{"id":7433,"date":"2023-03-03T06:09:31","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T06:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifereader.com\/articles\/?p=7433"},"modified":"2023-03-03T06:09:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T06:09:32","slug":"how-to-manage-your-high-sensitivity-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifereader.eu\/articles\/how-to-manage-your-high-sensitivity-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Manage Your High Sensitivity \u2013 Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Pascale:<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/span><\/span> Just like when you learn and understand how to read a map or how to take care of your plants, you can learn to understand your high sensitivity and use it as a tool, a gift that will guide you and empower you in all that you do and allow you to be yourself.<\/p>\n

What follows are a few suggestions to help you understand and find empowerment in your high sensitivity. Sometimes, being supported by another highly sensitive person, a mentor or a trusted friend can help you on that path, if needed**.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"1pascale2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the first essential steps is to start noticing each time you judge yourself over your high sensitivity, when you resent it, feel miserable about it, or even feel ashamed by it. As your awareness progressively increases, you will slowly begin to accept your high sensitivity as an invaluable part of who you are. As with most things in life, working at it needs practice and commitment.<\/p>\n

One of the main goals is to allow your high sensitivity to shine through instead of repressing it: you should not have to think that you have to calm yourself. Part of the meaning of high sensitivity is \u201ctoo much\u201d. You feel too much, you feel scattered, and you experience the need to calm yourself. But, it is close to impossible because your brain is not wired in the way you think it should be. When you are highly sensitive, you find it difficult and sometimes impossible to filter the constant bombardment of information, emotions and sensations you receive. In seeking to understand the information you filter, you will be able to use it to your advantage. However, if you try and succeed in going against your nature, you will end up feeling drained and empty, and you will cut yourself off from life\u2019s intensity and richness.<\/p>\n

Now, and this is important: when you are a highly sensitive person, believing that everything you feel or perceive is necessarily true is a mistake. Everything you filter is amplified, as if you carried an internal radar bombarding you with fine tuned signals from all directions; and when you get many such fragmented pieces of information, it can quickly and easily overwhelm you and lead you astray. What is clear is that you must allow all these disorderly signals to come through and listen to them because you know that rejecting them is going to interfere with your well-being and make you feel unhappy. At the same time, you will need to be aware that everything you feel or sense is not necessarily true: detachment and discernment are essential in order for you to process, understand and decipher the confusing information received. This is also an essential key to help you form happy relationships.<\/p>\n

For example, how do you feel and what do you think when a person you know appears to ignore you or doesn\u2019t greet you? Do you swiftly think that it is because that person bears some grudge against you or is angry at you? Or do you consider that that person may be utterly lost in their thoughts, distracted, or tired, etc.? An overly quick and impulsive assumption of such a situation leads to disappointment and pain, whereas keeping an open mind and not drawing a premature conclusion will keep you sane and serene. When such a circumstance occurs, come back to how you feel, and if no clear, realistic and obvious reasons come to mind, give yourself and that person the benefit of the doubt and don\u2019t draw any negative assumptions based on your sensitive radar, when all you have are patchy pieces of information and no full picture in sight.<\/p>\n

When you are highly sensitive, you cannot and must not ignore the need to learn to improve and master communication, nor should you ignore the general rules of living and being able to function. There is always a danger that in its extreme form, high sensitivity can affect you to a point where you withdraw from the world to protect your need for truth, fairness, and kindness. Highly sensitive people often enjoy spending time alone and need it. However, this can become entrenched and promote rigidity, as you gradually become dogmatic and start imposing your views on others, not unlike a tyrant. The thing is, you can\u2019t resent and hold a grudge for someone who is not a highly sensitive person or one whose high sensitivity is different to yours; you need to remain open to another\u2019s differences, which means improving your understanding of your own feelings and sensations. This simultaneously enables respect in your relationships and allows their continuation.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the working world, you will have to learn not to confuse resistance for rejection. When working, you easily experience the feeling that you can\u2019t freely behave according to your truth, nor have the right to do so. This often results in major conflicts, because there is such a discrepancy between what you feel, who you are, and what you believe society wants from you, that it becomes painful. Within any society, institution, or organization, there is an inherent power within it which requires and needs that individual distinctiveness disappears so that that society, institution or organization may function. The fact is that the social order that suggests \u2018you shut up, be more efficient and perform\u2019, isn\u2019t prey to moods and feelings, and your understanding that you have to do your work is real. Over the long term, this becomes unsustainable for you as a highly sensitive person. You may give it a try because you must, but as time goes on, this can result in burn out, illness or worse.<\/p>\n

On the positive side, it is worth noting that this social order doesn\u2019t necessarily imply rejection, because every society\/organization has a need for highly sensitive people within their ranks: after all, they are the ones who are going to be creative, to explore, find new pathways, and open new possibilities, from artists to scientists and anyone in between. When you realize this, you experience strength and empowerment as you open yourself to seeking those possibilities. Finding a suitable career or work environment that fits with your highly sensitive personality is essential. Of course, this is easier said than done when you are stuck in a rut trying to make ends meet, or stuck in a competitive career. What is vital is that, at some point, you recognise and acknowledge your high sensitivity, to enable the steps to honour it by incorporating it into your life and adapting your life to it, no matter how long this takes.<\/p>\n

Typically, as a highly sensitive person, saying no is often difficult and you may not even be aware of it: you are held hostage by the idea that you have to be kind and to be seen as kind too. To you, saying no means causing pain to someone else and this blocks you and disables your freedom. In reality, this belief can deeply undermine relationships as they are no longer true and it impacts on your feelings and energy negatively. You have to accept the idea that you don\u2019t have to be kind all the time and that you can say no. Saying no promotes self-respect, truth and frees you from being in an endless victim\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

Below is a step by step guide to help you work with your high sensitivity, and which involves removing doubt, confusion and procrastination from your life on a day to day basis:<\/p>\n

1. Set realistic goals and attend to them one at a time. Then, make a list of tasks that will help you reach your goals. Be careful not to over-burden yourself with too many tasks. By the end of the day, you will have to feel satisfied that you were able to accomplish your task(s), and not feel like you failed.<\/p>\n

2. Ensure that your daily task(s) is clear and describe what you are going to do and how you are going to organize it, to avoid feeling scattered and be clear.<\/p>\n

3. Your brain likes to attend to tasks that are similar in their nature: for example, it is best not to mix creative tasks with mechanical tasks, or meditative v financial tasks. You could divide your day in half-days to attend to different types of tasks.<\/p>\n

4. Take breaks. Be aware that your brain\u2019s ability to best concentrate doesn\u2019t usually last beyond sixty minutes, or less, or you will start feeling confused and distracted. Take a walk, eat, sleep, meditate, do something that disconnects you from your task for 15 min or 30 mins at a time.<\/p>\n

5. Avoid and limit distractions: highly sensitive people are more easily distracted and stimulated. Avoid social networks, phone, TV, friends, etc. and focus 100% on your tasks.<\/p>\n

6. Set some milestones for each task, so that you can observe how far you have gone in accomplishing one specific task at a time, such as writing one line, one paragraph, one page or swimming one lap one day, two the next day, etc.<\/p>\n

7. Find someone who may be in a similar situation, another highly sensitive person, one who will encourage you, so you can return the favor, and the two of you will feel supported by each other, without interfering with your respective needs for privacy and space.<\/p>\n

8. Don\u2019t push yourself, be aware of how much and how well you can do something and take it slowly: this way you will not be tempted to procrastinate and you will respect yourself. It is not about setting goals within restrictive time constraints, but setting those goals in accordance to your energy levels.<\/p>\n

9. Cultivate sincere and deep relationships to support all those around you that aren\u2019t so. There are ways to come out of isolation and find like-minded souls, when needed; you could join a group where room is made for understanding, communication and sharing. This could be a supervised group, one with a professional coach who can enable the development of ties between highly sensitive people on the basis of truth, sincerity and depth. Or this could be a meditation group, where all that is externally aggressive in the world is non-existent. Similarly, a drama or public speaking class can improve communication, disable the fear of speaking in public, and positively impact on your confidence. Alternatively, a one to one coach who helps you come out of your comfort zone, and explore interactions while preserving strong and safe boundaries, can open new ways to explore your high sensitivity and embrace it.<\/p>\n

**Note: if your high sensitivity is associated with other conditions (psychological\/mental or medical conditions not covered in this article), seeking the help of a professional therapist or group therapy may be necessary and can be invaluable.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"1pascale2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Love & Light,<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Pascale<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Pascale: Just like when you learn and understand how to read a map or how to take care of your plants, you can learn to understand your high sensitivity and use it as a tool, a gift that will guide you and empower you in all that you do and allow you to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":7434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,24],"tags":[275,1808,270,416,675,232,889,320,1807,1809],"class_list":["post-7433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-change","category-self-help-improvement","tag-emotions","tag-highly-sensitive","tag-life","tag-life-lessons","tag-life-motivation","tag-motivation","tag-positive-energy","tag-positivity","tag-sensitive","tag-sensitive-people"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t