Awaken Your More

Ep 3: The HSP Signs Nobody Talks About (And What to Do With Them)

• Rachel Yve • Season 1 • Episode 3

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0:00 | 13:38

Maybe you've always felt things more deeply than the people around you. Maybe you've been called "too sensitive" and never quite known what to do with that. In this episode I'm getting personal about what being a highly sensitive person actually looks and feels like from the inside — not from a research paper, but from my own life. If you've ever had a flicker of recognition around the HSP label, this one is for you.

Tune in to learn:

  • What Elaine Aron's research actually says about highly sensitive people — and why the label is a lens, not a ceiling
  • Why HSPs process the world so much more intensely than others, and what that costs you if you don't have the right tools
  • The orchid vs dandelion analogy that finally helped me understand why my environment matters so much
  • Why sensitive people need their work to mean something — and what happens when it doesn't
  • Why depth in relationships isn't just a preference for HSPs — it's a genuine need

Check out the blog post that accompanies this episode: 

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Other links mentioned in this episode:

Are you a sensitive, high-achieving woman who's ready to stop playing small and step into the life you know you're meant for? I work with women like you in my 1:1 coaching programme, Meant for More — a deep, somatic and coaching journey to help you find peace, reclaim your power, and move toward your purpose.

🌿 Meant for More 1:1 Coaching: https://awakenwithrachel.com/contact/
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SPEAKER_00

Hi and welcome to this episode of Awaken Your More. Today we are gonna be unpacking what it means to be a highly sensitive person in this kind of crazy, overstimulating world that we find ourselves in. And the term highly sensitive person was coined by American, I believe, psychologist Elaine Aaron, who in the 1990s came up with this phrase sensory processing sensitivity. She kind of found out that a lot of people in society were experiencing things to a more heightened state than other people. For example, emotional situations, outside stimuli, and they were processing things like conversations and experiences in a more heightened way than other people. So she actually found out there was probably about 15 to 20% of the population who are highly sensitive. So that's about one in five. So it's actually no small feat of the population who have high sensitivity. And I would just want to talk a little bit about what being highly sensitive means. And I think we can, as society, be really condemning of the word sensitive. And when we're talking about sensitive people, we're often, you know, that person's more introverted, or that person's not as, you know, ambitious, or that person is a little bit more quiet, or that person is sensitive and is emotional. And when we hear the word sensitive, and especially myself, when I've heard the word sensitive in the past, I've been like, you know, I don't really want to have that word sensitive, you know, even when we're in the shops and we're like, oh, sensitive product for skin or sensitive to sunlight, you don't really connotate it with this thing of being good. You kind of think it is something less than, or something that is kind of a hindrance to who we are. And I think that that is why so many people are like, oh yeah, I'm not really highly sensitive, or they kind of get a little bit fearful of associating with some of the highly sensitive person traits because there is that negativity in the word of being sensitive. And I think what comes with this is an understanding that also you can be highly sensitive and have highly sensitive person traits, but that is not your ceiling, and neither is that the total total of you as a person because we are multifaceted, we are multi-passionate, we are multi-everything in a sense, beings, and we can live in drugs positions, we can be both adventurous and want stability, and it doesn't have to make sense. So today I want to just share some of the highly sensitive person traits that I believe to be what I am, and I'm not every single one of these. Um, but I think it's important to share that you can be some of these, you can be one of these, two of these, and it's up to you really if you associate with the label of being highly sensitive, because we're all individuals, and I really want to emphasize that we fall into the trap of putting ourselves in a box so much because it makes it easier for us to process life, and I think it's about stepping out of that box sometimes and seeing where we've been limiting ourselves by labelling ourselves. So let's get into some of the signs that you might be highly sensitive. So, one of the most common signs that you might be a highly sensitive person, sensitive person doesn't really matter what label we use, is that you experience and process the world more intensely than other people. So for me, this has been like so enlightening to know because often when I'm in social events and situations, I really tend to pick up on the body language, facial expressions, all these like unobvious clues to other people about how other people are feeling. So often I won't be processing a situation for myself, I'll be processing the situation through about seven other people and what they're doing. And when I learned that this was probably actually not normal, it was quite a relief. Um, but again, what happens with this is this can be a really great gift if we use it to help in our jobs, if we're in sort of healing professions or education professions or maybe social work professions, we can really attune to people and understand them in an empathetic way. But what happens is we often aren't able to switch off from that and disconnect from it. That creates a sense of real overwhelm within the body, and I think that's really why tuning into body-based practices as a highly sensitive person is essential because otherwise you are gonna be flooded and you are gonna be completely exhausted. So it's about really recognizing that as a strength, but also something that does actually need to be maintained and nurtured throughout your life. Elaine Aaron kind of, I'm not gonna go into her research because I don't actually really like talking about science. It's not my thing. Um, I'm more interested in the spiritual and emotional and physical way that we can heal ourselves, but I think it's important to understand that she did a lot of research and what happened is she found that people who are highly sensitive were really attuned to their environments. We are affected by our environment a lot more than other people. So I take this example of my own personal partner. So my partner is like really emotionally intelligent, which is amazing, but he is like a dandelion, and we've had this conversation. He's like, I can kind of be in whatever environment I'm in, and I'm not really fussed about it, and it doesn't really affect me. Whereas I am like this orchid, and this orchid that needs specific environments to thrive, specific jobs to thrive. I don't like over overbearing noise, although I sometimes like to go to the occasional concert where it's that's the juxtaposition of it. Again, you don't have to fit into one thing all the time. I want to say that it's you know, I'm really like need these specific conditions to thrive. And if not, I start to become really down, I start to become anxious. And I guess for a lot of the time, highly sensitive people can just kind of chalk themselves up to being anxious. I think it's about realizing that where is your environment actually draining you because your environment can drain or sustain you so much if you're highly sensitive. And I guess for me, I lived a life in Asia and I, I mean, a very abundant life in Asia, and I really love that life and miss it terribly, but there was a way that my nervous system just wasn't being met, and I guess this is because it was so an attack on the senses the whole time that eventually my nervous system just became so fried, if that's even the right word. And I think if you're highly sensitive, this is more likely to happen, and it's about really recognizing what you can do in order to help yourself within your environment, and you might not always be able to take yourself off to the places that like help you. I am a big ocean person, that is where I am happiest the most, and I guess yeah, I guess it's about really it's about really understanding that and not trapping yourself in a place, but also if you can't be somewhere that is gonna help you, what can you do? What can you do to help you? I wanna emphasize that a lot of people in creative jobs, a lot of people in healing jobs, a lot of people in jobs that give are, and I'm not saying all jobs don't give, but like people who are highly sensitive have to have some sort of purposeful job, I've found, and it's more likely to be something that is aligned to their values, or something that lights them up, or something that gives back. And when highly sensitive people aren't in this specific kind of role, it has this really taxing effect on the body and in our minds because we are purpose-driven. And I don't always mean purpose in terms of career, I mean purpose in terms of doing something for other people, and this is because again, it links to our emotional empathy and our awareness, and I think often we find ourselves funneled in to careers that might not actually be aligned with who we are because society tells us that we should go to university, we should get the grad scheme job, we should do this, we should get a job in marketing. And I guess I only speak from experience because you know I kind of did the PR marketing role. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but for me, it was definitely like a learning journey of like, oh my goodness, I don't want to help rich people get richer. This is against my values, this is against who I am as a person. So I think it's about really recognizing that where is your light going? Is it going to something that you feel lights you up and others, or is it being dimmed? And that is a process of learning and discovery, but it might also be something that is secretly taking away your energy. And I also wanted to talk about like relationships. I also wanted to talk a little bit about relationships and in terms of both emotional relationships, like you know, loving, like romantic relationships and relationships with people. And as a highly sensitive person, this is probably like I think a good thing and a bad thing. I just really find small talk hard now. It used to be better at it, but nowadays I'm like, if you're not there for the deep, meaningful convos, I can't do it. And I mean, everybody is different, and I just need those friendships that offer depth, not surface-level chat. And I think I broke up with one of my past partners actually because they were just uh, you know, this is no disrespect to whoever they were, but they were just not able to access a deeper level of awareness. And I think when we can't access or be around people who can access that level of awareness, it can become quite taxing because we do generally need those good relationships as sensitive people, and I guess that's why it can be quite lonely sometimes being a highly sensitive person, because not everybody is, and not everybody is able to offer those deep, meaningful connections, and that's just the way people are wired. So that's why I found it really helpful to kind of seek out other sensitive people and do things that kind of light me up and passions that align, because they're probably gonna be those kind of people that go into those areas anyway. And I think romantic relationships are particularly important for sensitive people. I definitely think that from my own journey, you kind of need to be with somebody who is not like exactly like you, otherwise, I think maybe sometimes that can be a big issue. But I think one of the signs that you are a highly sensitive person is that you probably need a partner that is emotionally aware and emotionally in tuned, even if they're not on the same level as you. So I want to just emphasize that these are just some of the things that help me recognize that I was a highly sensitive person. And want to reiterate that I am a juxtaposition. I am not a one-dimensional, highly sensitive person who ticks every single highly sensitive person trait. And I think if you're watching this and you're like, well, maybe I'm a couple of those, yeah, you might have highly sensitive person traits. You might just be more sensitive, and that's okay. And it's not always about taking the label and running with it, because I think that's where we can kind of box ourselves in and we can hit a capacity on where we can go in life, but it also takes away from what we can experience as the total of our lives. So if you're a highly sensitive person who also likes going to concerts and dancing and braves, then you are a highly sensitive person who likes that as well, and you shouldn't feel like that is something you should be ashamed of. So I really hope this helps shed some light on some traits of being a highly sensitive person. And I hope it also made you realise that it doesn't also need to be so serious because there's a lot out there that has like a lot of like serious stuff, and I'm like, Yeah, I'm a highly sensitive person. I find that I cry at a lot of stuff, and my partner's like, Why are you crying? I'm not crying at the music on the radio, and I I actually really like that about myself. So I hope this was helpful. If you enjoyed watching this, please tune in for the next episode Namaste.