I just had a conversation earlier with a client that frustrated me, not the person but the conversation. So I felt the need to make a short post… I hope my message will help someone because the person I talked with was feeling so lost, and I am sure that other highly sensitive people out there feel the same.
So what I want to talk about is the guilt or shame that HSPs feel because of the way they are… I want to stop the little voice in your head saying that you are weak and not made for this world, but I also want you to stop listening or accepting the loud voice of someone telling you “get a grip”!
Oftentimes the message that we get is that highly sensitive people are superlative people… by superlative I mean that we are too much of this, too much of that. You know what I am talking about….That we take things too seriously. We think too much. We analyze too much. We are too picky or too needy. I even heard people saying that we don't have any sense of humor. Well, stay a little while with me and I will prove you wrong.
It is so easy to put labels on others these days!
So the ready-made idea around being highly sensitive is pretty negative which doesn't surprise me when our culture tends to value individualism, selfishness, lack of compassion and self-centeredness to just name a few of them. So even the words in the language that are used around highly sensitive people tend to be negative or condescending.
The message I want you to hear is that being highly sensitive is absolutely amazing and actually a gift for us and to our society.
We are not only those over-emotional people, those extremely susceptible people, those over-analyzers, all those cute little attributes we hear so many times. All those little adjectives that make us look like we are too hard to deal with, too hard to handle and very difficult people.
Take this short quiz (below) if you want to know if you are a highly sensitive person.
Do you know what our accusers and bullies don't talk about? They don’t mention that highly sensitive people are not only deep thinkers, but that they also care deeply about people. They are loyal. They are compassionate. They are creative.
They are the teachers, the therapists, the social workers, the counsellors, the care-givers, the ecologists. They are everywhere through their job, their calling, in their community or personal life where they can show up and make a difference, because they really care about this world and want it to be a better place.
They are usually great coworkers, great parents, friends, and partners, because they're so conscientious and mindful about what they do, and also because of their creativity. Creativity in any relationship is very important, even if we don't realize it. And I am not talking about art, but about their ability to see things that other people don't see. They can come up with inventive solutions or with some out-of-the-box idea to kindle their interactions with others. They have a tremendous amount of gifts and strengths, but unfortunately, the external messaging that they receive can be pretty distressing and harsh. Our culture doesn't value sensitivity, it is all the way around, we glorify toughness and we are on our way to build a narcissistic society.
So we are told not to cry, to have a thicker skin and to be blind to others suffering.
But the truth is that with no compassion, without creativity, without acts of care, what would be human nature? Where would our society go?
So I really want to help you reframe how you view yourself, because you have some amazing gifts to offer.
Don’t let yourself down and don’t let anybody make you feel that something is wrong with you!
I hope, I really hope I got my message through.
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