being a highly sensitive person

There is something about being highly sensitive that can make one feel socially marginalized, if you let it. If you’re in a situation in which you are significantly more affected by something—visible to others or not—I highly encourage you to practice the art of not alienating yourself. (It’s hard, which is exactly why it’s a practice!) Take a moment if you need space, of course, but try your damnedest not to shut down. When you feel things at a higher frequency, this can make you want to put up your imaginary hood and zip it all the way to the top. But the more we are able to lean into it, the more things shift. Whether you are highly sensitive, or empathetic, or neither at all, this rule applies to you: Listen to only your rhetoric when it comes to how things make you feel. Surely, people make us feel things—that is the beauty of life, of human connection and exchange. But you and only you are in charge of your reaction. And if you are in fact highly sensitive and, like me, sometimes feel you cannot control it because it hits your heart before your brain can catch up, then ask yourself how you will react to your reaction. Will you meet yourself with grace? Will you put your blinders up to self-ridicule that you were “too much” or “too sensitive” to that person’s feelings or situation? Yes, yes you will. Because when you are able to channel that sensitivity into action, electricity happens.