The Empowered Hearts Collective is a gathering place and refuge for highly sensitive womxn. But what does being highly sensitive mean?

In this blog post, I’ll help you understand how to think of high sensitivity, including common characteristics and experiences, as well as how you can embrace your sensitivity for the super power that it really is. I’ll also discuss how to fight back in a culture that prizes hypercompetition and overvalues traditionally “masculine” qualities like stoicism.

Sensitivity is a super power, and it’s at its most powerful when you can really embrace it.

The term “highly sensitive person,” or HSP, was coined in 1996 by clinical psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron. There is no diagnosis for being highly sensitive, and it is not considered to be a mental health disorder. (In fact, as we’ll cover soon, sensitivity can be a huge strength). 

Being an HSP is all about your experience of moving through the world and how you perceive the people and events around you. I like to think of being highly sensitive like turning the volume up to 11. That high volume is true for how you process interactions with other people, as well as how you take in the natural and material world.

Unfortunately, being highly sensitive can often mean feeling out of place. 

You may have lived through all of these experiences:

You might feel like you need to get out of situations that feel toxic to you when others appear to be fine, or you might get a bad vibe from somebody way before the others around you sniff it out. All of this can lead to conflict with others, and self-blame for feeling the way that you do.

At the same time, highly sensitive womxn also experience the good stuff in life at a high volume. We appreciate beauty, nature, and art, and have extremely close and authentic relationships. More than anything, HSPs desire real connection, and tend to be very caring, creative, thoughtful, and considerate. HSPs are amazing friends, partners, parents, and family members to have.

Highly sensitive people take in a lot from their environment. That includes sounds, smells, visual input, and textures. You might get overwhelmed by loud noises and get overstimulated when there’s too much to take in. 

At the same time, HSPs experience big joy from art, music, and nature, and can tune into subtleties that others might miss. You may notice that you are picky about your lived environment and the aesthetics around you. That’s because our surroundings have such a strong effect on how we feel day-to-day. 

One of the defining features of highly sensitive people is their tremendous empathy. HSPs can sense into how other people are thinking and feeling to an extent that sometimes feels eerie, and often feels overwhelming. Just like sensory input, HSPs take in a lot when it comes to other people’s energy. That means that you connect strongly with others, you are highly considerate, and you tend to know what people need before they even know it themselves. 

At the same time, taking in so much of other people’s energy can be draining. HSPs tend to avoid crowds, abhor conflict and tension, and need lots of alone time to rechange. This is one reason why boundaries are so essential for HSPs. 

Because HSPs are taking in so much from the world, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. If we have too much on our plates, we can get flooded and shut down. Getting too much information all at once stresses our nervous systems and makes us feel frazzled. In fact, being highly sensitive is often mistaken for ADD/ADHD, although both can exist in one person at the same time. 

As a coping mechanism, many HSPs enjoy having organized systems in place, and get stressed when they are disrupted. Without systems, it’s easy to feel untethered and anxious, which makes it hard to get through the day.

As an HSP, you may have noticed that when you’re out of bandwidth, overworked, and under rested, you start to get cranky. The people around you might drive you crazy, and you have little tolerance or patience.

When you’re feeling this way, it’s a good sign that you need to take a break, in whatever way is the most nourishing for you. It’s also important to avoid beating up on yourself. When you’re feeling irritable, don’t get into self-criticism and call yourself mean, bitchy, or impatient. Your brain is wired differently, and you have different needs. Instead, make it a point to take care of yourself, and tune into self-compassion. 

HSPs can be introverts, extroverts, or ambiverts, but all experience a complex inner world. When HSPs do connect with others, we get bored and annoyed easily by small talk, so we could take or leave socialization just for its own sake. Why deal with tedious people when your own mind can be so interesting?

If you’re highly sensitive, it’s likely that at some point in your life (or many) someone has called you “sensitive” in a way that wasn’t meant as a compliment. These messages hurt, and can make you feel like there is something wrong with you, especially if you hear them as a child. Sensitivity can be “inconvenient” when you’re reacting and responding to situations or people that have an investment in maintaining the status quo. The upshot is that HSPs often spend years or even lifetimes trying to shut themselves down.

The key here is that sensitivity can only truly become a super power when you accept and lean into it. When you’re spending your time and energy trying to change yourself to “fit” better into the world, you diminish what makes you so powerful.

The first step is that you have to trust your experience. Sensitivity gives you information about what’s wrong and also about what’s really right. Sensitivity is a connection to a higher intelligence that is a source for art, music, and general creativity. As we’ve covered, it also attunes you strongly to the people around you. When you follow those instincts, the world opens up. Then you can really take action.  

Think of sensitivity as a source of information and knowledge. The key is what you choose to do with that knowledge, and it’s all rooted in self-trust. 

Here are some of the big ways that sensitivity can be a super power.

Highly sensitive women can tap into our senses, our intuition, and our connection to higher intelligence to be phenomenal partners, mothers, artists, advocates, and therapists, just to name a few options. We can also lead change in our families, our workplaces, our hometowns, and in society at large.

Something else that’s special about being sensitive is that you’re used to feeling big feelings, and you’re actually very good at handling it, despite what people might assume. Everyone feels, but HSPs are just more connected and attuned to those feelings. 

Think about how much pain and suffering in the world has been caused by people running away from difficult feelings. Denial, selfishness, narcissism, dishonesty, and numbing are just a few of those consequences. 

HSPs can help to guide people in facing the fear of big feelings, moving through them, and confronting what’s on the other side. I believe that we are at a moment in human history where we are being required to reconnect. We’ve spent so much time and effort disconnecting from the planet, from our bodies, from our feelings, and from each other, and the consequences of that disconnection will be fatal if they’re not addressed. HSPs can lead the world in growing connection to each other and the planet in a whole different way. (Just make sure to prioritize taking care of yourself along the way.)

If you identify as a highly sensitive womxn, it’s likely that you’ve been through some difficult times, and you may have spent much of your life trying to change who you are.

Let this serve as your official invitation to rewrite that narrative. 

The really good news about being highly sensitive is that when you do start to really lean into your sensitivity and intuition, you’ll be raising your vibration and bringing yourself into better and better situations and relationships that you don’t feel the need to escape.

And not for nothing, sensitivity connects us to joy. We feel so much when we’re in nature, around children, when we hear a beautiful piece of music, etc. That joy is energy. When we really allow ourselves to feel into our feelings, especially feelings of joy, we spread positive vibrations to the entire Universe. 

You can help heal the world just by really being “you.” It’s time to let yourself embrace who you are. Reach out to learn more about how the Empowered Hearts Collective can support you in that journey.