Struggles and gifts of highly sensitive writers
Around 20% percent of the population are understood to be ‘highly sensitive’ according to researcher Elaine Aron. Being highly sensitive is both a personality trait, but also often comes hand-in-hand with trauma symptoms and/or being neuro diverse - you may sit in one or all of these camps.
Being a highly sensitive person in the world presents particular struggles and many gifts including (for me and many other HSPs) being a writer…
One: The Struggle: Overwhelm
Struggling with the sense of overwhelm can be commonplace for highly sensitive people, this is due to having a more sensitive nervous system. As such day-to-day living activities can lead to sensory overwhelm. Our nervous system can literally feel overwhelmed by ‘input’. So what does this mean as a writer?
Well, as a highly sensitive person, we need more time to decompress and process day to day experiences, let alone intense ones. That means we need more time to ourselves and physical space to emotionally and mentally digest - to gather ourselves. To plough on ahead with our writing project, we need to rest and gather ourselves, which can leave us feeling like we are ‘falling behind’ or like there is something ‘wrong’ with us.
It's important that HSP’s find their own rhythm, honouring the needs of their sensitivity - acknowledging for example, that after a large family event, you're going to need a few days to recharge. That we set up working environments that suit our personalities, i.e. for me that means working from home solo not in a noisy office (to be at my best and feel most resourced).
The Gift: Intuitive powers
There is however, an untapped gift to this high sensitivity, which, when trained, is a powerful ally which is your intuitive sensitivity. This intuitive sensitivity can connect us to the subtle world, as well as being aware of messages and guidance coming through to us from our spirit team. As a writer, this can support us to intuitively find the right path for our work, it can enable our imagination to tap seen worlds, find the mentors we need, be in intuitive flow when it comes to our writing practice and become a channel for the writing to come through us, to name some examples. Consciously embracing our sensitivity can be a catalyst, great things.
Further reading:
Five reasons why your intuitive sensitivity as an empath increases your overwhelm
Five Intuitive super powers of highly sensitive people
Two: The Struggle - Boundaries
A common struggle for many highly sensitive people is weak boundary setting. The profile of many HSP’s I see, but not all, is they’ve often lived with an unpredictable or volatile caregiver in some form whether they are narcissistic, or have alcohol issues, or extreme mental health problems, for example. In the situations that sensitivity heightens further as a method to keep us safe by keeping others happy, leading to people pleasing tendencies.
We learn to be the mediator and peace keeper, to keep others happy to stay safe. We learn to deny our feelings as they will react or may upset others, or our opinions won't be heard and will be disregarded. You begin to be confused about how you feel, as you are continually denying your emotional reality and thinking your way out of your feelings. You habitually say yes, when actually, the true answer is no and so on.
So what does this mean as a writer? Well, as a writer, we need to safeguard our writing practice - even if that is stealing moments of time within a busy family timetable. We need to prioritise our creative expression. We need to feel comfortable to set healthy boundaries around our time, our energy and our needs. So sometimes there can be coaching or therapeutic work to be done to enable us to feel comfortable to do this.
The Gift: Deeply empathetic
HSP’s can struggle setting boundaries, because they really do feel the pain of others, quite acutely at times they then prioritise the feelings and needs of others over themselves. However the gift is a deep sense of empathy with all of life. A true, knowing of the experience of others - so we can write authentically and articulate the truth many know. Feeling deeply touched and moved by the natural environment which can translate into poetry or prose. We connect deeply with the world, and the subtle realms which we can become a bridge for so in turn we can deeply move others with our words.
Further reading
Four reasons good girl empaths fear their own power
Lessons, I learned as a highly sensitive person from friends with badass boundaries
Three: The Struggle - with owning the truth
As writers we need to speak our truth. However the truth isn't always comfortable, ‘nice’ or convenient which is a struggle for HSP’s with people pleasing tendencies who are chronic peacekeepers. The truth might rock the boat or be upsetting to others. It may feel too raw to be revealed - or even to own, depending on what stage we are at in our self development journey. To come to a point where we feel comfortable to reveal our truth, there's often, for many, a long healing journey that's behind us.
Therefore, we might feel reluctant to share our story, share our views, share our thoughts, or share our words. We may become self censoring and hold back on our perspective or point of view. We become overly sensitive to the opinions of others and fear judgement. We might become self sabotaging to avoid writing entirely - throwing one excuse after another, when the real reason is it doesn’t feel safe to our truth, it feels too vulnerable.
The fear of his visibility and having a voice isn't a unique struggle to HSP’s. However the journey to stepping into our power by stepping out of the emotional shadow of others, to own our needs, place value on them and safeguard not only our energy, capacity, true desires and our truth is a very common struggle and journey for HSP’s to take.
Gift: Deep need for a calling
Many highly sensitive writers have hard-won deep insights to share through our life experience. We become wisdom keepers in the world. Due to our emotional depth, to feel satisfied HSP’s often need to live with a deep sense of purpose, to have a ‘calling’ in the world. They need to be engaged in meaningful work, to feel of service and exercise their empathic nature. Writing can become a valuable and natural articulation of this - as we share valued insights, empathic understandings and philosophical vistas, nurturing others through the written word - if we are willing to overcome our inner objections and step into the calling.
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