Strengths of Highly Sensitive People
There are lots of wonderful strengths to being a highly sensitive person and sometimes we need reminding what they are…
Rich inner life
Highly sensitive people have rich and complex inner lives - making them very interesting people. They are deeply reflective - thinking through their interactions and contemplating their emotional experiences. They are deep thinkers and deep feelers, often very emotionally intelligent. This ability can make us sought after by others who want to be deeply seen or heard, or are looking for insight into their current problems. This inquiring nature can lead to a love of learning, through books, workshops and courses. Our knowledge and guidance can be inspiring and influential to others.
Hard won wisdom
As a highly sensitive soul we can often accrue, hard-won, wisdom. For many of us, being highly sensitive can bring its challenges that we need to traverse such as:
dealing with dysregulation and overwhelm
overcoming people, pleasing tendencies and learning how to develop healthy boundaries
working with chronic health issues linked to our sensitivity,
developing our sense of self-worth, and feeling empowered by our sensitivity, not alienated by it
developing our intuition, so our sensitivity becomes a superpower.
All this self-discovery, self-development and self-healing leads to a great deal of hard won wisdom, which we can then share in different forms with others as it has great value.
Taking alternative paths
As a highly sensitive person, we can often be taking alternative paths to the mainstream due to our sensitive nature. This is because we experience the world differently, and our sensitivity gives us a unique set of gifts which can lead us to work differently when we open up to it - leading with our intuition and/or empathy. Depending on our interests it may lead us down the path of, just for example:
animal communication
becoming an energy healer
working with crystals,
needing to work outdoors and in nature
As we are sensitive to other beings, we are sensitive to our environment and we are sensitive to energetic information which some of us feel called to maximise the benefits of..
Need for deep sense of purpose
Highly sensitive people have a longing to be contributing to the world in a deeply purposeful way. We want meaningful personal relationships, and to be doing work that is of value to the world. This is because we are sincerely touched and moved by the world around us and the people in it. Therefore, we want to forge strong connections that feel purposeful and to be of service to others, be that people, animals or the planet. This gives us a great deal of satisfaction and a real sense of meaning to our lives. For each of us, this can express itself very differently, whether it means we're a stay at home mum, or we work in social care or a vets, or we support those in the death process, or are a shamanic practitioner and so on - we need to feel engaged in ‘purposeful’ activities.
Connection to the subtle realms
As highly sensitive people, one of our gifts is that we can learn to train our intuitive awareness to become easily connected to the subtle energy and realms. This gift can make us natural healers and mystics. When we train our sensitivity, we can learn to perceive with ease what others cannot. Personally, I think intuitive training whilst a luxury interest for some is a must for HSP’s to manage and understand their sensitivity. When we develop our intuitive awareness, a world of beauty, magic and mystery can open up to us - including sensing energy, telepathy, connecting with spirit guides, angels and so on. Many exciting possibilities.
Social connection
Many HSPs are the social glue in group situations. They pick up on subtle social cues of individuals and the group, the emotional needs or tone of people, their energy levels, as well as interpersonal dynamics which can help to navigate the flow of social engagements for the collective. This can also include preventing and resolving conflict, sometimes even before it even starts as HSP’s are fantastic mediators. A HSP is also excellent at sensing someone's intentions, as long as they have escaped self-denial and have learnt to trust their instincts when it comes to reading people, which we can do with ease compared to others.
Understanding and empathy
We often have highly empathic natures as highly sensitive people. Our somatic awareness is often acute - the pain of others really is our own and we feel it deeply. Therefore we can have a great understanding of the emotional experience of another, therefore form deep connections. It is natural for us to therefore respond with care - unless we feel overwhelmed by all we feel so we can become avoidant and cut off from others (been there!). This can be a sign of inner processing work to be done.
Related reading
Eight reasons empaths have late, blooming careers
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