The Highly-Sensitive Changemaker

When I was a five year-old growing up in New Delhi, my parents would take me to the old city where I'd quickly be surrounded by throngs of people and inevitably end up crying for no particular reason.

"You are so sensitive!" my mother would remark to me. Next to my younger sister, I seemed nervous and fragile, easily overwhelmed by the smallest trigger or circumstance.

As I got older, the pattern stayed with me.

At school in Cairo, I would find myself quickly overcome by the hyper-stimulus of the city and suddenly go quiet during a shopping trip to the bazaar. Out dancing at nightclubs with my friends, I would feel energetic and ebullient one minute, and after a particularly loud or hectic song, just wanted to close my ears and shut my eyes to get away from it all.

It was at Burning Man that things really came to a head. My partner and I embarked upon the trip to see the art and experience an example of the gift economy. But once we got there, all I wanted to do was stay in our camp, away from the bright sand and flashing lights, cocooned quietly away.

I was puzzled and disappointed with myself, unable to explain why I couldn't just get over the hesitation and immerse myself in the experience the way I wanted to.

My desire for adventure propelled me towards highly-stimulating environments, but then after a short time, I would feel anxious and stressed, and only returning to the home front would calm me.

A few weeks later, my partner forwarded me a quiz about highly-sensitive people. On a spectrum of 15 questions, I answered "very true" to 14 of them.

It was one of the biggest a-ha moments of my life.

I immediately downloaded Elaine Aron's book, "The Highly Sensitive Person" and there, explained in simple terms, was the answer to why it was so easy for me to reach overwhelm when everyone else was doing fine.

Aron's research finally proved that there was nothing wrong with me – I was just highly-sensitive.

High-sensitivity means that our nervous systems are more acutely aware of and receive more external stimulus, compared to others. It's a trait that shows up in about 20% of animals and it’s a finely tuned adaptation mechanism for herd survival.

Highly-sensitive gazelle are the ones who notice the stalking lionesses before the others. Highly-sensitive birds sense a threat and sound the alarm through the forest. Highly-sensitive people notice the mood in a room and pick up on warning signals that things need addressing before they get out of control.

Sensitivity is often mistaken for shyness, which it's not.

Sensitive people want to engage and participate, but "pause to check" before something seems safe enough to engage.

High-sensitivity exists on a spectrum, with some people being not at all sensitive, and others feeling sensitivity at certain situations and not at others.

For the extremely highly-sensitive person who has not yet learned how to read and navigate their limits, it can seem excruciating to want to blend in and not be able to sustain the high-stimulus that others can at parties, in crowds or at large events.

Sensitivity is often called intuition. In practical terms it means we're able to read body language and subtle cues that others miss and make sense of the information. Throughout history and especially in indigenous cultures, this trait was considered a special gift and highly-sensitive people were sought after advisors.

These days, high-sensitivity can seem like more of a burden than a blessing. For changemakers, it means we're more likely to empathize and feel the suffering of others as if it is our own, which is useful in some situations but extremely overwhelming in others.

I find that a large number of changemakers are highly-sensitive, maybe because we're so attuned to the suffering of others – sometimes so much so that it becomes unbearable.

Often, humanitarian aid workers run up against their own sensitivity in a conflict or emergency posting, when we encounter an intense situation that we seem unable to release from our mind.

"Toughen up," a well-meaning colleagues may advise, taken aback that we are so deeply affected by the experience and worried that because we feel things deeply, our mental health is under strain or we're not up for the job.

We tend to hide our sensitivity because it's perceived as softness or weakness. But in fact, high-sensitivity often accompanies increased emotional intelligence.

It's a valuable asset that we're able to connect quickly with others and engage multiple intelligences when working with vulnerable people.

Even if you're not on the sensitive side of the spectrum, chances are that many of the people you live and work with are.

Understanding high-sensitivity as innately valuable can help you and them to cope with high-intensity situations and leverage the unique advantage that we bring to situations.

3 Steps to Managing High-Sensitivity (In Yourself or Others)

1. Recognize that it's alright to feel this way: there's nothing wrong with us.

Growing up, we've often been told by well-meaning parents, teachers and authority figures that we're "too sensitive," so it's only natural to have internalized the feeling that there's something wrong with us. High sensitivity is something we're born with, and although it can change somewhat depending on our environment and community, it's a fixed trait that does make us different from others – and it's up to us to decide how to navigate that.

2. Learn what it feels like when we've reaching our threshold.

Most highly-sensitive people grow up in environments that do not honor or nourish our sensitivity, and we quickly learn to override the feeling that we've reached our limit. Feeling over-stimulated comes with specific physical, mental and emotional warning signs, and as we become more aware of our sensitivity, we'll be able to recognize our boundaries before we reach or exceed our limits.

3. Rather than overriding ourselves when you've reached your limits, listen to your body and change your environment.

We learn to respect ourselves by making allowances for our sensitivity. We can give ourselves permission to leave parties or large events early if we're feeling overwhelmed or tired. We can bring earplugs, find a quiet place to take a break, and practice lots of self-care when we're in public environments that can feel like too much. This can feel like a balancing act, but over time we'll get more comfortable negotiating stimulating environments and be able to enjoy them while respecting our limits.

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Learning that high-sensitivity was real helped me to see myself and my gifts in an entirely new light.

I experience this every time I lead a wellness program or speak to changemakers. I'm able to navigate cross-culturally and pick up on subtle body language and emotional cues that go unrecognized by most people. I can respond appropriately in a way that feels comfortable for the other person without drawing undue attention to them, and in doing so, I create opportunities for them to decide on their own how to resolve where they might be out of alignment.

I hope that this short introduction to what it looks like to be a highly-sensitive changemaker helps you to value your gifts and those of others.

We'll be exploring how to create and maintain strong practices and good boundaries that protect and nourish your emotional intelligence in my upcoming course, Wellness for Changemakers.

I'm making the course pay-what-you-can so that the widest possible community of global changemakers can join.

I hope you will too.

If you know a highly sensitive changemaker who might enjoy this article, please send it to them! It's a wonderful thing to know that we're not alone.

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