an introvert, so I embrace my inner world. Whether you’re an HSP introvert or extrovert, you have a rich inner life due to your deeply processing mind. 

My partner has grown accustomed to my appreciation of my inner world. He’ll notice my smirk and ask, “Laughing to yourself again?” I’ve made a habit of responding with another Michael Scott quote: “You wouldn’t understand, it’s a secret.”

It’s okay, even important, to allow yourself to enjoy your rich inner life, including that sense of humor and silliness that perhaps few others ever experience. So go ahead and chuckle to yourself at that witty thought you’ll never say out loud. It’s one way to nourish your sensitivities for your own sake, as well as to bring a little more fun into your day. 

5. Have some fun with all that observing you do.

HSPs are sensitive to subtle stimuli — it’s a cornerstone of the trait. Picking up on little things can be irritating more often than not, as the faintest smell or most fleeting noise can completely throw us off. 

But don’t forget that we notice the fun, too. 

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been enthralled by something no one else seemed to notice, whether it’s someone’s body language, a kid saying something hilarious in a grocery store line, or an unusual insect on a trail. Allowing ourselves to notice these seemingly little moments can brighten an otherwise dull day. 

We can’t help how we notice everything, so we might as well have some fun with it! 

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

6. Experiment with “eustress” to better focus on fun.

“Eustress” is defined as positive stress — that is, stress that yields a positive reaction or effect. It’s feeling excited instead of nervous, and perceiving adversity as a challenge to face instead of a threat to avoid.

You bring eustress to your fun when you work on mastering a new knitting pattern or play a high-strategy board game. Just remember that eustress, by definition, is short-lived and manageable. That means, if it gets to be too much, it’s no longer positive stress.

Incorporating a little eustress in our hobbies and pastimes can help ground us and focus our minds away from the constant HSP overthinking and mental chatter. It can also keep us from getting understimulated in our play. 

7. Follow your childlike instinct to have “serious fun.”

Child Psychologist Jean Piaget famously said, “Play is the work of childhood.” Anyone who observes a toddler fiddling with a toy, or mastering a new gross motor skill, knows this to be true.

My son went through a serious Thomas the Train phase as a preschooler. I was mesmerized observing his relentless pursuit to design and build elaborate train tracks just the way he wanted them. They would often sprawl throughout the entire living room, all of them intricate and interconnected. It was inspiring to watch him play so hard.

Who says fun can’t be serious? Children’s willingness to meet a challenge with liberated engagement is something we would do well to emulate. So satisfy your HSP desire to engage in some fun by having some deeply serious fun.

8. Mix your “virtues and vices.”

When it comes to the science of fun, researchers look at what lights up the pleasure pathways in the brain. They note two primary sources of pleasure: hedonic and eudaimonic motivation.

Hedonic behavior refers to enjoyment for its own sake — things we enjoy doing just because. They may or may not have any other value associated with them. Eudaimonic behaviors, on the other hand, are more about purpose and meaning in life — doing good for others, self-actualization, and gratification from a life well-lived.

Both hedonic and eudaimonic behaviors are necessary for our well-being. David Linden, the author of The Compass of Pleasure, suggests we “mix our virtues and vices” to add more pleasure to our daily lives. It’s worth a try, right?

9. Don’t deny yourself conventional, and unconventional, types of fun.

At a recent wedding reception, I was one of a handful of people who enjoyed the party as a spectator, never gracing the dance floor. I was content with this choice, but I recognized that part of me really wanted to join in on the conventional fun. 

In contrast, the first time I took my kids to a trampoline park, I noticed all the parents lined up along the walls, sitting on benches, most of them on their phones. (And listen, I get it. Any spare second to tackle a task, or just mindlessly scroll social media, can feel like a luxury sometimes.)

But I couldn’t shake my urge to join in the trampoline fun. And so I did. I jumped among the sea of kids, trying to ensure no little ones fell prey to my double bounce. It was, in fact, a lot of fun.

Don’t put yourself in a box just because you’re highly sensitive. Sure, you may rarely agree with everyone else’s idea of fun, but when you do, join in. 

10. Find your “flow” and follow it. 

If terms like “play” and “fun” still put you on edge, explore the concept of flow. Flow describes that feeling of being totally immersed (or “lost”) in an activity. It’s the sort of enjoyment where you lose track of time, are completely focused, and even find the challenges enjoyable. When in a “flow state,” we are immune to distractions and the overthinking that normally plagues highly sensitive people. 

Flow state usually requires just the right amount of eustress and liberating engagement. In fact, Dr. Elissa Epel, author of The Stress Prescription, says flow state is the ultimate positive stress because it allows us to feel safe, even when we’re doing something hard. It’s the ideal which children exemplify in their “serious fun.” 

HSPs can gratify the deep processing they love and crave by finding their flow state. I’ve learned that little assists, like selective noise, help placate my sensitivities so I can find, and stay, in flow. 

HSPs, what would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!

You might like:

• How to Embrace Your ‘Play Ethic’ as a Highly Sensitive Person
• 4 Reasons Why HSPs Are the Best at Reading Body Language
• How to (Actually) Find Your Purpose as a Highly Sensitive Person

This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post 10 Ways HSPs Can Have More Fun — And Say Goodbye to Overstimulation appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

Can highly sensitive people (HSPs) be happy, as in truly happy?

Depending on your experience as an HSP, this question may seem overly simplistic — or even insulting. 

As a sensitive person myself, sometimes I find myself thinking that happiness is something only non-sensitive people get to have. Sometimes, I can feel like I’m disqualified from being happy because I get so “stuck” in my deeply processing nervous system. 

This is because HSPs are characterized by our depth of processing, which means we experience life more intensely than others. It helps me to think of it as a sinking feeling — we sink into life’s sorrows, maybe a little more so than less-sensitive people. 

But, just as the lows can affect us more, so do life’s best moments. We may sink into the lows, but we feel joy strongly and easily, even over the small things in life. 

In fact, scientists are finding that sensitive people may actually be “better” at becoming happy — and that we may be fundamentally wired for happiness.

Are Highly Sensitive People Happier Than Other People?

Fascinating recent research led by Francesca Lionetti, a developmental psychologist at Queen Mary University of London, suggests that highly sensitive people can actually become happy more easily than others. 

To find this out, Lionetti and her coauthors had 230 volunteers perform a “mood induction task” — essentially, exposing them to positive and negative moods and measuring the results. To do this, researchers showed study participants a heartwarming video clip — possibly the cutest study ever — as well as a sad on, in random order. What they found was that the people who scored highest for sensitivity as a personality trait actually entered a positive mood more easily than the others. (The least sensitive people — those “tough as nails” types who seem impervious to pain — had the hardest time entering a positive mood. Apparently, they are impervious to joy, too.) 

In other words, the things that might make anyone feel happy are much more likely to do so for highly sensitive people. (No wonder my favorite animated Disney movies have the same effect on me as my four-year-old!)

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Lionetti isn’t the only one to find this. In fact, this connection between happiness and sensitivity is consistent across a number of studies. One, for example, made similar findings in sensitive children; another found that sensitive people can enter happier moods more readily and fully, and maybe even stay happier longer, than non-HSPs.

This is because we sensitive people are more responsive to all experiences, including positive experiences. In other words, we are sensitive to happiness (thankfully!). 

Of course, this means HSPs are more responsive to negative experiences, too. Sensitive people can probably also enter negative moods more easily — and sensitive folks can be more prone to anxiety and depression. But this study indicates that we are also built with a way out. HSPs might actually be more responsive to interventions, like therapy or the support of a good friend, due to our heightened sensitivity to positive exposures. In fact, based on Lionetti’s findings, even keeping very small sources of happiness around you in your environment can have a powerful effect on your mood as an HSP. 

Simply put, caring for yourself — and your mental health — will likely have rewarding outcomes, because your sensitive nature will naturally experience them positively. 

If this sounds too good to be true, consider this: Do you tend to be more affected than others by movies, songs, or even commercials that tug at the heartstrings? If you’re an animal lover, as many HSPs are, can an otter cuddle video or cute panda montage sometimes be all you need to get out of a bad mood?

If so, your sensitivity is doing its job to help you be happier. 

But you can make that even more effective if you lean into your HSP wiring — and start to see happiness a little differently. 

Happiness the ‘HSP Way’

First of all, happiness can be a four-letter word for some. It’s been twisted and convoluted in our society to be the only feeling worth feeling. Some think that being happy means avoiding negative feelings, which is a surefire way to never be happy at all, especially for HSPs. 

HSPs know happiness doesn’t mean being happy all the time. If it did, let’s be real: highly sensitive people would be doomed. But we feel something deep in our bones that others seem to miss — that sorrow and happiness can coexist together.

Author Susan Cain calls this “bittersweetness.” In her new book, Bittersweet, she writes, “[Bittersweetness is] a way of being… as dramatically overlooked as it is brimming with human potential. It’s an authentic and elevating response to the problem of being alive in a deeply flawed yet stubbornly beautiful world. Most of all, bittersweetness shows us how to respond to pain: by acknowledging it, and attempting to turn it into art… or healing, or innovation, or anything else that nourishes the soul.”

I believe this is what happy HSPs offer the world. We don’t deny life’s hardships. But we also can’t help but sink into its goodness. And in that bittersweetness lies a wisdom I believe the less sensitive world needs and would benefit from. 

But if we’re struggling with being happy, how can we cultivate more happiness in our lives? In short, through “rewiring” ourselves and our mindset.

5 Ways to ‘Rewire’ Yourself for Happiness as an HSP

Yale professor and happiness expert Dr. Laurie Santos coined the term “rewirements” to refer to habits that are shown to help us be happier. It turns out that some of the simplest practices can have the biggest impact on our happiness. (Santos’ wildly popular Yale course on happiness is available for free online.)

As HSPs, we have to pursue happiness in our own way. If we can put a little effort into happifying our experiences through requirements, the benefits can be exponential. So give these a try.

1. Rest — sleep more, but also schedule more downtime and moments to do nothing.

I’ve come to understand that rest is my first step to happiness, and I’m not alone: Highly sensitive people need more sleep than others. Plus, I can’t attain any other rewirements until I’m well-rested. So I have begun prioritizing rest in my life. 

No, I haven’t quit my job or told my young kids to fend for themselves so I can sleep. What I mean is rest in all senses of the word. For me, it includes sleep, as well as downtime and “doing nothing.” 

For me, rest is no longer an afterthought. It’s not something to enjoy only if I check off all my to-dos. Now, rest is one of my to-dos. I don’t claim to have this down, but I am noticing a difference. 

I’m growing more convinced that rest is one of the most important acts HSPs can do to counter our non-sensitive culture, which enshrines productivity over all else. HSPs tend to burn out quickly — I think it’s in part due to our empathic, people-pleasing nature. 

Maybe HSPs can remind non-sensitives to prioritize rest… and that they are more than what they produce. Rest is revolutionizing my life — and it can do the same for you.

2. Play — do things that make you happy and where you focus on the journey, not the destination.

(Have you rested yet? If not, save the rest of this article for later and rest first!)

Dr. Santos suggests play as an antidote to always having an end goal for an activity. She says we are happier when we find contentment in the journey rather than the destination. Doing whatever helps you find your ”flow state” — where you get completely enamored in the doing (or reading or observing or daydreaming or, or, or…) is where happiness lives. We all have those activities, hobbies, and pastimes that we lose ourselves in. Do them! 

HSPs often have the strongest positive connection to being creative, and to the arts, compared to other stimuli. This means artistic expression (whether our own or appreciating others’, like music, a painting, or a movie) can strongly affect our mood for the better. Whatever your creative outlet or preferred artistic indulgence, prioritize it and let it work its magic on your mood. 

Need to Calm Your Sensitive Nervous System? 

HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload and stress — and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you could finally feel calm instead?

That’s what you’ll find in this powerful online course by Julie Bjelland, one of the top HSP therapists in the world. You’ll learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end emotional flooding, eliminate sensory overload, and finally make space for your sensitive gifts to shine.

Stop feeling held back and start to feel confident you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making a change today. Click here to learn more.

3. Be present — practice mindfulness through meditation or another grounding activity.

Some may benefit from long hours spent in deep meditation. If that’s your jam, more power to you — meditation can seriously lift your mood! HSP expert Alane Freund says HSPs can struggle with meditation due to our overactive brains, but we can utilize our sensitivity to meditate in our own way. 

I’m convinced HSPs are naturally inclined to simply be present in our daily lives, especially in the right conditions. When we’re not rushed, pressured, or stressed — many HSPs suffer from time anxiety — our sensitivity to our surroundings can help usher us into a mindful awareness of the present moment. 

These moments never last long for me (I’m a novice for sure!), but I do notice their effect on my happiness. More and more often, I find I’m craving the peace and contentment that being present offers. It has even helped me lose interest in mindlessly scrolling my phone as often, which has always negatively affected my mood. Instead, I’ve taken to looking out the window with my morning coffee, or just watching my kids play after dinner.

4. Move — it helps you get out of your mind and into your body.

Move — not to achieve a daily step count, not for a class instructor, and not for a fitness plan… I mean, okay, move for all those reasons. Being healthier or pursuing a fitness goal is all fine and good. But sensitive people benefit from reconnecting our busy minds with our bodies through movement. 

Try intuitive movement, whether it’s a free-flow yoga session, dancing around your living room, or wandering along a nature trail with no destination in mind. (After all, nature is an amazing release valve for overstimulated HSPs — which probably means all of us!) 

You might even want to combine movement with play and forget about an end goal every now and again. However you decide to move, the happiness you feel will be worth it, trust me.

5. Connect — whether it’s with others, nature, animals, you name it.

Dr. Santos talks specifically about connecting with people as a way to rewire ourselves for happiness. I think HSPs can add connecting with animals, the earth, and the arts to our list. We are known to have stronger connections with our environment — and we can, and should, indulge that connection to our hearts’ content.

We tend to waste a lot of effort trying to live this life the non-sensitive way. We do well to let go of that expectation and embrace a sensitive approach instead. When it comes to connection, follow your intuition of whom, or what, you need connection with. For example, I never resist the urge to dip my toes in a flowing stream. It does something for me that nothing else can. It grounds me, gives me peace, and nourishes me. What does so for you? You may even want to brainstorm and make a list.

HSPs, Your Sensitivity Can Be Your Key to Happiness

Happiness may seem harder to find these days, but don’t lose hope. For HSPs, the science is on our side. Our sensitivity wires us to sink into happy experiences. Think of it as a gift of our trait, a silver lining to our intense experience of the world. 

Pursue happiness for your own contentment and well-being, because remember: You are worth the effort. I have a feeling that if you do, you’ll start to see your happiness radiate out to those around you. HSPs make up nearly 30 percent of the population — and science tells us we are sensitive to happiness. If we can rewire ourselves to be happier, and protect that happiness in the process, who knows the effect it could have on our “deeply flawed yet stubbornly beautiful” world?

You might like:

• 7 Little Things That Make Highly Sensitive People Happy
• 18 Things That Fill Highly Sensitive People With Joy
• HSPs, Do You Have a High Conflict Person in Your Life?
• The Truth About Overwhelming Emotions, According to a Highly Sensitive Therapist

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