You may think living abroad is for the brave and adventurous. After all, it asks you to change much of what you know to be important and to live outside your comfort zone on a daily basis. 

After living abroad on and off for eight years, I’ve realized that living abroad as a highly sensitive person (HSP) presents difficulties that not every expat can relate to. As an HSP, we’re already extra sensitive to external stimuli — but imagine those stimuli in a foreign language, whether it’s unfamiliar music blaring through store speakers or hearing numerous people speaking a language you don’t understand; it can get overwhelming. If you’re thinking about moving abroad and are concerned that your HSP spidey senses won’t be able to handle it, think again. Anything is possible. 

Living Abroad is a Complete Change of Environment

As a country girl and an HSP living in Normandy, France, it took me a while to understand why my environment in France felt so overwhelming. Then it hit me: population density. 

I grew up in rural Central New York. As a child, I was constantly surrounded by forests, mountains, and lakes; it was an HSP’s dream location. I moved to Normandy when I was 26, after my French husband accepted a job in international trade in Le Havre, France. My home abroad can feel overwhelming sometimes because I’m not used to seeing so many people on the sidewalks, having so many homes very close together, and hearing so many of my neighbors’ conversations. 

How to adapt: The best thing that an HSP can do to respond to a change in their environment is to reclaim it and make it their own. Control what you can. This includes your home, as well as the area surrounding it. 

To feel more relaxed, you can declutter your home, for example. By selling and donating things I don’t love or need, I’ve been able to spend less time cleaning my home and more time outside, which we HSPs need to be happy and get recentered. I like going on pleasant walks to my town square, where I can relish the smell of warm baguettes baking and wet earth after rainfall. 

Similarly, apartments and houses in France seem smaller than traditional American houses, which taught me the joy of keeping my bedroom solely a “bed room.” By having an electronic-free bedroom with only a bed, closet, and fan inside, I’ve been able to sleep better. It’s simply a quiet and calm place, my HSP sanctuary. In fact, I make sure every room in my home is a calm place that I can retreat to — each one has a different purpose, but every purpose is filled with happiness. 

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Living Abroad Means Being Misunderstood Sometimes

Abroad, being misunderstood is intensified by having to communicate in a foreign language. Having a handle of a foreign language is hard enough, but when you add learning a new educational system and business culture to the mix, too, daily tasks and interactions can easily become more stressful — and stress is not an HSP’s friend. 

Social interactions can also make an HSP abroad feel very anxious — we need to be sensitive to our communication and language abilities. Social interactions and physical gestures are often different — American hugs and firm handshakes are swapped with kisses and light handshakes in France.

Similarly, idioms and expressions conveying humor or wisdom are often different across countries. Between France and the U.S., there are many expressions or deep ideas that are unique to each respective language and culture. For example, the common French expression: C’est la vie literally translates into English as: “It’s life.” However, the meaning of this French expression is actually closer to: “It is what it is,” a pillar in the philosophy of Stoicism — meaning that, in order to be happy, we must accept what we cannot change. 

As a result, an HSP may feel like it is difficult to build meaningful connections abroad, as so many ideas and feelings get lost in translation. So a certain amount of misunderstanding has to be anticipated, and accepted, if you decide to move abroad.

How to adapt: In order to break through these linguistic barriers, HSPs have to put themselves out there and cut themselves some slack. Learning a language takes a lifetime, so it’s normal that HSPs living abroad will sometimes feel lost in conversations. 

Instead of bottling myself up over an expression or cultural reference that I don’t understand, I ask for an explanation and then explain the equivalent expression/reference in my language. Most people don’t realize how much cultures can differ from one another, or how differently foreign languages are taught from country to country. 

HSPs can avoid feeling like they’re being criticized (which we despise) for not understanding something by using misunderstanding as a learning opportunity instead (for both yourself and the other person). So, instead of being misunderstood, be innovative and open.

Living Abroad Means That Your Sensitivity May Be Misunderstood Sometimes, Too

When I was a university student, I remember that I felt better when I was studying in the U.S. than I did in Germany. In the U.S., my professors seemed more invested in students’ feelings than my professors were at my German university. It was challenging to accept that not everyone was going to hold my hand through the ups and downs of being a highly sensitive student. 

For example, my American professors encouraged students to ask questions privately after the lecture. Many European professors of mine, on the other hand, preferred that their students ask questions during the lecture so that the professor’s response could benefit everyone. I had to learn that in countries where universities are basically free and overcrowded, it seems that professors don’t have the resources or time to be both a professor and a mentor. 

In addition, working abroad may be difficult for HSPs if they go from working in an informal friendly atmosphere to a formal one, where there is a strict separation between your private and professional life. For instance, many companies in France do not have a human resources department. In turn, positive and kind interpersonal relationships among employees are generally seen as less important in France. This can be really hard when you are new to a country and need someone to show you the ropes. So it’s important to remember that the majority of people you meet abroad will not know about the work culture where you’re from. While the U.S. is famous for its “customer is king” mindset in the workplace, in many European countries, the customer is not seen as “king,” but just as a person in need of a good or service. 

How to adapt: The good news is that living abroad presents an environment that allows an HSP to be misunderstood. Most people are kind and understand that it’s difficult for foreigners to adapt (sensitive or not).

On the flip side, because of the feeling of isolation that a language barrier often presents, it can make an HSP more sensitive or reserved than they were in their home country. Perhaps one of the hardest misunderstandings that I’ve had is that people think I am highly sensitive because I live abroad and not because I am just wired this way. I’ve been told that my sensitivity means I am a “weak” person and that being an HSP is simply an “American concept” that could never exist in France. Of course, I strongly disagree with both of these sentiments and hope more of the world begins to understand that highly sensitive people are who they are due to genetics. (And, for the record, us being HSPs is a strength, not a weakness.)      

We HSPs are empathetic, intuitive, and generous, and these are real skills that are needed in many professions, no matter the country. So in order to overcome some people not understanding my innate sensitivity, I had to create a world in which being sensitive would be better understood. 

Working in competitive open office environments can be catastrophic for an HSP in their own country, let alone abroad and in a foreign language. As an HSP — in order to avoid those open office environments I hate — I decided to start my own business project where I train adults online and one-on-one in Business English. Working for myself has given me the chance to use my empathy to find purpose in helping people who themselves feel vulnerable for needing to learn another language and culture. I am proof that high sensitivity is a strength in the workplace, not a deterrent. 

The people that I help are in situations similar to mine, so there is a shared sense of humanity. When I talk to my adult students about being highly sensitive, they tell me that they love how open Americans are about the challenges they’ve faced and how they’ve overcome them. They tell me that, in France, anything well-being or mental-health-related is taboo — society does not “get” what being highly sensitive is — and that they hope one day this will change. So if you’re an HSP abroad trying to figure out the best work situation for you, remember that you are not alone: The world is full of people who will need, and appreciate, your empathy and passion. 

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The Beauty of Being an HSP Abroad

HSPs are HSPs no matter where they live — for all the challenges being highly sensitive presents, living abroad also presents many unique opportunities that allow us to flourish. One of the best quotes I’ve heard about living abroad from a former classmate was, “I didn’t know what it meant to be American until I lived abroad.” This idea, no matter where you’re from, is true in the purest form: Living abroad gives you the chance to learn more about your true self and where you’re from. 

Because we HSPs are insightful and perceptive, living abroad enables us to understand (and compare) each other’s countries — in a good way. For example, watching documentaries in a foreign language enables us highly sensitive folks to increase our power of perspective. This is something we might not be able to do in our home country.

And although living abroad may not always be easy, it enables HSPs to be truly exposed to (and moved by) all the beauty in their home away from home. I am nostalgic for the smells of pine and burning wood and cold snowflakes falling on my cheeks — things that remind me of my former New York home. Nevertheless, in my French home abroad, I am moved by the rainy cliffs and beaches, the smell of hot baguettes, and the taste and feeling of gooey Camembert cheese touching my lips. 

Whether it’s being rattled by constant change, one’s environment, or being misunderstood, living abroad gives HSPs the courage to embrace the misunderstandings, gain perspective, and feel beauty on a recurring basis. Just know it’s going to be OK, fellow expat HSPs: We’re ready for this adventure. 

You might like:  

• 8 Tips for the Globetrotting HSP
• Sensitive and Burned Out? You Might Be Ready for the Nomad Life
• 7 Ways to Create Peace in Your Home as an HSP

The post How to Live Abroad as a Highly Sensitive Person appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

Trigger warning: The following article contains the mention of sexual assault.

If you’re a highly sensitive person like I am, you probably get overwhelmed and overstimulated easily. Yet you’re also the first person a friend turns to when they want a listening, empathic ear. After all, when they tell you about something that’s happened to them — good or bad — you feel like it happened to you, too. And you’re happy to be there for them.

You also aim to be happy when it comes to living your own life. You soon realize that you need to mix and match experiences you have to see which produce the best result(s). That said, here are some things that have helped me live my best life as a highly sensitive person.

4 Ways to Live Your Best Life as a Highly Sensitive Person 

1. Find characters, people, and ideas you can relate to.

HSPs can find comfort in relating to characters who are similar to themselves. As an HSP, I am at ease when I am watching film characters like Ricky Fitts in the critically acclaimed film American Beauty. I like him because he is likely a highly sensitive character. 

From the outside, he is an ordinary middle class adolescent — he is obedient and responsible. But on the inside, Fitts is a highly clever and creative young man who has come to realize the narrow pitfalls of American society. 

He’s an artist, and in one of the film’s most iconic scenes, he shows his love interest one of his films of a plastic bag floating in the air. In it, he says, “And this bag was like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know that there was no reason to be afraid. Ever.”

When I feel “different” from others, I take comfort in being able to relate to characters like Fitts. He captured beauty through his lens that only a highly sensitive person could do. Like me, his character is written as someone who could both withdraw in certain situations, but also be on a quest to answer some of life’s more meaningful questions. More importantly, his character understood how so many people get caught up in seeking the “wrong” things in life. 

To that end, HSPs look for beauty that gives them greater perspective and can be discouraged by the cookie-cutter middle class setting portrayed in American Beauty. Fitts’ imagining of a plastic grocery bag as some benevolent force reminds me that I am not alone in feeling empathy for so much around me.

2. Learn to avoid your triggers, which is an ongoing process.

As I am quickly approaching the big 3-0, I can tell you that one of the hardest things an adult can accomplish is the ability to know, recognize, and avoid their triggers. By “triggers,” I mean those little things you have a negative association with, often because of past experiences. In turn, they can lead your high sensitivity to work against you, not for you. 

It has taken me over a decade of practice, and it is an ongoing process. Some of my past experiences can quickly turn my high sensitivity into anxiety and fear, emotions that are obviously negative. 

As an example of this, alcohol is my kryptonite. In case you missed the Superman reference, alcohol easily opens the flood door to a tsunami of my most agonizing melancholy feelings. And, as a highly sensitive person, I often associate drinking alcohol with the violence and toxicity that I experienced from having been raised by a parent who suffered from the disease of alcoholism. Similarly, booze is the liquid substance I was consuming when I’d been sexually assaulted a decade ago — so it’s definitely a triggering substance to me, to say the least.

Drinking can also make me increasingly sensitive to criticism and causes me to slip into my own personal black hole of paranoia: I’ll excessively worry about absolutely everything, for that’s what triggers do.

A highly sensitive person’s negative triggers are unique to them and not even always obvious to them or their loved ones. It requires a constant effort of getting to know oneself better to uncover the triggers. But the trade-off is that by knowing yourself better, you are better able to avoid negative or toxic people, places, or ideas that prevent you from being a happy, joy-filled highly sensitive person. 

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3. Get moving, whether that means taking a walk or going to the gym.

Take an HSP who loves watching television and add the COVID-19 pandemic to the mix (including a whole bunch of restrictions and stay-at-home mandates)… and you have a super couch potato. In addition to being a highly sensitive person, I am (deep-down) one of these couch potatoes, so I am by no means a fitness guru. Nevertheless, I am living my best life as a highly sensitive person when I get moving and am active.

Before becoming a mom, I saw working out and sweating as my overwhelmed, overtired, and overstimulated reaction to a society which would always ridicule my body, a world in which my figure never seemed to be enough. After becoming a mom, however, I viewed my body completely differently. I see the masterpiece that I created, my son, and suddenly my body is a vessel to befriend, a monument that needs to be protected and maintained. Now, I don’t fret about clothing sizes; instead, I get moving because I want to always be capable of giving my son whatever he’ll need to live his best life, too. 

You don’t need to have a six-pack or gym membership to get moving and live your best life. Similarly, it doesn’t cost anything to just stretch and walk more. If you do find yourself sweating, though, those endorphins help us HSPs use our sensitivity for positive purposes. Whether it is having the energy to play with a child or giving yourself the chance to worry about your health a little less, the psychologial, physical, and restorative benefits are endless for a moving HSP.

4. Find your true calling and purpose.

Highly sensitive people are amazing because we pursue greater callings that are bigger than ourselves. As an HSP who is always seeking balance within myself, I know that I am less likely to fall into the cycle of pursuing a pointless high paycheck in order to attempt to buy my way to happiness — I have no desire to keep up with the Joneses (or the Kardashians’, for that matter).

HSPs can lead their best lives when they find something that gives them purpose on a day-to-day basis. For example, this could mean not making a lot, income-wise, but feeling fulfilled regardless, like taking on a role as a caregiver. The point is, a sensitive person can lead their best life when they are engaging in something where they can use their empathy and generosity toward others.

By the way, I know it may not always be easy for an HSP to find something that gives them purpose. Similarly, it is just as difficult to know for sure that you have found your calling. The best tip that I can give to my fellow HSPs is to not overthink your purpose due to a previous negative and/or toxic work environment.

During the pandemic, for example, I left my job teaching English to do a training program in import and export coordination. Like many people have done before, I found myself quitting my job because of unethical and disorderly management practices that my sensitive self grew fed up with. However, I forgot to ask myself one key question: “Did you like what you were doing?” 

I didn’t ask myself this… and, before I knew it, I found myself in a highly technical training program in a profession that would not allow me to put my sensitivity to good use. After realizing that this line of work wouldn’t give me the purpose I was seeking, I found myself returning to, and finding purpose in, teaching again. I learned through trial and error, and you probably will, too.

The most important lesson that I learned from this experience was that just because you have found something meaningful does not mean others you work with have, and that’s okay — just stay in your lane. There is no perfect line of work where everyone around you is going to be compassionate and empathetic; it doesn’t exist. What matters is that you are doing something meaningful, and using your sensitivity and empathy for good. HSPs shouldn’t get trapped overthinking about what brings them purpose — even though we’re so good at overthinking! — because it is often something simple and right under our noses.

As a sensitive person who has experienced a roller coaster of emotions and life experiences, I know that these four tips help me lead my best life. I hope to encourage other HSPs to do the same. We HSPs are united in our shared creative approach to defining, seeking, and leading our best lives. Even though every HSP probably sees their “best life” as something different, I’m sure many of us would agree that it includes being happier and more fulfilled. 

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You might like:

• How to (Actually) Find Your Purpose as a Highly Sensitive Person
• 7 Ways HSPs Can Effectively Deal With Life’s Daily Disappointments
• ‘Normal’ Things That Overstimulate Me as a Highly Sensitive Person

The post How to Live Your ‘Best Life’ as a Highly Sensitive Person — And Find Meaning appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.