Last update: 24 March, 2022
When someone feels in the minority, they usually feel discomfort and fear. One thinks: “Why do I perceive things differently? Why do I suffer more than others? Why do I feel relieved when I'm alone? Why do I observe and hear things that others ignore? ”.
Being part of the 20% of the population who recognize themselves as highly sensitive people (HSPs) is not a disadvantage, nor does it label people as different. It is likely that during your life, and especially during childhood, you have felt this emotional distance and, at times, you have felt that you are living in a kind of bubble.
High sensitivity is a gift, a tool that allows you to deepen and emphasize things. Few people are capable of understanding life in this way.
It was Elaine N. Aron who, in the early 90s, studying introverted personalities, meticulously portrayed the characteristics of a new dimension not described up to that moment, which reflected a social reality: that of highly sensitive, reflective people, those who they reacted emotionally.
If that's your case, if you identify with the characteristics Dr. Aron talked about in her book “The Highly Sensitive Person”It is important that you convince yourself that high sensitivity does not have to make you feel strange or different. On the contrary, you must feel lucky to have these 4 gifts:
1. The gift of emotional knowledge
From childhood, children with high sensitivity perceive aspects of daily life that cause them anguish, contradiction and fascinating curiosity. Their eyes pick up aspects that adults don't consider.
That sense of frustration from their teachers, that worried expression on their mothers' faces…. they are able to perceive things that other children do not see and they will teach others that life is difficult and contradictory. They will come into the world with their eyes already open to the world of emotions, without yet knowing what they are guided by, what makes them vibrate or what makes adults suffer.
Knowledge of emotions is a silent but powerful weapon. It brings us closer to people to understand them, but, at the same time, it makes us more vulnerable to pain.
Sensitivity is like a light that shines, but that makes us more vulnerable to the behavior of others, to lies, deceptions, irony ... You take it for everything - they tell you all the time - You are too sensitive.
And that's right, but you are what you are. A gift needs a high responsibility and the knowledge of emotions also requires you to know how to protect yourself. To know how to take care of yourself.
2. The gift of enjoying solitude
Highly sensitive people find pleasure in moments of solitude. They are shelters that they need to best carry out their duties and actions. They are creative people who love music, reading. And while that doesn't mean they don't like being around others, they're only truly happy when they're alone.
Highly sensitive people are not afraid of loneliness. It is precisely in those moments that they can better connect with themselves, with their thoughts, free themselves from attachments, chains and extraneous looks.
3. The gift of an existence with the heart
High sensitivity means living with the heart. No one lives more intensely love, small daily gestures, friendships, affection ..
When we talk about highly sensitive people, we often associate them with suffering. Their tendency to depression, sadness, their feeling vulnerable in the face of external stimuli, in the face of people's behavior. However, there is something others don't know: few emotions are experienced as intensely as loving and being loved ...
We are not just talking about couple relationships, but about friendship, daily affection, capturing the simple beauty of a painting, a landscape or a melody, is an intense experience for highly sensitive people, rooted in their hearts.
4. The gift of inner growth
High sensitivity does not cure. One comes into the world already endowed with this gift, which can be seen from an early age. Their questions, their intuitions, their tendency towards perfectionism, their low physical pain threshold, the annoyance that strong lights and smells cause in them, their emotional vulnerability ..
It is not easy to live with such a gift. However, once you realize that you have it, you have to recognize it and know what this entails, because the time will come when you will have to learn to manage many of these details. You don't have to allow negative emotions to overflow at certain moments.
You must also learn that others go at a different pace than you, that they do not have the same emotional threshold as you, that they will not experience certain things with the same intensity as you, even if this does not mean that, for example, they love you less. Respect them, understand them. Understand yourself.
Once you have discovered your being and your faculties, you will reach balance and foment your personal growth. Be unique and live with your heart. Be peaceful, safe and happy.
