How to Build Inner Strength as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)
What if you knew you could handle anything?
Last week, our sweet dog Zuzu got a green bone lodged on the roof of her mouth. She was in major distress and looked like she was choking. In the split second of trying to figure out exactly where it was stuck, my mind went to the worst case scenario. Would she be okay? If not, would I be okay if the unimaginable happened?
And after the bone was out and I was holding her close, I thought about how life feels risky every day in big and little ways for a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).
HSPs, risk and wanting a simple life
As an HSP, your super senses pick up little details everywhere you go. It’s part of your charm and will save your life if you’re ever in a building that catches on fire. But you can’t shut it off when there’s nothing dicey going on. So you notice every text notification, weird smell and furrowed brow. And it’s overwhelming and draining.
This is why I love daily habits that make life easier and prevent problems. I floss every day to keep from being drilled on by the dentist. On cloudy days I still wear sunblock. I save money for emergencies and retirement and invest in long-term care insurance. I don’t need to get on a massive roller coaster to feel alive because driving my car on empty is enough to make me sweat through every mile.
I build predictability into my life wherever I can. But my twenties and thirties pushed me off my cushion several times. My parents divorced, then my dad died, and later I ended my marriage. This was not the peaceful life that I tried hard to make.
I was a master at keeping the peace and avoiding conflict up to that point. If you could see me as a new college student with my bad skin, permed hair, and Doc Marten boots, I adjusted to my environment to blend in. My opinions and style changed to match who I was with. I accepted the friendships and dates that came my way. But my fear of getting “in trouble” kept me from hanging too closely with the kids who smoked pot or had a lot of sex.
I didn’t want drama or chaos or a complicated life. Because I didn’t know how I would cope.
So when I went to graduate school to study human services, I hoped to learn all the secrets for always being okay.
How to always be okay
My graduate school training didn’t disappoint.
I learned about a concept that’s good for HSPs who want to build inner strength. It’s called “ego strength”
Let’s revisit Psych 101 for a second and break this term down. You probably know what "ego” means from studying Freud. You’ve heard it used to describe a person in negative terms. As in, “he’s got a massive ego”. He’s egotistical and arrogant.
But ego isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. Your ego is your sense of self. It decides who you are and how you behave in the world. It puts a stake in the ground and says “this is what’s important to me” and I will uphold and protect these things to remain in integrity with myself.
It’s the part of you that mediates between our basic urges (the “id” in psych speak) and the expectations and rules of society that you’ve internalized (the “super-ego”).
For example, you wake up after a night of bad sleep and have the urge to stay in bed all day which means missing work. You know your boss won’t view insomnia as a good reason to stay home. Do you stay in bed or go to work? It’s your ego or sense of self that must decide what’s right for you.
You can think of your ego as a lump of clay which gets tested by rain and hail and strong winds. Depending on the strength of the clay, your ego will either get flattened or hold it’s shape well.
Having high “ego strength” lets you accept what is occurring and hold onto a sense of yourself amid stress, pain and conflict. To take a position and speak up for yourself. To recognize your anger when your values have been violated and to decide a situation is wrong for you and walk away.
If you remember how I described myself in college, I had low ego strength. Keeping the peace was more important than exerting who I was, because I didn’t know who I was. That’s something that develops with time and experience. Leaving home for the first time is just the beginning of figuring out where you stand as a separate person from your family.
It’s completely possible to build ego strength.
How to build ego strength
As an HSP, it’s easy to feel like you’re being whipped around. Your emotions and other people’s opinions are running the show.
When I heard the ego described as a lump of clay, I started imagining mine as a strong resilient mass that wouldn’t fall apart.
The next step is to notice the difference between a thought and a feeling so you can select thoughts that are affirming rather than self-defeating.
This is called “cognitive reframing”.
It goes like this. Your thoughts create your emotions. If you can identify what you’re thinking, you can mindfully choose thoughts that create a different emotional experience.
As an HSP, it feels like I have a jumble of strong emotion with a running script hanging in the air above it. It’s hard to see which comes first. Regardless, when my mind calms and my heart rate slows for a second, if I can notice what I’m thinking, I can adopt a narrative that will lead to more internal calm.
Remember my story about Zuzu getting a bone caught in her mouth?
As my heart rate returned to normal, my brain spiraled to make sense of what happened. I started replaying the moment in my mind and beating myself up. I knew those thoughts would keep me from sleeping well that night unless I did some positive reframing.
Here’s how I changed my thinking.
Thought #1: “She could have died. There was so much blood”.
Cognitive reframe: “The bone never blocked her breathing. There was a little blood from when she pawed at her mouth and that mixed with a lot of saliva”.
Why this helped: By being more specific, I could see that the reality wasn’t as bad as my nervous system thought it was. I give kudos to Adam for pointing out she never stopped breathing and that she slobbers everywhere when she’s stressed.
Thought #2: “What if the worst happened and we lost her?”
Cognitive reframe: “I’m so grateful everything turned out okay. She was begging for another bone right after it happened.”
Why this helped: Every time I imagined losing her, I felt upset again. By staying present with the real outcome, I could feel grateful instead of jarred.
Thought #3: “I couldn’t get the bone out. Adam had to do it because the blood scared me”.
Cognitive reframe: “I removed the first half of the bone and asked Adam to remove the second half because I couldn’t feel where it was.”
Why this helped: By rewriting the narrative to more accurately reflect what happened, I could see I wasn’t useless.
Thought #4: “I’m bad in a crisis.”
Cognitive reframe: “Those bones are a choking hazard, we won’t feed them to the dogs any more. I will brush up on my first aid so my comfort level increases.”
Why this helped: Instead of just globally beating myself up, I looked for the lessons to be learned so I could make a plan about the bones moving forward. This was productive.
Your brain has an automatic filtering system to spot danger. If your nervous system is on edge or triggered, your mind will look for evidence that everything is falling apart. It’s your job to consciously stop and look for evidence that all is well and that this is survivable.
How to make it easier to notice your thoughts
Here are the 3 things that will help you see what you’re thinking.
Journal. Writing engages your prefrontal cortex in a process of problem solving and planning that lets you take a step back to view the situation from a different perspective.
Meditate. Sit in silence, focus on your body and notice your breathing. As you breathe in and out, watch your thoughts move through your mind. Focus on watching them the way you’d watch a carousel ride go round. Just noticing. When you open your eyes after 10 minutes of meditation, you’ll notice you continue to watch your thoughts. There’s a space between them that wasn’t there. Now you can reframe.
Nurture your gut microbiome to take the emotional sting out of your thoughts. When you experience an emotion, your brain and gut communicate back and forth via the vagus nerve and signaling hormones. This includes the mood-related neurotransmitter called serotonin. If there’s an imbalance in your gut, it’s more likely that the messages are getting twisted making you tense.
This isn’t about pushing away your feelings. It’s about noticing how your thoughts are working to either calm or alarm you.
The truth about HSPs and resilience
I used to beat myself up for having trouble standing my ground. Or for seemingly breaking under stress.
If you do this, give yourself grace. Imagine you’re a firm ball of clay and don’t let your nervous system’s momentary chaos dictate how you view your ability to bounce back.
What I know about you is that you have excellent powers of observation, which will serve you well for noticing your thoughts and selecting the ones that grow you into the best version of yourself.
Are you spinning your wheels because your heart wants something, but your mind is holding you back?
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