Highly sensitive!
Have you ever felt like an emotional sponge? Do you frequently feel too much empathy? Are you easily hurt by criticism, blame, conflict? Are you bothered by smells, lights, sounds, when objectively they shouldn't bother you? Do you have the impression of an overheating brain, of seeing a thousand and one thoughts constantly springing up? Are you ultra-perfectionist to the point of exhausting yourself? So, you might be… a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).
Three large families of hypersensitive
In this case you may feel more like
- a "hypersensory", that is you are very sensitive to environmental stimuli,
- or like an "emotional", that is you are feeling a "wider range of emotions", yours and those of people around you,
- or you are "thinking all the time, doubting and rehashing what you have been told".
These three large families of hypersensitive are a classification defined by Saverio Tomasella, a French psychoanalyst and doctor in psychology who created and does research for the “Observatoire de la Sensibilité” (in French)
Hypersensitivity is innate and is part of the temperament
The American psychologist, Dr. Elaine Aron, for her part, began to research the subject of high sensitivity and its functioning in the 1990s. According to her, hypersensitivity affects approximately 20% of the population. To the general public, she emphasizes the positive aspects of high sensitivity, which for a long time has been misleadingly synonymous with introversion, inhibition, anxiety, shyness and depression. According to Elaine Aron, hypersensitivity is innate and is part of the temperament. Like all scientific and empirical studies, hers are debated and controversial and that's a good thing. But for the hypersensitive person, the important thing is elsewhere.
How do you turn sensitivity into a force?
This (new) label or classification among the hyper or the ultra sensitive doesn’t really matter. If you recognize yourself in what you read about this topic and the various tests, it seems above all necessary to free yourself from the limiting belief, which you may have, and which makes sensitivity a problem or an anomaly. Once you are convinced that sensitivity is really a fundamental quality, it seems more essential to get to know it better, to take care of it and to develop it.
Indeed, it is neither a pathology nor a fragility but a personality trait, a strength, a power that you can lean to master, a bit like Peter Parker, alias Spider-Man, a hypersensitive teenager who holds superpowers which bring along great responsibilities.
How can Sophrology and Hypnosis help?
With Sophrology and Hypnosis you can start with recognizing your allies: anger, joy, sadness, fear and disgust, these great emotions that rule us all. Welcome every emotion, listen to it, learn from it. It takes a little patience and persistence but it is really life changing.
Emotions are a biological phenomenon; there are no "good" or "bad" emotions, only "pleasant" or "unpleasant" emotions, and more or less intense. It is about learning to develop an adequate relationship with them, to adjust the emotional thermostat as best as possible to live better with oneself and others.
May the force be with you!
More information
Check out Elaine Aron’s site, American Psychologist and Researcher (includes a test on hypersensitivity)
Source: « Grand bien vous fasse » sur France Inter; https://hsperson.li/; Observatoire de la sensibilité Photo: Christine Sponchia from Pixabay
