The Gift of Being a Highly Sensitive Person

By Sarah Dolliver, Founder of InnerVantage

"Gift? What gift? It feels more like a curse!"

How often I've heard these words! When I do, I know someone hasn't yet found the key to opening their own highly sensitive gifts.

The curse can feel so real. I know because I used to be there. I was nearly always overwhelmed and tired. I felt stretched as if each limb was being pulled in a different direction. My nerves were frazzled, my muscles tense and I saw no way to do what was best for me. Often, I was tired without apparent reason. I felt like a hamster on its wheel, running and running, using up precious energy but getting nowhere.

Then, I realized that I was highly sensitive. Ah, a clue to what could give me some relief! That realization started to remove me from the curse. I began to learn how to handle myself and it brought me my freedom. Today, I enjoy being highly sensitive and delight in what it brings me. I see its gifts every day. Believe me, they are there for you, too.

Are you ready to bring to light the greatness within you from being highly sensitive? [Perhaps you are highly sensitive, too. You can check with the self-scoring online assessment at http://www.hsperson.com/pages/test.htm.]

If you are highly sensitive, you are blessed with an acutely tuned nervous system. When you don't know this, you can easily reach overload on sensory stimuli. That's where the feeling of being cursed comes from.

Sensory stimuli is everywhere in today's world. Advertisements squawk at you. Technology [e-mail, cell phones, etc.] leaves you continually connected to others. Traffic whizzes by leaving you in its exhaust. Crowded places put you in close proximity to other people, cramping your personal space. Commercials dance on screens, even your computer screen. It all gets to be TOO much.

What you take in through your senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch) might be distressing or it could be pleasant. Often you never know until it has started. The key to success as a highly sensitive person is to learn to manage your sensory input and keep it at a level that allows you to function best.

You don't have to feel vexed by your senses any longer. With determined practice, you can eliminate harsh or harmful experiences, replacing them with pleasant, rewarding ones.

So what is the gift? It's a host of talents and strengths that are yours. right now just as they always have been. What's so amazing is they've been right under your nose all along. All it takes is accepting responsibility for managing your sensory experiences.

Specifically, those gifts, talents and strengths include intuition, perception, insight, great people skills, creativity, deep spiritual experiences, being moved by artistic expressions and having a great sense of humor. If you are not regularly experiencing some of these things on your life, you are likely not handling your sensitivity to your advantage.

Often for highly sensitive people, growing up was difficult. I had it that way. You can still claim your birthright even when the growing up process was incomplete or when it left significant experiences from which to heal. I've done both and the effort is worth it!

One misconception about being highly sensitive is that many people think the sensitivity relates to being overly emotional. That's not true. However, when you get overaroused, emotions come into play more easily. Overarousal puts you on edge, particularly an emotional edge. You can quickly connect to destructive emotions, like anger, resentment or guilt, when you are overaroused. Still, that's not your sensitivity, just a symptom you are taking in too much.

The promise that being highly sensitive holds for you is immense. You can experience a "juicy" life of many rich, deep and rewarding experiences. Life is amazing when it is lived with this trait attuned and aligned to who you are. It pays to learn to deal with your sensory input.

Copyright © Sarah Dolliver and InnerVantage

All Rights Reserved in All Media

For more information about managing your highly sensitive nature and leading an inspired inner-directed life, join the community of people like you at InnerVantage Sarah Dolliver is Founder of InnerVantage and an introverted highly sensitive person who shares the keys to fulfilling living for inner-directed individuals.

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