Highly Sensitive

Highly Sensitive People have brain differences making us more prone to anxiety and overwhelm. Julie Bjelland provides resources to help.

If it feels like your highly sensitive brain never "shuts off" and stops thinking deeply, you're right — it doesn't!

The Highly Sensitive Paper - Information, personal growth, emotional health for highly sensitive people. Multiple articles.

Highly Sensitive People have brain differences making us more prone to anxiety and overwhelm. Julie Bjelland provides resources to help.

We can wear physical masks for Halloween, cosplay and Día de los Muertos, as an actor or other performer, for a masked ball or erotic play – all that can be fun.

But when we emotionally mask parts of ourselves such as our high sensitivity to survive or get along socially, our comfort may come at the cost of being authentic.

Emily Fletcher – founder of Ziva Meditation – notes “Stress is actually keeping you from performing at the top of your game.

“I tend to work with a lot of high performers.

“My CEO clients will say ‘Emily, my stress is the thing that gives me my cutting edge, that’s the thing that keeps me, you know, competitive and in the game’ – and my actors will say to me, ‘Emily, I need my stress…this is where my art comes from.’

“But here’s the news – stress is not helping you in the performance department.

“As a matter of fact, stress makes you stupid.”

Highly sensitive people may be especially vulnerable to anxiety and depression. Therapist Susan Meindl writes:
“HSP’s typically respond strongly and quickly reach their natural level of tolerance in loud, bright or chaotic environments."

Judith Orloff, MD calls empaths "highly sensitive, finely tuned instruments...naturally giving, spiritually attuned." But empaths can be vulnerable to an overdose of negative emotions.
Olga Klimecki, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences notes: “When we share the suffering of others too much, our negative emotions increase."

The Creative Mind Daily for March 21 includes:
* Highly Sensitive, Gifted, Not Disordered;
* HSP Quiz - Are you a Highly Sensitive Person?;
* Thriving As A Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur | and more.

Our personality trait of high sensitivity provides many positive qualities but can also lead to problems like anxiety and overwhelm.

A number of exceptional actors talk about being sensitive, or shy. --  “I wouldn’t say I have much of an outgoing personality. I’m pretty shy." @idriselba / “I’m very sensitive in real life...I’m not a girl who goes to big parties – I’m shy.” @jes_chastain

"Introversion and extraversion are personality types: two complementary ways of operating in the world."

Are you more one or the other?

"People have both introversion and extraversion in their personalities and so are not limited either to the inner world or the outer world."

Highly Sensitive People have brain differences making us more prone to anxiety and overwhelm. Julie Bjelland provides resources to help.

Trying to make business work in the same way as others does not work for HSPs. We have a different set of needs in order to succeed.

Multiple articles with material by coaches, psychologists and others to help you thrive.

“When we are disconnected from our intuition, we tend to make choices that are in conflict with our truest nature." Actor Carrie-Anne Moss

"Wildish nature is our creativity, our innocence and resourcefulness...our intuition at work." Maria Hill, Founder of Sensitive Evolution

As a highly sensitive person, we experience sensations and perceptions more deeply, have stronger intuition. What can help us thrive with these qualities?

Along with the emotional and spiritual satisfactions of so many pursuits, many people can become overwhelmed – especially if they have the personality trait of high sensitivity.

Heather Dominick, a coach and mentor for Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs, explains some of her perspectives on overwhelm and how to deal with it.

Judith Orloff, MD explains that “Empaths are highly sensitive, finely tuned instruments when it comes to emotions. They feel everything, sometimes to an extreme, and are less apt to intellectualize feelings."

Heather Dominick is a coach and mentor for Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs, and in this post from her site she explores this kind of overwhelm, and what to do about it.

She writes: "One of our many Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur (HSE) Strengths is the ability to be Visionary. The Shadow side of this awesome Strength is massive distraction."

"With the genius of your strong emotions and the magic of your strong empathy, you’ll be able to weather anything and keep yourself headed toward higher ground.”
Karla McLaren teaches the course The Language of Emotions.

“In preparation for her new course, Hay House is launching a 4-Part Wellness Workshop video series that gives a remarkable insight into the world of living as a highly-sensitive individual and provide tools to restore your health and power after evading relationships that drain you.” The Energy Vampire Solution – Free Workshop with Christiane Northrup …

Anyone can feel overwhelmed from too many demands and challenges, but creative and highly sensitive people may be especially vulnerable.

As highly sensitive people, we may experience many positive aspects of the trait, but we can also be more reactive and vulnerable to stress and anxiety.