Can sensitive people become less sensitive? That’s a question I’ve heard often. Most experts answer is, “No, you can’t”.
But I have a slightly different take:
We can become less hyper-sensitive emotionally. (Meaning melodramatic, reactive. Meaning getting super upset about little things, and acting that out. Meaning suffering needlessly.)
Instead, we stay highly responsive, and highly sensitized to fully experiencing the highs and lows of this human experience—without all the suffering.
This never means numbing our emotions, or trying to feel LESS deeply.
Really, it’s just the opposite.
Instead of allowing their strong emotions to give them a reason to feel bad about themselves, my clients learn to love themselves more because they feel deeply.
Because our emotionality keeps us from the numbness that’s toxic to life and love. Our feelings create brighter, more colorful experiences of life. They are what enliven us.
We sensitive’s are blessed to feel the heights of love and joy and the depths of sadness. We are fully alive humans. And I would never want you to dim that.
I know, though, some feelings feel awful. I’m not asking you to love your harder deeper negative feelings! But I do want you to feel at peace with your full range of feelings, instead of feeling jerked around by them.
Instead of getting upset that you’re upset, sad that you’re resentful, and guilty that you’re angry (you feel me? That used to be my M.O.), you can learn to allow your feeling to happen, to pass like a wave in the ocean.
To be like, “This anger doesn’t feel great, but it’s really not a PROBLEM I must get rid of instantly.”
I haven’t had to become less sensitive to be happy in my life. I don’t NUMB my feelings to have peace in my marriage.
Instead, when I feel irritation, or sadness, I let myself FEEL it, notice the way it colors my internal experience, get curious about it: the heat of it, or the squeezing sting of tears behind my eyes… I notice how my thoughts surge and swirl.
I allow all of that to happen, like watching the sea churn. But most often I don’t ACT it out.
I stay genuinely calm and steady in the storm, and am able to respond in a thoughtful way once it passes, if need be.
When we learn to do this, emotions stop sending us into fits of yelling— or running off to hide from our partner in an emotional storm. We don’t say things harshly that we later regret, that drive wedges between us and the ones we love most.
When we know how to handle our emotions with ease we don’t linger in them for days, drowning in their sticky tentacles.
Instead we just feel them, and then move on.
We feel them, and let them show us where adjustments are needed in our lives. Like, “Hmm, that conversation was intense…maybe instead of bringing that up right after his second cup of coffee, next time I’ll wait until a peaceful moment after dinner to talk about such topics.”
When we know how to surf the waves of our emotions, we have confidence we can handle any challenge that arises between us and our partner, and in our family. We feel the SAFEST we’ve ever felt.
Our man can make the choice to go on a trip we don’t want him to, and we can trust ourselves to be okay, to return to calm, to find our way back to love for him.
When we know how to handle our feelings peacefully we are so powerful in our love lives.
We stop creating disconnection, and start creating more connection. We access more sensitive attunement to our loved ones. And we inspire more sensitivity from our partner, through our example.
This is the direct path to real intimacy, understanding, and connection.
So please, my dear sensitive friend, don’t become less sensitive.
But also don’t let sensitivity be an excuse to be a dramatic emotional rollercoaster that leads you away from what you most what in life.
If that’s how you feel lately, I’ve been there. And there’s a solution. I know it.
I teach it. I’ll coach you in it until it’s easy for you.
To feel peaceful by default.
To feel fully alive.
To feel the deepest love possible.
Come join me.
Email me and say "I'm in" and we’ll set up a time to talk about what this means for you.