5 ways to harness your sensitivity.

Sensitivity is a superpower.

Many of you who are reading this will be sensitive souls. In fact most of the women I work with are highly sensitive. This is often seen as such a negative trait but I believe, when sensitivity is harnessed in the right way, it can become your super power.

Being sensitive is something that is super special - and don’t ever let anyone ever tell you it’s not! The difficulty is, that we often don’t harness our sensitivity for it to blossom in the right ways, so instead we find it a struggle and a burden.

In this post I am going to to help you realise ways in which you can harness your sensitivity in order for it to become something powerful inside of you instead of something dragging you down.

So what does it actually mean to be sensitive?

The beauty of being sensitive is:

• You are attune to people’s feelings.

• You can read someone’s energy and can see clearly what’s going on for them.

• You are very aware of other people’s emotions and attitudes.

• You have big powerful feelings that allow you to feel alive.

• You are a great friend and a great partner that allows for the difficult conversations to be had.

• You want to live a big and wonderful life, you have big dreams!

• You express your emotions and love to others.

• You have the ability to get to know yourself on such a deep and interesting level.

• You have the potential to create wonderful meaning out of your life - likely in a way that will be a gift to others.

• You have the ability to be vulnerable which inspires more vulnerability around you and therefore connection.

• You are a great listener and can validate how people feel without the need to give feedback or comment when it’s not asked for.

• You have an attention to detail and can see nuances that others might miss.

• You hold onto difficult moments less as you have the ability to actually feel and process your emotions.

• You learn how to have great compassion for yourself rather than shame.

• You appreciate life to the max! And you are appreciative of others and are able to express this.

• You are passionate!

However the shadow side of being sensitive is:

• You take things deeply personally.

• You have a fear of being disliked which means that you end up people pleasing over being authentic.

• You feel guilty often especially when you see other people’s discomfort.

• You feel a need to fix and save others from their pain.

• You always put others before you.

• Your emotions are often at the surface - tears or anger.

• You have a difficulty setting boundaries with others.

• You are easily overwhelmed.

• You avoid confrontation - it just feels too much and too scary.

• You take feedback as criticism which means that you miss out on the opportunity to grow.

• Often you feel misunderstood and like the world is against you.

• You struggle to bounce back quickly from situations.

• You are more involved with the story around the emotion rather than the actual emotion itself.

• You are highly critical of yourself and often others too.

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5 Ways to Harness your Sensitivity

And turn it into your super power!

1. Care more about what you think about yourself.
   
   And less what other people think. Easier said than done, I get it, but I want to share this quote with you by

   Yung Pueblo
   …

   

2. Pay attention to your language and use it wisely.
   
   Are you using language that is self-critical, unkind, judgemental? Are you using language that prefaces everything you say that is actually belittling you such as: “I might sound silly but….” “I’m sorry if this is not helpful but…” “I’m probably getting it wrong but…” Are you using language that puts you in a place of being helpless? “Why do bad things happen to me?” “Why do I always get it wrong.” The first step in changing this is simply awareness. Then it’s about using more empowering language to talk to yourself and others. “Yes I made a mistake but there’s so much I am learning and it’s normal to make mistakes. Mistakes often lead to success.” Building empathy and compassion in yourself will build more empathy and compassion towards others.

3. Know what sets your soul on fire and what makes you excited to be alive. Is it playing the guitar? Running up mountains? Watching comedy? Singing along to a musical? Learning how to paint? Whatever it is, do more of it. Prioritise it. Creativity and sensitivity when harnessed well can be super, super powerful! The more you do the things you love the more you are literally wiring your brain for joy, satisfaction and fulfilment - meaning that when things feel difficult, instead of going straight to those feelings of being helpless, your brain will be more likely choose to stay away from the feelings of despair and move towards the more favourable sensations and feelings.

4. Choose friends who lift you up. Ones who encourage you to bring out the best in you. Ones who you look up to and who inspire you to be the better version of yourself. Ones you feel safe with. These people will help you bring out the best in your sensitivity and will be a way to teach you to start to love yourself for it.
   "Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything." — Muhammad Ali

5. Get to know yourself better - What do you stand for? What’s your mission in life? What are your values? What are your needs? When you start to discover this you allow yourself to feel more fulfilled and more proud of who you are. This will bring out an energy in you that is inspiring to watch from the sidelines. When you know yourself better you love yourself better and when you love yourself better you start to be able to lean into the brighter sides of being sensitive.

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“I just feel so much.”

I often hear this from clients when they discuss their struggles with me. It’s a stance I have said many times before. It’s a statement that distracts us from what is really going on at a deeper level. It’s a statement that keeps us small - because ultimately it’s a helpless statement - effectively saying, hey there’s nothing I can do, this is just who I am, and so the situation won’t change.

We have to be careful of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves! Because the brain loves to hold onto our identities as it makes us feel safe. It’s part of our survival mechanism - if we clearly have an identity and role to play then we would be considered important in the tribe. However, nowadays this often stops us from creating important and healthy changes.

“I’m just someone who feels a lot.”
“I’m just stubborn. It’s who I am.”
“I struggle with guilt and I can’t change it.”

The more difficult thing to do is to actually get curious and look at:

➡️ why do I feel a lot?
➡️ why do certain people impact me so much?
➡️ why does this particular situation hurt so much?

These are the harder conversations to have with ourselves and they require a lot of courage and vulnerability. But without answering these questions, we will never be able to heal the pain behind the story in order to show up in a more empowering, high self-worth way!

A story we have about ourself is based on limiting beliefs - a belief is simply a thought that you have had over and over again and you have attached to it believing it to be true. We have to be open to the fact that we are not necessarily just someone who feels a lot, we are someone who has been through various things that are still causing us pain. When we choose to look at this pain (through the questions above) then we get to heal it. In turn, then we get to transform our sensitivity into something way more powerful that: “I just feel so much.”

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Book Recommendation

The Courage To Be Disliked - by Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga

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Please Share!

That’s it for this week - please do share with friends and family by clicking the button below - it really helps! Please also click here to add your favourite quote to the list! I will be sharing these soon in one of my posts. As always, please comment or like this post if you feel it has been valuable - don’t leave me hanging!

See you next week when I will be posting from my Bali retreat!

Sophie xxx