High Sensitivity

Are you sensitive, caring, and empathetic? Do you have a strong sense of responsibility, keen intuition, and an eye for detail? If so, you might be highly sensitive. Being highly sensitive (HSP) has many wonderful aspects, but they’re often overshadowed in a society focused on quick action, productivity, and fast results. As a result, you may not be able to make the most of your HSP talents and find yourself stuck in:

• Feeling the emotions of others so well that you no longer know what is yours and what belongs to the other person. You may feel too much or almost nothing.
• Having difficulty making choices, causing you to procrastinate and fret.
• Opinions, feelings and thoughts of others directly affect your emotions and self-esteem.
• Difficulty feeling and indicating your limits, for example, causing you to silently blame, feel frustrated, anxious or exhausted.
• Fear of failure, which makes you spend a very long time preparing for e.g. presentations, or you don't even start at all.
• Do you sometimes lash out when that doesn't fit who you are at all.
• Empty into conversations that have little depth.

You are not alone...

1 in 5 people are highly sensitive, also called highly sensitive person - HSP. In short, this means that a person's nervous system is stimulus sensitive. The brain of HSP works differently than that of non-HSP; all details are perceived and the information from them is deeply processed. This allows an optimal choice to be made. Unfortunately, this also often causes HSP to get stuck and not dare to make choices - one of the disadvantages of high sensitivity.

So, high sensitivity is a trait that makes you more sensitive to your environment.

Researcher Elaine Aron distinguishes 4 characteristics of high sensitivity:

• In-depthprocessing of information
• Overstimulation(but some HSPs also suffer from understimulation)
• Emotionalintensity (feeling)
• Sensorysensitivity (senses)

High sensitivity can be a significant obstacle to enjoying your life. HSPs suffer considerably more from (growing up in) negative circumstances than non-HSPs. They are more sensitive to stress and rejection. But... they also benefit more than average from coaching and therapy and flourish more in a supportive environment. It's no coincidence that they are also called 'orchids'!