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Highly Sensitive Person
The Highly Sensitive Person in Quarantine
Tips for staying balanced in trying times.
Posted April 27, 2020 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
It's a sensitive time for everyone during this pandemic. But it hits in a special way for those who are highly sensitive.
Elaine Aron defines the highly sensitive person (HSP) as one who notices and feels intensely the subtle shifts of energy in the environment due to a finely tuned nervous system. From noises to lights to the emotions floating in the air, the highly sensitive's person's gift is recognizing nuances and textures. However, this can also be very trying, especially when the environment is overstimulating.
There can be no more overstimulating time than what we are living through now in a pandemic. From the relentless news cycle reporting numbers of the infected and dead to the emotional claustrophobia of being quarantined, these are trying times, and even more so for the HSP.
How can HSPs stay balanced and take care of themselves best right now?
1. Remember Who You Are and Have Compassion
On the Fourth of July, we always were extra considerate for our dog. We knew that it was going to be a challenging day for her and tried to be kind and compassionate and appreciative of her keen sensitivity to sound.
Right now, in the midst of a global pandemic, we need to remember that as HSPs were are in a similar spot. Fear, grief, anger, reslessness, anxiety, and so many other mixtures of feelings are all in the air right now, and they are heard even louder for HSPs.
Be careful of "shoulding" on yourself for not being like those who aren't HSPs. That is not in your nature; it's not how you are built. It's a wonderful thing that you have an acute openness and receptivity to the sights, sounds, and feelings of the world.
Keep in mind fellow HSP Vincent Van Gogh's reminder:
“The heart of man is very much like the sea. It has its storms, it has its tides, and in its depths, it has its pearls too.”
Remember always that as an HSP, you are closer to the pearls. If it happens to have difficult currents as well, that is just a part of being able to go into the depths as you so often do.
2. Be Sensitive to Your Own Feelings and Keep Track of Them
It's easy to get jumbled up by all you are experiencing right now. Because HSPs feel so much, it's easy to have those feelings accumulate and overwhelm you. Remember again, this is not a deficit but a strength. Use your sensitivity to notice and put form to the many shades of your feeling.
Do it with as much curiosity and as little judgment as you can. Are you feeling a sense of grief or sadness at the loss of connection to others or whatever in your daily routine used to ground you? Are you feeling angry at being blocked from doing what you really want right now? Are you feeling fear and anxiety at the lingering sense of uncertainty in the air?
Allow yourself to have all of these. If it helps, write about it in your journal or share it with another person — especially another HSP — who can help you witness it and allow it to come through you.
3. Recognize the Invisible Heavy Lifting You Are Doing for Others
HSPs tend to instinctively carry the emotions and energy of those around them, not because they want to as much as they just can. So many right now are felling the burden of the heavy combination of mixed feelings that a pandemic brings. Your intense feelings are likely compounded right now by absorbing the heavy load of others around you as well.
This tends to get even more pronounced when we are in close quarters, and there is not enough space to diffuse it. It's like being a small room with a lot instruments — it gets pretty loud and distorted in there.
Remind yourself that even though you can, you don't have to hold others' feelings for them. You can support them but you don't have to carry them. This means that it's not only okay but essential for you to make sure that you have literal and metaphorical space to take breaks from others in your midst, whether through a solitary walk, car ride, reading a book, or even Zooming or talking with friend one-on-one.
In other words, you need to make sure, more than ever, that you are maintaining more boundaries than you typically do so that you don't get short-circuited by all the electricity coming into your system.
3. Find Alternatives Ways of Connecting With Your Sensitivity
It's so easy to be inundated and overstimulated by the news — the number of new cases or deaths, the plummeting stock market, the worldwide uncertainty of when things will return to normal — but it really helps right now to funnel that sensitivity into noticing more soothing and grounding things. Like the varieites of colors springing forth in the flowers, trees blossoming in spring, or the subtle notes of birdsong wafting from the trees. Find and discover these other, more HSP-friendly ways of connecting with your sensitivity.
4. Find Forms to Contain and Express Your Sensitivity
If there's ever a time to get creative and write, paint, do photography, or make music, it is now. Not just because art is wonderful, but because you need even more outlets and forms to contain and express all your sensitivity is taking in. Again, don't "should" on yourself to do this, but rather embrace it as another medium to allow your sensivity to flow through you, rather than burn you up.
5. Connect With Other HSPs
It's so helpful to talk with those who resonate and understand from the inside out what it's like to be an HSP. It's even better when you don't have to contend with the "I don't know why you're not just grateful for being healthy?" or "I don't understand how you can feel angry, sad, and relieved all at the same time?" or some other tone-deaf comment that sometimes slips from those who aren't HSPs.
Call and write those HSPs you know-or suspect — and allow them to be your "HSP team" right now; you can help each other commiserate, witness, and put form to that which has been so overstimulating.
I hope these tips help keep you connected to the best in yourself and to recognize that you aren't alone as an HSP living in quarantine.
