Reclaiming Sensitive

I’ve been called sensitive my whole life.

As a sensitive child, I would cry easily or become overwhelmed during long events or large social gatherings. There’s a particular picture of me throwing quite a fit at my sister’s baptism, as a roughly 18-month year-old flushed red, covered in tears and completely overwhelmed after the long service that continued on to photo-taking in the hot sun.

Growing into an adult, my sensitivity played out in a myriad of different ways. I would fall in love fast. Flush and become overwhelmed from all the sensory input in small spaces, such as buses, trains, planes, and even small shops. Emotional contagion, picking up other's emotions, could knock my day off. Walking into a meeting room and immediately being hit with what I came to call "the vibe." A colleague's frustration, a friend's excitement, someone next to me in line whose sadness flows off of them and into me like a river. I was (and am!) a notoriously light sleeper, with any noise and light disrupting my sleep and yet wearing earplugs every night led to ear irritation and even infection. I hated working in "shared" or (heaven forbid!) OPEN office spaces because the constant flow of noise, light, and emotion made focusing a chore that left me a drained husk of a human by the end of the day.

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It wasn't all challenge. There were gifts. As a child, my creativity and imagination became the forefront of my play and came with me into adulthood. As an adult, I had an intuition and awareness of my environment that allowed me to connect the dots quickly and come up with novel observations or solutions. There was a deep connection and reverence to nature, and a presence that made even a stranger on the bus feel safe enough to share their life story with me. And a love of music that flows through me still as a bass player and singer.

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However, usually, the word "sensitive" wasn’t leveled at me with kindness. It was said by people with good intentions but with the wrong message. They wanted me to learn how to exist in the world and to be safe and strong. They told me I needed to toughen up. I was childish. I was weak. I had a flaw.

So I repressed it. I learned to cope by denying it existed. I tried to be normal. I used my skills reading people and their emotions to be as normal as possible. I pushed “to keep up” with other people, even though the pace left me feeling rushed and frazzled. And while I outwardly succeeded - in my studies, for example - it was a battle inside my mind and against my body. I went through cycles of existing to crashes of hiding and processing. I’d tell people “I’m tired” or “have a cold/headache” during crash times. Bathrooms were, and remain, a nice place to hide for a bit during a crash or a time of overwhelm. A place alone.

First and foremost, I did not want to be found out.

***

It wasn’t until 2017, when a friend recommended the work of Elaine Aron, a psychologist and sensitivity researcher who first used the term "highly sensitive person (HSP)," that I started engaging more with my sensitive side. I started to understand myself and my relationships more. My need for slow, deep processing time rather than rushing and overstimulating. Learning to see sensitivity as a trait, with gifts and challenges, and how to work with them. And, most importantly, to realize there were others out there who felt the same.

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Perhaps, though, I had more to learn on the journey. Because while I now saw myself as an HSP, I had not accepted it. Life has a way of sweeping you in other directions - often away from self-love and the self-acceptance that accompanies it. Lots of changes happened - some good, some bad. I feel in love. I moved to a new country. There was a PhD. A pandemic. I moved to another country. A new job.

And during these changes, my sensitivity was quietly sidelined. I push. I want to succeed. New ideas about who I am and what I want creep in. And I get swept up in it all, never asking where these wants and ideas came from and whether they were my own. I follow other’s advice instead of my own heart. I tell myself to “just be logical.” I construct a persona, a mask, a crust over the sensitive human burning within - and become attached to it.

Until the day I reach a point where I realize how unhappy I am and wondering what’s this mask and hey, is this really me? I've worn it so much, I don’t remember anymore what’s me and what came from others.

So I started a search back home to myself. Looking, searching, inwards and outwards, for answers, all the while trying to hold the rest of my life together with one hand still on the mask.

It was during this time of trying to search and yet hold everything together that I started seeing herons everywhere. On my bike. From the train. At work. Out for walks. I later remarked to a friend that in hindsight, I feel the Universe was trying to tell me something right then and there. That the time for a breather, a break, had come.

Because then came the crash. The weekend I realized I could not continue. The Monday I was so exhausted that getting out of bed was a stretch.

Burnout was here.

***

Slowing down after running so hard for so long was not easy. I’d suddenly gone from 110% to nothing. It was disorienting. While I had searched, part of me clung to who I had been. The mask was sticky and warm but comfortable, familiar. I felt naked. My anxiety spiked.

So one day, I sought refuge in a space most sacred and healing to me - nature. I journeyed to my local patch of forest. Once I got into the forest, everything slowed down. The world. The noise. The endless to do lists. Notifications. Emails. Messages. Expectations.

Just trying to keep up. Trying to "succeed." Trying to be - who? The mask. Trying so hard to be normal that I’d lost myself in the process.

Something about that crisp fall air, the birds, the trees, the quiet, sparked a change in me. While the highway was still audible, I felt like I had been transported to a sacred and safe refuge to finally let the mask down and my sensitive soul shine through.

I walked through the forest, alone there with my thoughts, feelings, and the animals that call it home. Just taking this moment in time in.

A heron swooped down in front of me, startling me from my reverie. My heart raced, and slowed again. To me, it was a sign, a reminder, a moment of awakening into my true nature.

I am a heron, slow and deliberate.

I am a heron, purposeful and wise.

I am a heron, wild and free.

My sensitive soul is a heron. I thrive when I move slowly, process deeply, with deliberation. I thrive when I use my sensitivity and powerful intuition to live purposely and with wisdom. I thrive when I am free, wild, acting even if my direction may momentarily disrupt and startle the other creatures of the forest.

And most of all? This sensitive human is as natural as any other creature.

I am enough.

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