Content

• The downsides of empathy • The downside of Depth of Processing • High sensitivity as misdiagnosis • Highly sensitive people and narcissists: a classic, unfortunately • Vantage Sensitivity • High sensitivity is not always well perceived by the environment • Difficulty to deal with criticism • High sensitivity as an excuse or a victim‘s role • Narrative capture by descriptions of high sensitivity • An unstable self(-image) • Conflict avoidance prevents progress in relationships and personal development • The danger of pent-up resentment • The peril of chosing life avoidance • High sensitivity and alcohol • Searching for self-confidence in the wrong place Outside of the scientific community, the descriptions of highly sensitive people on various websites sometimes seem to depict almost angelic beings, a bit too fragile for this harsh world. And there sometimes might be a pinch of self-celebration if the authors are HSP themselves (like the author of this text - so perhaps there might be some of that on this website, too). But it can't be that simple. Of course, high sensitivity conveys great qualities this world needs much more of. But where there is light, there must be shadow. We can look away from the “shadow” (i.e., those parts of our personality we repress out of our consciousness because they are unsavoury or socially rejected or we do not want them tainting our self-image). But that comes at a price. It is best to keep our own shadow within sight, lest it operates from the background and projects itself onto others and we see in them what we do not want to see in ourselves. Or it finds other ways of influencing our lives in an unpleasant manner. There currently is still very little research on the dark side of high sensitivity. Here are a few possible leads.

The downsides of empathy

One of the most-often named qualities associated with high sensitivity is empathy. Empathy is often celebrated. It allows us to empathise with others and feel an echo of what they feel. Empathy may even allow us to be a “receiver” of suppressed feelings in another person. That is a useful skill if used in coaching and therapy. It helps mirror to clients some unconscious or repressed part of their inner life to which they have lost a connection. That creates an opportunity for them to become aware of these parts, regain ownership over them and, by integrating them, reach a new level of wholeness. In addition to the emotional level, empathy also has a cognitive component: in an advanced form, it consists in the mind thinking oneself into the other person's context instead of remaining in the immediate feeling. (Cf. Serge Tisseron, "Empathie et Manipulation", Paris, 2020.) Our emotional empathy mostly comes up towards people (and objects) in whom (or which) we recognise ourselves to some extent. That is quite a limitation. Cognitive empathy makes it possible to extend this circle and overcome the gaps and boundaries the emotional empathy will not jump. With the help of cognitive empathy, we can relate to the context of entirely different people. We can then understand them better instead of judging or condemning them according to our own standards or out of some immediate emotional response or social programming. /By the way, you may have heard that people with an Autism Spectrum Disorder have less empathy than others. Actually, it is the cognitive empathy that can be lower. The emotional empathy however can be well above average.) Only with the cognitive component does empathy acquire an actual capacity for discernment. Some people seem too strange or too unlikeable for our emotional empathy to spontaneously "kick in". And only cognitive empathy explains to us why they nevertheless deserve our empathy. • For example, somebody annoys us as with some “weird” behaviours and we may wish this person away - until we learn that some terrible trauma made him or her so. Cognitive empathy then allows us to understand the context and correct the initial emotional rejection. Now emotional empathy can set in, too. • And conversely, our cognitive empathy can also warn us that we are giving our emotional empathy to the wrong people, for example to somebody emotionally manipulative. However, empathy also has its downsides. As for any other tool, whether empathy is good or not depends on what it is used for. • First of all, emotional empathy for loved ones by no means precludes a strong aversion to strangers. Higher empathy towards one's own group may correlate with lower empathy towards outsiders. There is no contradiction in somebody being both very empathic and a racist, for example. This aversion can be corrected by cognitive empathy, i.e. by not only feeling but also thinking oneself into another person that is outside the natural boundaries of our merely emotional empathy. That thinking takes time and effort, two things the stressful everyday life may not always leave the resources or the motivation for, leaving the emotional empathy or antipathy unchecked. • Empathy can be taken advantage of. For example, most people in helping professions have their stories about how certain clients and patients have appealed to their empathy to gain some undue advantage. Especially those with a „helper syndrome“ can be a natural prey for those who manipulate through empathy. • Strongly biased social media content often tries to conquer the favours of public opinion through „empathy for the victims“. It turns into a competition of who is more victim than others. If all sides could see themselves not as victims, but see their own contribution to producing and perpetuating the conflict, it could be easier to end it. • And empathy is a source of information on others. What if an empathic person also happens to be manipulative or to have a mental disorder or a criminal mind? That person can then use empathy as an effective tool to gain information about other people's intimate inner lives, weaknesses, fears and desires and manipulate them more effectively. Empathy is like any other tool. It can cause harm if used with dishonest, self- serving or pathological intentions.

The downside of Depth of

Processing

At an international researchers' online meeting in May 2024, Dr. Elaine Aron shared an insight that decades of experience had given her: that Depth of Processing (the „D“ in the „DOES“ model) may be the one property from which most others related to high sensitivity derive. A higher depth of processing means that sensory stimuli are more intensely processed by the nervous system of an HSP. The upside is that more and subtler information are brought to awareness. One hypothesis is that the neuronal connectivity is more dense. This can trigger reactions to the environment that are stronger or start from a lower threshold. That should however not be confused with being highly emotional. (People can be highly emotional or easily excitable or irritable or anxious and not highly sensitive at all.) The downside is that a higher intensity of processing takes more time and consumes more energy. We do however live in modern times and hear a lot about speed, competition, disruption. The risk is that an HSP is not "synchronous" with his or her time and environment and cannot "keep up" with things. Take typical situations a number of HSP have experienced in business or other organisations (or even casual groups): • They sit in a meeting, listen to the various contributions, process them. And then they make up their mind and want to share an idea of their own. But the other participants are already one agenda item ahead or standing up because the meeting is over. • Or they see risks or side effects nobody else thinks of, but end up disparaged as naysayers nobody wants to hear any more. In these situations, depths of processing of the HSP and the environment are asynchronous. Too bad, since organisations and groups could benefit from tapping into the HSP, for there lies a resource of creativity and observation skills too often overlooked. But that requires that both sides do their part. The HSP for instance has to keep going instead of withdrawing into enduring in silence. And management could probably avoid a number of bad decisions and even the occasion financial crisis if the HSP were given the time to think through things and asked for their perspective.

High sensitivity as misdiagnosis

Whether you are highly sensitive or not is first and foremost a self-assessment. A lot is written about it and many people offer their descriptions and definitions. However, these can be incomplete or even wrong. There is no reliable clinical "diagnosis" of high sensitivity available today. Emotional empathy, excitability, overwhelm, a feeling of otherness - all of these can have a number of causes other than high sensitivity. • Bad experiences or trauma can lead to a person being more excitable than average in certain contexts. In contrast to high sensitivity, there may then be a need for therapy. • The fact that certain senses provide overly intense perceptions (e.g. high sensitivity to noise = hyperacusis) can have a number of causes, such as stress, a physical ailment, mental illness, hormonal changes, neurological problems etc. • A feeling of being different and sometimes overwhelmed can occur, for example, in various forms of autism. Behind a suspected high sensitivity may lie a so- called high-functioning autism, or autism spectrum disorder without intellectual deficit - one of the most frequently overlooked forms of neurodiversity, especially in people with above-average intelligence, as they develop good compensation strategies and thus remain "under the radar", or also women, because they have better skills for social adaptability. Autistic people and highly sensitive people have things in common (usually above-average emotional empathy and a high processing depth of sensory stimuli), but also differences (e.g. in the perception of their own body and the identification of emotions and feelings in themselves and others). • A feeling of overload or heightened sensitivity can also arise from spending too much time in digital bubbles. Time spent on social media for instance is time not used for training how to navigate reality. As a result, people don't find their place in the real world and experience reality as excessively different and threatening. But they are not necessarily too sensitive, they rather just lack training. • Heightened distractibility by sensory input can be a sign of ADHD instead of high sensitivity. However, people with ADHD also appear to be highly sensitive people more often than others. • Physical exercise can lead to a more balanced perception of life and self and strip away forms of uneasiness, sensitivity, low self-confidence and anxiety that may be wrongly interpreted as hints at a high sensitivity and are not. Repeatedly increased irritability can also be improved by drinking more water every day. Sometimes it's really the simple things. There are a number of circumstances that can look like high sensitivity from a distance. Some are completely harmless. Others can be real clinical symptoms. So if you have any doubts, it can be useful to have a medical or psychotherapeutic examination to rule out the possibility of a physical or psychological condition. If it is confirmed that high sensitivity is really there, coaching is often sufficient, if any, since it is no disorder or illness.

Highly sensitive people and

narcissists: a classic,

unfortunately

HSP tend to end up in a romantic relationship with narcissists of all genders at some point. The empathic attention of the HSP attracts and feeds narcissists. When the HSP one day finally gives up the hope of being able to "save" or change the other, the relationship has already been existing for a while and separation looks all the bigger a mountain to climb. The relationship is unhealthy, but also familiar. It may remain in place even when outsiders can no longer understand why "they are still together". In addition, many people who encounter narcissists have this nagging doubt: "Maybe I'm interpreting this wrong. Maybe it's just me." The pattern is reinforced by the difficulties of many HSP in enforcing their personal boundaries - because they themselves do not know them well. They often are outward-oriented, sometimes to the point of self-sacrifice. A possible way out would be to build a more mature and autonomous self, to develop a higher awareness of one's own boundaries, to train enforcing them, and also to build up an ability to read one's own inner emotional life better. Because those parts of yourself you do not know well are also those easiest to manipulate from the outside. There may also be something immature or defiant in this outward-orientation of the self. Perhaps it is meant to buy some recognition and sympathy from one's environment through showing a very caring side of oneself and looking like „the good person“ in contrast with the other one. But therein may lie a refusal to strive for more maturity and personal sovereignty. And in the decision to "save" or otherwise change someone without actually having received a mandate to do so, there is something overreaching. In this belief of knowing better what the other one needs for healing and being the one who could provide it may even lie a form of… narcissism of its own. A study of the Technical University of Dresden (Jauk, Knödler & coll., 2022) found that HSP who believe that being an HSP is having a „superpower“ can display signs of hypersensitive / vulnerable narcissism. An explanation for this self-sacrificial outward-orientation may be that it is not freely chosen but comes from a trauma-induced weakness of one's own self. But who says that pathological narcissism does not derive from some trauma, too? Here are two people dancing a dance, nurturing it, prolonging it, until one of both takes a decision, and that will usually not be the narcissist. The narcissist's paradoxical gift to the empathic counterpart is to make life increasingly unbearable for him or her, until he or she finally undertakes the overdue journey to the next level of maturity and takes the strenuous step of better defining his or her own self and boundaries and build healthier defences against manipulation. By the way, HSP not only attract narcissists, but also other "energy suckers" who feed on them. These can be people who are very ego-centred, or who like to talk and prefer to leave the listening to others. If the HSP does not show these people some behavioural limits, she or he becomes am energy "gas station" for egocentrics of all kinds. Again, there is the risk of supporting unhealthy situations, not as victims, but through partaking in them instead of ending them. A word of caution: the accusation of being a “narcissist” is often heard these days, for instance as a quick “explanation” to justify the end of a romantic relationship by blaming it all on the partner who „is a narcissist“. We should be careful to make psychological diagnoses about other people, and perhaps have a look at our own narcissistic parts and behaviours.

Vantage Sensitivity / Differential

Susceptibility

One characteristic of high sensitivity is the so- called "Vantage Sensitivity" or “Differential Susceptibility”: • HSP are more positively influenced than others by a benevolent, caring and supportive environment and thrive more than non-HSP in them. • However, a negative environment also impacts them more negatively than non- HSP. Vantage Sensitivity means an increased sensitivity to the environment and hence also a more intense environmental impact, good or bad. The negative side of Vantage Sensitivity / Differential Susceptibility: It can cause people to fall into great depths if they remain captive of their negative environment (or believe there is no way out). The trap consists in focussing too much on the negative side. The HSP may end up overlooking the fact that being in a dark inner place does not have to be an inescapable fate, become desperate instead, and choose a self-destructive behaviour instead of looking for a healthier way out. A very important effect of Vantage Sensitivity is that even in the case of an initially traumatic biography, a change for a more positive environment alone can have a great healing effect on HSP. In other words: in a favourable environment, Vantage Sensitivity increases resilience. HSP seem to have more psychological resilience. (Incidentally, a focus on the sole negative half of Vantage Sensitivity may be a reason why parts of the psychology community still confuse high sensitivity with "neuroticism" and deny the existence of high sensitivity as a human trait on its own. Neuroticism is one of the five personality traits from the "Big Five" personality model and describes a proclivity towards negative emotions).

High sensitivity is not always well

perceived by the environment

Highly sensitive infants can be very stressful for their parents. The children first have to learn how to deal with a powerful flood of sensory stimuli. At first, they can react with a lot of crying and demand more reassurance and signals of safety than others. Only later does language come in to enable them to embed their experiences into a narrative, a meaning, and relativise them by developing skills to better handle them. Not all parents have the knowledge or simply the nerves to deal well with this. If they are not familiar with the topic of high sensitivity, they can get the feeling that their child is trying to make their life difficult for no reason or that they got themselves a little bully struggling for power. In reality, the babies are simply overwhelmed by a flood of stimuli and have not tools yet to deal with them. In later life, they can be very affectionate children who give their parents lots of joy - provided that this parent-child connection has not taken too much damage in the meantime. There is also plenty of room for misunderstandings later in life. If highly sensitive / neurosensitive adults react to stress by crying or withdrawing, others may take this personally, or think that these HSP just exaggerate, or get angry at their “over- sensitive showing-off”. Actually, these behaviours are natural and specific reactions to a temporary accumulation of still unprocessed sensory stimuli. When this accumulation has reached its overflow threshold, even a small stress can trigger a reaction that others have difficulty to understand. The highly sensitive nervous system shouts: “Stop! Now!“ Overstimulation leads to irritability. Those who do not understand their own high sensory processing sensitivity and do not explain it to the people around them are at risk of many misunderstandings - privately, in partnerships and at the workplace.

Difficulty to deal with criticism

Many highly sensitive people do not deal well with being criticised. Even if the criticism is justified and remains objective and is not meant as a personal attack. Criticism often goes deeper than it should. If the highly sensitive person is able to regulate themselves well, they can eventually categorise and objectify the criticism. But immature or severely wounded personalities can then react in a harsh, inappropriate manner and become hurtful. Or, due to a lack of self-regulation, they then demand that those around them regulate and comfort them. Instead of questioning their own behaviour, which may have been rightly criticised, they prefer to slam doors or go into self-imposed isolation.

High sensitivity as an excuse or a

victim‘s role

High sensitivity is slowly becoming a fashionable topic. It is also increasingly being used as an excuse or to display being special, or even as a passive-aggressive ally of behavioural or experiential avoidance. Or it is an attempt to justify certain behaviours with a high sensitivity, although it is, as defined by Elaine Aron and other researchers, a sensory and not a behavioural thing - hence the scientific name of “sensory processing sensitivity“. Although many people are highly sensitive (a consensus seems to exist around 15 to 20%, the actual behaviour derived from that trait is highly individual. To change one‘s own profound being can be impossible, but changing one‘s own behaviours is perfectly feasible. They are not predetermined by high sensitivity, otherwise all HSP would behave similarly in similar situations. If someone is all too happy to emphasise his or her high sensitivity again and again, it may be to get others to adapt to the needs and self-interest of the sensitivity-signaller or to handle that person with kid gloves, or to deter others from demanding too much of him or her. This can have a manipulative and even narcissistic side. There is quite a gateway to „vulnerable narcissism“. ("It's not me who has to find my place in the world, it's everyone else who needs to adapt to me. After all, I'm so sensitive.") The more people falsely describe themselves as highly sensitive, the easier it is for some to disparage high sensitivity as a "buzzword" and deny that it really exists. Alternatively, the conviction that as a highly sensitive person you just "are the way you are" can also lead to the conviction that change is hardly possible and therefore is not even worth being tried. You over-identify with being an HSP, as if this outclasses and determines all other personality elements, and see yourself in constant danger of being overwhelmed. The focus is on everything that needs to be avoided. Now you unnecessarily reduce the possibility of your own personality development: you imagine insurmountable walls around your own comfort zone that actually are not even there. Sometimes defining oneself as highly sensitive feeds a personal culture of excuses and victimhood. There is some comfort in that at first. But like every self-made victim role, it ultimately amounts to self-disempowerment and giving up on personal purpose and sovereignty. What remains in the end? Self-inflicted stagnation. And that is bad for self-esteem in the long run. At a researchers‘ online meeting in May 2024, Elaine Aron said: The typical HSP are not the visible HSP. Those who like to let everyone know that they are highly sensitive are less representative of true high sensitivity.

Narrative capture by descriptions

of high sensitivity - from one

'prison' to another

Literature or websites about high sensitivity often state very similar descriptions of HSP. We can witness the growing densification of a certain narrative about high sensitivity: very empathic and caring and loving and sometimes even a bit child-like and probably too sensitive for so harsh a world. It sometimes has something of an overly "cute" wishful image. As already stated, it leaves out a lot, especially many shadow aspects. Time and again I see in my practice highly sensitive people who just won't fit these descriptions. And I know of some HSP who have been expelled off online platforms specifically made for HSP or had their posts censored. This leaves the impression that a certain desired image is being pushed into reality and that societal norms are already emerging for still so young a concept. But norms form. The following can happen. A person recently became aware of his or her high sensitivity. This can be deeply liberating and sense-making. Now this person reads about high sensitivity and finds many descriptions that resemble each other. And so he or she was liberated just a moment ago, but this "narrative" about high sensitivity now increasingly seems like a new restriction: a description in which one can be trapped. In some cases this can trigger thoughts like "I am not a normal HSP", "I am not acceptable even to HSP", "I am not even an HSP". The choice seems to be between repressing one's supposedly abnormal parts or not be admitted to the "community" of HSP. The tragedy of it: you finally started in the process of liberating yourself - and yet you end up in a new "prison", in a "narrative capture". You finally release what has been repressed - and then repress it again, only for different reasons - in order to make yourself fit the common narrative about high sensitivity. Wholeness of being can only be achieved by integrating all parts of the personality - even those that do not seem so "socially acceptable". A densifying norm of what high sensitivity is supposed to be prevents instead of supporting this completeness. It creates new reasons to dissociate and repress certain parts of oneself. In other words, somebody had just started a journey towards more personal sovereignty, only to turn back and trade one conformism for another instead of allowing and exploring the very experiential nature of his or her own individual high sensitivity.

An unstable self(-image)

A “self” is a system, and a healthy system cannot exist without healthy boundaries that define what is inside and what is outside of it. Highly sensitive people can hardly isolate themselves internally from their environment. From a systemic viewpoint, they are rather open systems. They soak up the stimuli from their environment. This forced connectedness also causes a constant wind to blow through the personality. The boundaries between the inner and outer world become blurred. The self(-image) can be unstable because external influences keep influencing and shifting it into changing directions. What seemed true and reliable yesterday may seem questionable today. The spiritually interested may say that fluidity corresponds to a true self more than the solid state does. Fluidity better adapts to challenges, like water flowing around a rock instead of trying to push against it. In the ideal case, once challenges have been overcome, one returns to an inner home. Fluidity recedes into a place of stability, a solid personality core, an inner home to come back to after the vicissitudes of the world have been dealt with. An identity. But what if there seems to be little inner stability to return to? When both the inner and outer worlds are experienced as constantly unstable and flowing into each other, it can be difficult to find the baseline of that reliable, stable personality core within oneself from which to build one's life. Perhaps at some point one might even give up on the hope of ever being able to master life, and then spiral into a self- narrative of powerlessness and self- deprecation. So many psychological ailments come from such a spiral gone out of control. Additionally, those who are not good at recognising their own boundaries are probably not good at recognising those of others either. An HSP may for instance see someone in a bad state and approach them full of empathy and willingness to help, but is received with anger and rejection. Why? Because it was too early. If you get too close to someone or address their sufferings without first establishing a reliable relationship of trust, this approach, as heartfelt as it may be, is an unauthorised invasion of that person's privacy and intimacy. That is bound to activate his or her psychological self-protection mechanisms. Anger is the preferred mechanism of boundaries-signalling. If you get this rejection rather often, you may at some point end up by avoiding closeness altogether. However, it would make more sense • to think about where your own boundaries lie, which will sharpen your perception of the boundaries in others as a side effect, • and to better understand that there is not simply closeness or non-closeness, but that closeness occurs in stages. Boundaries are made of a succession of gates you should pass in a certain order and without haste.

Conflict avoidance prevents

progress in relationships and

personal development

A conflict avoidance tendency of HSP may result from unpleasant situations being deeply experienced by HSP and these bad feelings reverberating for a long time, sometimes for days, weeks, years. Conflict avoidance can lead some HSP to see or experience injustice and do nothing. They can ultimately condone a damaging situation by remaining silent. On the dark side of high sensitivity, we find a proclivity towards a lack of courage paired with a culture of excuses - and this is written with all due respect by someone who himself is by no means beyond that. Those who see a salary negotiation as a confrontation may not stand up for a better income, perform without a fair reward, and possibly end up in inner resignation or self- deprecation. In relationships, conflict avoidance can lead to a slow accumulation of untold things and resentments, which then ferment into relational poisons, instead of partners initiating necessary developments and changes. The relationship should at some point reach a new level of maturity, but the required impetus does not come. The very issues that one does not dare to address are often the seeds of future crises, when all the untold things may even burst out like in one big dam breach. That dam breach then calls for an equally massive re-evaluation of the whole relationship which then may look like it has mostly been based on false assumptions or lies. It may fall apart entirely. The fears of what may happen become the very source of it actually happening. On the path of human development, relationships are important continuing education programmes kindly provided by life itself. With all the conflict avoidance in relationships, life may want to teach us lessons along the way and does not get through to us. And so successive relationships end in similar ways, again and again. We may be so focussed on blaming our partners after each relationship that we remain blind to our own behavioural patterns (and how much part of our partner’s supposedly bad behaviours actually are reactions to our own). We clearly see the harm others do to us, but turn a blind eye on the dark side of that: the harm we do to others. If at all, we start becoming aware of our own harmful patterns in relationship only after several painful passages and perhaps many years spent on not learning. The remedy starts with being honest with ourselves and having an earnest look at our own dark sides.

The danger of pent-up resentment

HSP experience humiliating situations more often than others. This is because they find it more difficult than others to set their boundaries or to see them at all. Therefore, these boundaries are trespassed more often - sometimes in a very rough way. Or the HSP, often creative, provides ideas and sees others take credit for them. With high sensitivity, emotional injuries and wounds are inevitable throughout life. Because they resonate for a long time, it is important to learn to deal with them and to transform them creatively. Without this inner alchemy that transforms negative feelings and experiences into something of a higher order, self-loathing, feelings of powerlessness and resentment can build up with time. Painful or traumatic experiences lead to long- term consequences. Especially when powerlessness or helplessness is experienced, they become fixed in the conscious or unconscious memory. There may be trauma-induced long-term effects and depression lurking. Or a feeling arises of being largely at the mercy of life instead of being able to face it with full personal agency. And resentment can build up and turn into prejudice or even vindictiveness. These do not have to be acted out. But sometimes they are. High sensitivity by no means excludes insensitive behaviour. Nor does it exclude violence, against oneself or against others. There always is the possibility of a spectacular dam breach of some kind. To deal with this, it is necessary to become aware of these repressed emotions in the dark corners of the self and do the required “shadow work”, i.e., honestly look at and integrate what Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung called the “shadow”. The shadow is our dark sides we do not want to face and repress out of our sphere of consciousness (and perhaps project on others).

The peril of chosing life avoidance

Experiencing unpleasant situations or intense floods of stimuli can be overwhelming and therefore lead to avoiding a growing number of situations where the mere possibility of unpleasantness exists. E.g., someone could have great fun and meet interesting people and even a love interest at the next party, but does not go to parties any more. Essential aspects and whole areas of life can end up in withdrawal into the life-eating avoidance zone. Life is being led in an increasingly hidden way. The person can end up far away from her or his life purpose and renounce interesting encounters of all sorts. Or life can come to a standstill - up to a self-sacrifice of a sort, or suicide as the ultimate life avoidance. Life avoidance does not have to, but can be accompanied by a victim’s attitude or bitterness and lots of excuses. One's own life avoidance is made more bearable by blaming others or society as a whole or even some invisible forces like a supposed bad karma or a conspiracy. And the encounters not taking place are easier to bear by accusing the others of being “all idiots”. Such a mindset is quite likely to be a burden for family, friends and loved ones: they wish the HSP only the best, wish them to have a good and lively and meaningful life and experience their purpose, but they are repeatedly turned down by the person’s negative mindset and not doing anything to change things. And that implies that there actually are any loved ones left. They may have given up and left. Then loneliness is there. Or perhaps life- avoidant people become highly conformist, turning into a creativity-avoidant shell of stereotypical social behaviours, entirely surrendering to the dominating behavioural patterns and prefabricated opinions, which is another way to hide. One's own creativity does no longer find a space of expression and this dissociation is made more bearable by excuses - and by today’s abundant range of digital entertainments that make life avoidance so much less painful and perhaps even quite tempting. The solution is usually to turn to the very thing you have been avoiding and decide to endure the relative pain and strain associated with it for a while until it can subside. Often things are not so bad. Once you turn to face something you are afraid of, it immediately loses some of its power over you. And maybe it doesn't even want to harm you at all and it was just a misunderstanding. If the highly sensitive person does not at some point jump over her or his shadow and recover agency and personal sovereignty, he or she can slip into inner emptiness and even depression. Having overcome something difficult is among the best feelings you can get. It is easier to find the courage to do this if you have support - from your private circle or from a therapist or coach.

High sensitivity and alcohol

There are no studies on this topic. But it is possible that highly sensitive people turn to alcohol more often than average (there is more evidence with highly gifted people drinking more). Why? Several reasons are possible: • Sensations can be too strong. Alcohol provides a quick remedy, dampens the experience, takes the edges off the sensations - with all the disadvantages of alcohol for body and mind. • People who are not aware of their high sensitivity can choose alcohol as a coping strategy. So if too much alcohol is involved, it may be wise to check (with much tact, of course) whether there may be an unrecognised high sensitivity. The very realisation of one's own high sensitivity could even be the key to turning away from alcohol. Possibly this is more often the case with men than with women. The lack of cultural acceptance of male high sensitivity reinforces the tendency to sedate feelings, emotions and sensations.

Searching for self-confidence in

the wrong place

Many HSP lack self-confidence and self- esteem, and get into the spiral of avoidance. They may resent having so little self- confidence, and this resentment feeds a downward spiral that keeps sapping the remaining self-confidence. There can be a mistaken belief that self-confidence can be gained by reading it into oneself through self- help literature or built up sustainably through webinars or motivational weekends. But how can true, resilient, sustainable inner self- confidence be something that comes from the outside? It would then be tributary of what others do, say and think. In reality, it is about getting into action and building inner unity. To help heal the lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, highly sensitive people may want to • gather their courage, • come into action, • go through the lessons and build up skills • and discover which inner disagreements and conflicts are uncovered (through acting and being) and want to be reconciled so that new resources and energies can be released and feed a stronger self. Some people are blessed with self- confidence because their primal trust as a child has never been disrupted by trauma. For others, it comes from action and the experience gained in the process of facing life with increasing competence. The more situations are mastered, the more confidence arises to cope with the rest. It is a durable form of confidence, because it builds itself up from inside. And every skill that is discovered or developed, every inner resource that is uncovered, every experience of one’s own growing competence and the joy of knowing-how it entails is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. At some point, there are enough puzzle pieces for an overall picture to emerge, showing one's own path and purpose. Self-confidence arises, • when you set out on your own path, • overcoming one hurdle after another and looking like a benevolent inner parent upon your own beginner's mistakes, • build up your own experience of competence and enjoyment of skills • and thereby expand your own “reach into the world”. Step by step. See also: • Coaching for Highly Sensitive People • High Sensitivity at the Workplace and in Leadership • The Inner Child may not be what we think it is • Other blog articles • Make an appointment • Resources & Links