Eliminate Social Burnout with Fewer, But More Meaningful Connections
Are you burning yourself out and sacrificing meaningful connection by socializing too often? Highly sensitive people crave deep connections which are only possible when you rest in between and take a quality over quantity approach to your relationships.
What Is Your Anger Telling You?
Have you ever felt so angry that you wanted to scream or break something? Instead of being curious about where anger is coming from, HSPs often push away intense feelings of anger out of guilt or worry that they need to be kind and gentle. Anger is an important messenger and often shows up when we’re overstimulated, there’s an injustice, or boundaries are broken.
Exaggerating Your Feelings to Be Taken Seriously
A common boundary strategy for HSPs is to amplify what you’re feeling or escalate the severity of your needs to be understood. Exaggerating a bit is a form of self-protection because it may feel safer saying no with an “excuse” - giving some compelling reason that justifies your need to the other person. It also saves you from hearing “it’s no big deal” or “you’re too sensitive”.
The Cost of Sacrificing Your Needs to Make Others Comfortable
As an HSP, you need to live for yourself and not follow someone else’s compass. It’s important to reflect on what you need to honor your sensitivity and how you’re sacrificing yourself to make others feel more comfortable at your expense.
What Job is Best for a Highly Sensitive Person?
Sensitive folks are constantly seeking a way to make work more manageable and meaningful without all the overwhelm and burnout that is common for HSPs. Work tends to be something to survive, instead of enjoy. Choosing a career is subjective, so it really depends on who you work with, the values of the company, the environment, how meaningful and interesting the work is to you, and your ability to maintain a work-life balance.
Life as an HSP: Create Your Own Rules
What might be available if you listened to your own needs more often? Less overwhelm, more energy, more joy and fulfillment, strong intuition, better sleep, less guilt. When you begin to recognize the value that your sensitivity brings, you can begin to access more of what your sensitivity has to offer and less of the burdens that come from living a non-HSP lifestyle.
The Loneliness of Feeling Misunderstood as an HSP
Being misunderstood as a highly sensitive person is common because most people in your life don’t have the same type of attuned nervous system that you do or need the same amount of downtime and recharging. The solution is not to bend beyond your bandwidth, but to communicate your needs and experiences more clearly.
How to Feel More Satisfied in Your Relationships as an HSP
Highly Sensitive People often feel misunderstood, resentful and overwhelmed in relationships, so it’s important to find a balance of quiet downtime for yourself and meaningful shared experiences with your partner.
4 Gentle Boundaries for Exhausted Perfectionists
For highly sensitive people, boundaries can feel intimidating, scary, unfamiliar, and bring up feelings of guilt. If you haven’t built a strong relationship with boundaries yet, slowly ease into the practice setting clear limits - with yourself and others. This will preserve your downtime and ultimately strengthen your relationships.
Surviving Emotional Overwhelm During Times of Tragedy
Being highly sensitive in today’s world seems to be getting more and more difficult. The emotional toll of witnessing tragedy and suffering (mass shootings, wars, social injustice, racism, global pandemic, climate change) on a nearly daily basis is beyond heart-wrenching. It’s okay to react slowly, feel deeply, think before acting, or focus on educating rather than fighting.
How Much Time Hibernating in Bed is Too Much?
What if you could do less and honor your needs to recharge more as a highly sensitive person? The best part is that it only takes a little something for a highly sensitive person to fill up with the same amount of joy as a non-HSP. Being so highly perceptive and a big feeler, you not only notice the little things around you, but you get to deeply experience them. It’s okay to listen inward and hibernate in bed when you need to.
4 Steps to Prioritize Your HSP Needs Without Guilt
Learning to put yourself first and honor your unique needs as a highly sensitive person is a process that takes time and practice. Educating yourself on what it means to be highly sensitive, practicing self-compassion and mindfulness, and surrounding yourself with people who support your growth are essential pieces of the puzzle.