I'M HIGHLY SENSITIVE.
That explains it.
THE EPIPHANY
Wait. That's me.
Ah... that moment you came across information on Highly Sensitive People (HSP's). Perhaps you had to pause to take it all in...because finally, someone was describing experiences you never knew how to explain...
The puzzle pieces started coming together. For once, you felt like there was some sort of manual that helped you understand yourself better.
It felt validating. Truly.
What once felt like an isolating world, now felt like you belonged somewhere...to this subgroup of people that is being studied.
Life, and all the things you experienced, made sense... but...
Recognising yourself in something hasn’t made life easier.
When knowing yourself as a HSP doesn't quite translate into living well.
THE STRUGGLE
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You get overwhelmed, and once you cross that threshold, your reaction can feel impossible to contain. You may become intensely emotional, or shut down completely. Afterwards, you see clearly what happened...but in the moment, you just couldn’t.
You're attuned to what others need and feel. And so, you automatically anticipate, adjust, and accommodate. Your attention can become so focused on others that you lose touch with what you need and want. Boundaries are difficult. Relationships are challenging.
You think things through and can get stuck in your head. You go back and forth, second-guess yourself and search for the right choice. The more you think, the further you get from knowing what you actually want.
You may often don't trust yourself to make the right decisions. You've drifted so far from listening to your own voice or intuition that you often default to the opinions and voices of others.
You feel emotions so intensely that you lose perspective and cannot tell what it means or what to do with it. The feeling is real, but in that moment, it can feel like the whole reality.
When feelings seem to consume you, and your internal experience becomes too much, you reach for ways to quiet or escape it: through distraction, overwork, achievement, food, screens, substances, relationships, or other forms of avoidance.
You feel a sense of "being different" and sometimes, connecting with others can be challenging. You don't want the surface conversations. It feels draining. Perhaps you have learnt how to "mask" your true self so that others can't see the real you.
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“You may understand yourself deeply, and still, you can feel overwhelmed, repeat the same patterns, and struggle in your relationships.
THE QUESTION
I know myself so well, yet why isn't my life any better?
FROM RECOGNITION TO UNDERSTANDING
The Space Between Knowing and Living
That question, " Why isn't life any better/easier?" is a good one to contemplate. The answer isn't necessarily in devouring more information about high sensitivity.
Perhaps it is really about understanding how your sensitivity operates within you, specifically. The same sensitivity can be experienced very differently depending on how a person regulates emotion, responds to uncertainty, interprets internal signals, relates to other people, and understands their own needs.
Two people can both identify as highly sensitive yet struggle in completely different ways. For one person, sensitivity may become overanalysis. Yet for another, emotional overwhelm.
Another may have an almost constant awareness of other people’s needs. And another: a need for control or even difficulty trusting their own perceptions. And for many, several of these experiences become intertwined.
Here, the question evolves from: “How do I cope with being highly sensitive?” to...
“How does my particular system work, and what do I need to develop in order to live well with it?”
WHERE PSYCHOLOGY MEETS LIVED EXPERIENCE
Hi, I'm Dr. Neeta Maharaj
I specialize in working with people with sensory processing sensitivity, or more commonly known as highly sensitive people (HSP’s).
My work centres on understanding what happens between recognising yourself as highly sensitive and learning to live from that understanding when life is actually happening. And that requires something more individual, such as a really good understanding of how your particular psychological system works.
Through a grounded approach in psychological science,evidence-based work coupled with intuition, I'm interested in:
* What happens in you when you become emotionally overwhelmed.
*How you navigate relationships/ attunement to needs.
*Your approach to conflict management (how you express anger, and how you manage boundaries).
* Your internal sense of self (including self-trust).
*What role control, perfectionism, avoidance, or overanalysis play.
*Your relationship with your own intuition and sense of knowing.
FROM KNOWING TO LIVING
The Deeper Work
Living gracefully never means an absence of struggles in life. In fact, philosophically, struggles are an inherent part of life. Graceful living, as I call it, means having an understanding of your own unique psychological system as a HSP, and refining it through developing the skills and tools to be able to deal with challenges.
This becomes seeing your sensitivity as simply a way of processing the world and working with it strategically.
That strategic work involves learning to regulate an emotion without suppressing it. It's understanding and practicing healthy boundaries so that you stop overgiving, hyper-attuning, and carrying emotions that aren't yours to carry.
It's being clear about which relationships keep you confused and ambiguous, and choosing those that make you more emotionally safe and secure. It's developing a more grounded and discerning relationship with your own internal experience.
It's practising healthy ways of expressing anger and stating your needs/ wants directly. It's learning how you seek validation externally, and then actively cultivating a sense of self-worth internally.
It's trusting your intuition without being consumed by every strong feeling you have. It's thinking and feeling deeply without becoming trapped in analysis.
And finally, it's recognising those protective patterns without judging yourself for having developed them.