Living Highly Sensitive

If you are Highly Sensitive, you are wired to experience the world first and foremost through your emotions. This can create strong inner responses to life events.

Highly Sensitive People (HSP) are especially susceptible to all kinds of stimuli – whether physically, emotionally or mentally. HSPs nervous systems seem to be wired to feel at a more intense level than others. Hence, strong emotional responses are natural and need to be regularly processed in order to release them.

This ability to feel deeply is truly both a gift and a challenge. To be empathic, intuitive and attuned can make HSPs exceptional friends, partners and parents, because they are keenly aware of what others are experiencing and perhaps needing at any moment. And they are able to feel deep compassion for others. However, feeling deeply can also be a source of overwhelm. Being constantly and intensely tuned into your own and others’ emotions can be overloading. Thus it’s important that HSPs are consistently doing self-care to stay healthy.

When a big emotion hits, it’s OK to ask for alone time to process before discussing it with someone else. You might need time to identify what you’re feeling. Knowing your exact emotion helps you bring clarity to the conversation.

Also when you’re experiencing a painful emotion, ask yourself: “What’s the story that I’m creating right now?” At first you might identify all sorts of stories. But typically one or two will emerge as the most persistent.

For instance, your storyline might be: “I’m not important to others,” “Everything is out of my control,” “No matter how hard I try, I always fail,” “People leave; no one will stay,” or “I’m not good enough.”

Just naming your storyline can help you gain some distance from it. Identifying it also reminds you that your interpretation is not the objective truth. Understanding the root of your storyline minimizes its power, as well.

Once your nervous system has settled, you can begin to explore alternative storylines that will enable you to transform your perspective. You can also learn to have more feelings of loving-kindness toward yourself and your nervous system. You can know that these thoughts and feelings are momentary – a blip in time that will change with the wind. They do not define who you are or the world around you.

-Tanya Vallianos


Tanya Vallianos, MA, LPC, ATR, NCC, EMDR III, EAP II is a psychotherapist in private practice in Fort Collins, CO. She can be reached at www.innersunhealingarts.com or 970-420-9504.