Being a Highly Sensitive Person in a Highly Charged World

Ever feel like you just feel too much? 

I spent most of my life, especially my childhood, thinking something was wrong with me … because I am so sensitive. 

In fact, even in my family there’s a running joke that everyone will be surprised when I mentioned a movie and say “it didn’t make me cry.” 

The usual narrative goes something like this: “You have to see this movie, it totally made me cry!” To which my mom, or another family member responds, “seriously, shocker!”

When I say I am sensitive, I mean uber sensitive. 

I cried when none of the reindeer would play with Rudolph, when Frosty melted, and even in Home Alone. Now, to be fair, I can’t figure out what’s wrong with everyone else that they didn’t cry in Home Alone. 

I mean two scenes gut me every time: first, the one where Kevin realizes that all he wants for Christmas is his family; and the second being when the his neighbor (the old man) gets to finally hug his granddaughter. 

Even when I had the opportunity to hear Marvin Hamlisch perform with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra shortly before he passed, when he played the score to Home Alone, I still cried. 

Much to the amusement of my friend who went with me, I might add. 

I remember her whispering, “Isn’t this the song from Home Alone?”

“Yes … yes it is.” As, I just continued to tear up. 

When I was younger, I used to ask: “What do I do when what I feel actually feels like it’s too big and my heart might explode?”

If you know, you know … when it gets big, it truly feels like you will either implode or explode as your body doesn’t seem like it’s equipped to hold it. 

You Love Too Big

I got teased a lot for my big emotions and the fact that pretty much everything gave me the feels. It could be a commercial, a Hallmark card, or even a song, and I would feel like I was overflowing with emotion. 

Often times, it felt profoundly overwhelming and as if I was just a big cry baby. As you can see, I’ve always felt a lot. 

Music, writing, art, a beautiful sky, a tender moment … all triggers. That, and just about anything else you can think of. 

Not only am highly sensitive, my capacity for love is huge. When I love, it’s with my whole heart. I love deep, hard, and fully … in all my relationships.

I’m what you would call an “all in or all out” kind of girl. Of course this lead to hearing: “you love too big” … and, maybe you should “dial it down.”

I never have been able to fully wrap my head around either of those statements. I love how I love, and why should love be dialed down?

The Dark Knight Rises

I remember being on a date with a former boyfriend, where we were at the movies watching The Dark Knight Rises. I still remember a single moment that took over my entire body as we sat in our seats, engrossed in that film.

I felt the very moment when the shooter entered the theater in Aurora, Colorado, killed 12 people and injured 70 others

I couldn’t breathe. The theater was so still and everyone else was just watching the movie. Yet, for me, it was as if my body was transported back to that very moment … when I know the theater was still, and people were also just deeply engrossed in the movie itself.

I began to cry, hard. The kind of uncontrollable sobbing that takes over. I cried and cried and cried … for a good three hours afterwards. My then boyfriend tried to console me … as I tried to explain what I was sensing.

Finally, exasperated, he said: “Babe, you can’t carry the whole world’s emotions. You can cry for everyone.”

I remember thinking … “someone has to.”

It was in that moment that I realized we didn’t mourn ebough as a country. We didn’t do enough afterwards. We simply pushed it under the rug. Another shooter. Another day.

What can I say: I am a sensitive. I feel everything.

Maybe I’m Just Weird

For a long time, I struggle with this, thinking something was wrong with me. Like somehow I was broken. 

That there was some kind of default switch that was never turned on. 

It took me a long time to realize that my sensitivity isn’t a weakness … and that it’s actually my superpower. 

It was only when I really began studying Human Design that this really began to make sense to me. All the “too muchness” of my emotions is exactly how I am meant to show up in the world. 

In fact, I even have the gate of sensitivity (Gate 19) three times in my Human Design chart, along with the channel for compassion (35–36).

Meaning I’m wired this way. 

I am designed to feel the depths of things, to be sensitive to my needs, along with that of others … even when that means tears may come.

My purpose, calling, and most aligned work comes from bringing this sensitivity into how I show, and in how I lead. 

Learning how to care deeply without becoming entangled or enmeshed is key. For, with all that sensitivity, comes the risk of codependent cycles. Of which, I know well and have experienced plenty throughouy my like. 

But, through that wisdom, my sensitivity is my gift. 

Take the past few months, I have been feeling so much. Pain. Anger. Fear.

And, I have expressed a lot of tears. Even the past few nights, I have felt the overflow. The intensity. The angst.

Yet, underneath all that … I still feel hope.

I feel love.

What I’ve Learned

I’ve learned that the only way is through. Even as a highly sensitive person. To feel what I need to feel … even some of what’s not mine.

And, it’s about discernment.

I can feel it without holding it. Without needing to fix it. Without taking responsibility for others’ work. I can care without carrying.

I’ve also learned that I need cathartic cleanses, on the regular. When I need to release, I cry. I rage, I rest. I also laugh, and play, and sit on the stillness.

For the cathartic cleansing allows my to let it all go. To cleanse the build up of compounded and stored emotions. It’s learning how to ride my innate emotional wave (as someone with a defined Solar Plexus in my design). 

I meditate. I journal. I practice grace.

I give myself space to breathe, to retreat, and to cleanse cathartically (a lot).

I recognize that I am a conduit and a channel. I am here to feel big, to be sensitive, and to love bigger. It’s part of my gifts, and I embrace them fully. 

So, if you resonate with being highly sensitive, and you fnd that you are a deep empath and absorb the energy and emotions of the world, know that you have a gift. And, recognize that your gift needs to be protected. 

For we live in a chaotic, highly charged world. Your sensitivity is only a superpower when you do what you need to take care of yourself first. 

So, cry if you need to cry. Rage if you need to rage. And, then allow the love in your heart to spill out. Let that sensitivity become your due north.

For now when I wonder what do I do when it feels too big, I let it have the freedom to flow and make myself bigger. As a teacher of mine once told me, “expand until there are no edges.”

That is what I find myself doing more and more of now: expanding until there are truly no edges … where I no longer try to contain the love I hold. 

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