“I NEED to be alone and to not have anymore input!”
“That show really bothers me, I can’t watch it anymore.”
“What’s up, I can sense your mind is elsewhere?”
“My head literally hurts after all of that hanging out.”
“I looooooove all the pretty things around me!”
“I can totally picture myself in their suffering shoes!”
“Did I say the right thing or enough?” Replay, replay….
Welcome to my HSP brain 😉 Can you relate at all? Over the last 2.5 years I’ve been on an emotional healing journey that began with opening the book Soul Care (Dr Rob Reimer). It’s a book my church uses to facilitate soul healing. I began on my own and shortly thereafter realized I needed some guidance and began journeying with a friend/mentor/spiritual director/pastor. She became a witness to much pain as I shared stories that needed “witnessing and healing”.
It was the hardest and most real two years (or so) of my life. Oh yeah, and add a global pandemic and a new move to that! Someday I will share more of that journey (perhaps in a book!), but along that journey my spiritual director asked if I had heard of HSP (Highly Sensitive Person). I had, a little bit, but hadn’t read too much about it. So I looked into it.
I picked up Elain Aron’s book, The Highly Sensitive Person, and read a few articles here and there. Dr Aron was the leading doctor on the foray of new research in the 90’s that discovered that approximately 15-20% of people are highly sensitive people. Sensitive to physical, emotional and social stimuli more than others. It’s a personality trait. We tend to get overwhelmed easier. For me, it happens mostly on the inside. I may look calm on the outside, but ohhhh the insides can be swirling.
At the time I also read Sensitive and Strong by Cheri Gregory, which talks about being highly sensitive from a Christian perspective. She also offers a self-evaluation test on that page. She teaches how we have been wired sensitive, but in Christ we are strong. I joined her 6-week module last summer to learn more about this trait I discovered I had. It felt like I was finally getting tools to understand myself! I ranked high in both books’ tests so I was finally feeling validated and not so crazy 😉
So much of my childhood and young adulthood began to make sense. Oh, THAT’s why that bothered me to tears so much! Oh THAT’s why the tears wouldn’t stop when my friends got divorced! Oh THAT’s why at the end of some days I literally feel like I’m falling apart from so much noise and touch! Oh THAT’s why my brain tends to catastrophize and picture myself in the shoes of suffering! Oh THAT’S why I need time to process information before giving a response! Oh THAT’S why when I have a lot to do and decisions to make I get frustrated easily.
To be honest, Covid was even a gift. I began to trace connections of how my body was talking to me and started to learn how to care for it. I suppose I had more space to listen and learn! I started to see how silence or a run was needed when stimuli was too much. I started to see how verbally processing with a safe person allowed my brain some rest. I started to see how WILDLY affected I am by input (or lack thereof!).
How am I implementing what I’ve learned to help myself thrive?
- Follow my body’s cues. Anxiousness for me is usually caused by too many things going on. Whether it is decisions or external stimuli. I am learning to reflect on what is going on in my life and to ask for space for a walk by myself, to verbally process with my husband or a close friend, or get some exercise or rest.
- HSP’s tend to need more rest and downtime for processing. At night, if I need alone time I am taking it without guilt. I am starting to journal or read or listen to worship more. Something that doesn’t involve TV, making decisions or social media scrolling – less input!
- Turn the empathy into prayer. A big thing for HSP’s is empathy, and I’ve realized that for me, I picture myself in a suffering situation in a fearful way. “What if that happens to me?” Our mirror neurons are more active, so I need to work on emotional boundaries when it comes to other people’s experiences.
- Pass off a decision when I can. I’ve learned I get overwhelmed easily. Too many decisions or tasks and I get really frustrated or anxious (and only now am learning why and how to navigate that!). My desires also outweigh my capacity (I have ideas ALL THE TIME I want to pursue!) so I am learning, with my husband’s help, to reign in my dream list and create margin. Slowly 😉
- Tears are my friend, not my enemy. There were months of “more tears than usual” along this journey, and my spiritual director gave me the liberty and freedom to feel them. Without shame. She even encouraged me to allow my girls to see them (obviously within reason) and share with them that I needed to cry and let Jesus comfort me. Or be with Jesus. Tears and emotions are meant to be felt and they are a great teaching tool for our kids! No emotion is off limits. I have learned that when I physically get the feeling of “too much” it often manifests as tears. Kind of like a balloon needing to let out some air, I need to let out some tears of exhaustion and then I feel better.
Is this exhausting? You bet. Why do you think God has given me a gift of writing? To express and process and bring the beauty I see to the world.
But one large thing I am taking from this newly discovered trait, is that for me, and anyone, we can’t get our manna for tomorrow today. During my healing (which is still ongoing), I am learning that my manna is moment-by-moment. God promised the Israelites in the desert that it would be there tomorrow. Just trust Me. They didn’t, and it rotted. (Exodus 16) But were their needs taken care of when that moment came up? You bet.
So, while my HSP busy brain often scrambles to get its needs met, I am learning to pick up the manna of the Word, digest it, and trust that God knows what my needs are. A love for prayer has been born out of this journey for me, and for that I am grateful!
Manna in the moment will be there.
If these HSP traits sound at all familiar to you and you’ve never heard of it before, feel free to reach out! I have linked all books and reading I have done and hope that it is somehow helpful to share my journey! There’s so much more to be said about this trait that could be really helpful. Soul Shepherding has been great to follow online for emotional healing guidance as well!
You can take the test here to see if you are a highly sensitive person.
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Hey Lani, isn’t Rob Reimer’s work incredible! Not sure where you go to church, but Kingdoms City Church in Airdrie often does Soul Care weekend conferences and they are fabulous. Rob came for one of them, a fantastic teacher/speaker. All of that was a key piece in our story and eventually ending up in Thailand with a desire to see those working in ministry (missions in this case) take time to care for themselves (especially their souls). As always enjoy your writing, stories and sharing.