7 Quotes for Highly Sensitive People (HSP)
Today’s quotes are for Highly Sensitive People (HSP) and just may give you more self-awareness and self-confidence, plus better emotional management. Contrary to what you might think, being sensitive and feeling a lot isn’t always a bad thing. Seeing the world through your heart is a gift. It has its advantages, as long as you know how to “tune” your superpower.
In the world of popular psychology, classification systems abound. It’s possible that we like them too much. Because they’re everywhere, it’s all too common to find dozens of articles casually listing traits that determine whether or not you have a certain personality type or behavior.
As a result, it’s not unusual for people to instantly identify their own gift of high sensitivity after reading a few articles. However, it’s much more complex than that. We are talking about a personality type with quite remarkable features. Highly sensitive people are much more sensitive to pain, noise, and smells, for example. In fact, there are children who are bothered by certain fabrics.
They are also very empathetic and creative. Highly sensitive people tend to be reactionary as well. In a society rife with lying, double-speak, and impulsivity, highly sensitive people feel uneasy or even threatened by these communication codes.
This perceptive and emotional subtly often walks HSPs to the verge of depression. They feel an almost desperate bewilderment, like they don’t quite fit into this overly loud, fascinating, but sometimes insensitive world.
Quotes for Highly Sensitive People (HSP)
Our quotes come from books written by Elaine Aron and Karina Zegers. These two authors have several publications about HSPs — and they’re as useful as they are interesting.
1. Labels
“You are not a label, you aren’t a package. Because people without this trait (the majority) don’t understand this, they see us as shy, weak, or, the worst sin of all: anti-social. We fear these labels, so we try to be like everyone else. But that just makes us more and more exaggerated and anxious. All of this makes us crazy or neurotic, first because of other people, and then because of ourselves.”
-Elaine Aron-
One of the mistakes that so many of us make, highly-sensitive or not, is trying to force ourselves to fit in. We fear that people will judge us for being different. But this is a mistake. Accepting who you are, how you feel, and how you live is healthy. No more labels!
2. The dark side of sensitivity
“All virtues have their shadow.”
-Elaine Aron-
High sensitivity can seem like a curse at times. Highly sensitive people feel everything with more intensity. Not everyone understands their uniqueness or sees the world as they do. It is a virtue with a strange flip side. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a gift. In the end, high sensitivity is a chance to experience reality more deeply.
3. Beautiful Silence
“Highly sensitive people might need complete silence after even a moderate and familiar stimulation, like a normal day of work.”
-Elaine Aron-
Here, Aron talks about the problem of hypersensitivity. Talking, noise, words, and even temperature changes can be very bothersome for HSPs.
4. The need to adapt to a noisy world
“A meditation teacher told me the story of a man who didn’t want to have anything to do with the stress of life. So, the man hid away in a cave to meditate, day and night, for the rest of his life. He hadn’t been in the cave even a day when he had to come out because he was so anxious. The sound of dripping water in the cave was driving him crazy. The moral is that, at least to a certain point, certain tension and stress will always be there.”
-Elaine Aron-
It’s funny on the surface. But in reality, it’s a fairly accurate representation of the life of an HSP. They often have a need for isolation and solitude in such a noisy and stressful world full of problems and disappointments. Even in their solitude, however, things will still happen to them.
Consequently, running and hiding from the world — or fighting it — won’t do any good. The world is how it is, as complicated as it is beautiful. Knowing how to accept it, understand it, and adapt to it will help you live in peace.
5. You are also a priority
“We feel obligated to make decisions and establish priorities. But, because we are so conscientious, highly-sensitive people often put themselves last.”
-Elaine Aron-
One common characteristic of this personality type is the need to reflect, to meditate deeply on things. They have to consider every aspect and detail of the situation. However, after this deep analysis, they often end up prioritizing others. They value other people’s problems and needs over their own. This accounting mistake is basically excessive empathy, but it can actually cause a lot of self-esteem problems.
6. Your emotions make you more human
“Human beings are what we are because we have the ability to think, the ability to feel, and the ability to act. Our emotions dignify us.”
-Karina Zegers-
Zegers reminds us that to be sensitive is to be human. Instead of seeing our sensitivity, emotions, and receptiveness as a problem, integrate it into who you are. At the end of the day, human beings wouldn’t be anything without our emotions. So why see sensitivity as a problem?
7. Sensitivity and culture
“Studies that compared children in elementary schools in Shanghai with those in Canada discovered that the sensitive and quiet children in China were among the most respected by their peers. In Canada, however, the opposite was true.”
-Elaine Aron-
This little tidbit of information is very interesting. Each culture perceives high sensitivity differently. Interestingly, Eastern countries appreciate these personality traits much more, even among children. However, in Western countries, sensitive children are often criticized or bullied.
It’s time to normalize emotions. We need to accept and understand this personality type better. Society should stop associating high sensitivity with being anti-social, neurotic, or shy.
The quotes above talk of how highly sensitive people are nuanced, deep-rooted human beings who enrich the fabric of our society. We shouldn’t exclude them or see them as strange. After all, the world is big enough to hold all of us, with all our differences and quirks.