The first time I heard that I was a highly sensitive person was from my father around the age of 4. Indirectly, as my mom and dad were conversing, and me banging on my toys, my identity began taking shape. Incredible how deeper and deeper memories begin showing up as the journey into self discovery goes on.
As a 4 year old ‘sponge’ I took in all suggestions instantly from my authority figures.
If I heard that I was a highly sensitive person, that suggestion would be looked to be fulfilled by my subconscious mind at every turn.
But wait a minute. Could being an HSP have started with these direct and indirect suggestions? At birth? Through childhood trauma? Generational trauma? Or even while in the womb? I believe the answer is yes. It’s all possible, and I haven’t yet met with concrete enough evidence to prove one suggestion to be more likely than another.
Having come to that conclusion however, it’s still our own responsibilities to understand what an HSP is and take responsibility for it. That doesn’t mean to rid yourself of every trait that comes with being a highly sensitive person. It means to embrace and keep the personality traits you want to keep, while replacing the ones you don’t want to keep.
This goes hand in hand with the idea of overcoming anxiety and healing emotionally. Many people have a misconception around healing. They believe that all of your inner problems go away, your thoughts magically turn positive all the time, you’re happy as ever, and actions are positively automated. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Upon transcending the world of being a Highly Sensitive Person, you’re just much better equipped at dealing with negative thoughts and inner challenges!
I’m sorry to burst your bubble.
Challenges are a sign of living life, they’re everywhere and they’ll continue to be everywhere. The changes are made in perception which directly affect our long term thinking and emotional states. It’s kind of like having a surf board now compared to before where you had to swim around all the time with high waves, tiring.
The opposite side of being a highly sensitive person is love. Since sensitivity is the definition of fear many of these anxiety sufferers make future experiences worse than what they are. Instead, when the compassion for these bodily symptoms show up through a deeper understanding, and love is projected inwards then it also transfers outwards.
Love and fear are always battling for supremacy.
Unfortunately, that tiny almond looking part of our emotional brains called the amygdala is much more open to recognizing threat rather than being open to the pleasant sides of life.
The amygdala is the internal alarm system, and it kind of acts like a 2 year old child.
The moment something familiar to any past trauma shows up (this YouTube video will tell you whether your symptoms may be related to trauma), or if something is unfamiliar, it lets you know. Adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormones) get secreted, the body mobilizes itself for the oncoming threat, and we look to fight or run from the… Barking dog?
We quickly realize, again, that the dog is 1/10th our size, and is actually kid of cute.
Until next time amygdala, threat tamed. You can see how a highly sensitive person lives out each day of their lives now. Just around the corner there may be another lurking threat, so they ‘stand guard’ just in case.
A tiresome way to live life. Then these anxiety sufferers wonder why they can’t seem to rationalize with their negative thoughts or get to a neutral place emotionally, they’re depleted! Depletion many times leads to depersonalization and other mental, emotional, or physical symptoms.
Get ready for a power packed episode of The Anxiety Guy Podcast below!
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Ohh yes, I don’t know that I’m a highly sensitive person, but my good friend is and she struggles to deal with certain physical environments because she’s extra sensitive to noise, scent, etc. Good questions about childhood and generational trauma — I’m glad that it’s not only genes, but the environment that triggers them, because there’s a practical way to approach it instead of attributing it to genetics.
I’m glad the post spoke to you Jen, much love.
I just found your blog and podcast. Thank you for speaking with compassion and kindness. Your patience in explaining a lot of the things I have been experiencing to a new level over the past three years is very reassuring and healing. I’ve been learning to have a deeper understanding of who I am through anxiety and being a HSP personality. At first what threw me for a loop was being attached to labels. Instead of saying what I was going through I was replaced by a label in essence and it caused even more anxiety. Once I started trusting in my beliefs and who God says I am I found my way back to not focusing on the labels but on the trauma, issues and even self inflicting things I did to myself that made my sensitivity and anxiety become even more of an issue; i.e. working tirelessly and not taking of myself over others, not sleeping enough, drinking to much coffee and alcohol. Thinking that I was a better person for caring about others over my own care has been a learning curve because as a very young child that suffered physical and emotional abuse I closed off my feelings/needs and turned to look after the needs of others to prevent them feeling any harm or pain. If I could save the world from feeling that then I somehow could heal myself of all the pain I went through at a very young age. Needless to say learning who I am in spite of and because of anxiety and being highly sensitized I’m learning again that all the negativity I have suffered happened but is not who I am. Through pain and suffering Ive learned compassion and caring and love…and im learning to give these things to myself as well. Thanks for the blog, podcast and insight. I now have a gentle place to turn to for helping with the healing process.
Thank you for sharing your personal insights. It seems you’re well on your way and open to the change process, keep up. ❤️