Trusting Your Highly Sensitive Self

by Elizabeth Venart, M.Ed., NCC, LPC

When you’re highly sensitive, you notice details and nuances others miss, deeply process all you notice, and have heightened empathy. You feel deeply — both sadness and joy — and you are remarkably tuned in to the world around you. You see the details but also understand context and big picture patterns. As a result, your intuition is often spot on. 

Unfortunately, because the majority of people are not highly sensitive, they don’t sense all you do, and they can, intentionally or unintentionally, invalidate what you know and feel. As a result, many highly sensitive people learn to mistrust themselves. 

In response to noticing this — and seeing how much Internal Family Systems (IFS) helped me and other highly sensitive people deepen self-trust, I was inspired to write, “Trusting Your Highly Sensitive Self: An Internal Family Systems Path to Healing and Wholeness.” I am excited to share that it is being published on June 1st by New Harbinger Publications. 

The book offers a compassionate roadmap for turning sensitivity from a source of struggle into a foundation for a rich, meaningful life. Weaving together insights from Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, illustrative stories, and engaging exercises, the book empowers you to deepen your self-awareness, build resilience, and thrive as a sensitive person.

As you unpack any negative messages about sensitivity and understand the ways you learned to protect yourself, you come home to the wholeness of your being — and the wisdom inherent in this valuable way of being.

If you are sensitive, I wrote this book for you. If you love someone who’s highly sensitive or are a therapist who supports highly sensitive people, this book offers deeper understanding.  It is currently available in print and kindle, and an audiobook version is forthcoming. On the publisher’s website, you will find free handouts from the book — including meditation scripts, illustrations, and exercises. If you sign up for the newsletter on my website, I will send you a copy of “The Journey Home,” the poem I wrote to accompany readers on the book’s journey, and you'll be the first to know when I’ve made audio recordings of the meditations available. Subscribers will also receive announcements about book reading events and book clubs that I’ll be hosting. The first one is this month -- on 6/13 at The Resiliency Center!

In closing, I’d like to share one of many favorite quotes by the poignant and powerful poet, Mary Oliver. I offer it as encouragement to any of you who feel a creative spark inside, yearning for expression. She wrote, “And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?” 

Writing the book was initially quite a formidable undertaking. It required me to set aside time for it, reflect on what felt most important to say, carefully select words, courageously share rough drafts with colleagues and friends, and commit. I wrote because I felt I had something to share and wanted to offer a gift. Perhaps you, too, have a gift to share — your writing, art, music or other expressions of your heart. The world awaits your unique offering. I will be delighted to see the beauty that pours forward. 

Elizabeth Venart, M.Ed., NCC, LPC, is the author of “Trusting Your Highly Sensitive Self: An Internal Family Systems Path to Healing and Wholeness.” Elizabeth’s private counseling practice is focused on supporting highly sensitive people, including artists and therapists, in embracing their sensitivity, cultivating greater resilience, and experiencing joy. She is a Certified IFS Therapist and IFS-I Approved Clinical Consultant, a Certified EMDR Therapist and an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and a Trainer in IFS-Informed EMDR. She founded the Resiliency Center of Greater Philadelphia 18 years ago, as a place for community — for those seeking healing and the practitioners devoted to partnering with them in that healing. To connect with Elizabeth, please email elizabethvenart@counselingsecure.com or visit her website at https://elizabethvenart.com/.

Understanding the Gift of High Sensitivity

by Elizabeth Venart, LPC

If you are a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), chances are that you grew up being called “too sensitive”, “too deep”, and “too emotional” by people who didn’t understand you. Most people are not highly sensitive and can’t comprehend that feeling everything around you as if it were you is not a choice but an inborn gift you had no power to turn off. High sensitivity is a gift that brings wisdom, deep compassion, an ability to understand complexity and multiple perspectives, and a deep sense of how and why things are connected.  But, it also brings its struggles.

The fifteen to twenty percent of people who have an inherited trait of high sensitivity have highly sensitive nervous systems and process information deeply. In addition to feeling the moods of others, HSPs observe the world around them, tuned into the nonverbal and unspoken, observant of subtle changes in the environment, deeply moved by the arts and music, and able to form strong connections with animals and the natural world. They ask the tough questions and have uncanny insights into patterns of behavior.

Because empathy happens automatically for the HSP, boundaries are challenging. An HSP feels the sadness of their opponent who is losing a game, connects to the wound underneath the angry mask of a teacher who is yelling, acutely sense the overwhelm of a parent whose attention is desperately wanted but feels out of reach, . . . It is hard for HSPs to stay present for their own emotions and advocate for their own needs.  It is as if the barrier that others have – to keep perspective on “what is me” versus “what is you” doesn’t exist. They feel what others feel, sometimes bombarded by the intensity of an emotion (that is not theirs) without being able to identify its true source. An HSP walks into a bar and. . . .feels the mood of the place, senses the depressed old man at the bar, notices the fake quality of the laugh across the room. 

HSPs contemplate the deepest questions about meaning, justice, right and wrong, compassion – and share these deep questions as soon as they are able to speak – if they feel safe to ask. Highly Sensitive Children can be unnerving to adults, because they see and understand things far beyond their years. They often see things adults cannot – or that adults wish they didn’t.  

Noticing so much, they can get overwhelmed, overtired, exhausted, and inconsolable if they don’t have the quiet time their sensitive systems demand. 

HSPs are often shaken by violence in movies, loud noises, bright lights, scratchy fabrics, crowds, chaos, and the push to do many things quickly, all at once. HSPs can get unglued when a lot is happening around them and by any big changes. They are conscientious and work hard to avoid making mistakes. Striving to avoid overwhelming situations, they often need time to themselves after a busy day, to be quiet and get relief from too much stimulation. They are also more sensitive to hunger, have more allergies, and are more sensitive to medications, caffeine, and alcohol. 

It is challenging for HSPs to make it through their childhoods without internalizing the criticism from the 85% that are not highly sensitive – and this goes double for highly sensitive males (the trait is just as common in boys as girls) who are taught to be “tough” and whose ready emotions are often scorned and ridiculed. Many HSPs internalize this scorn and struggle with an inner critic who tries to silence and squash what they know and what they feel. 

Researcher Elaine Aron first discovered and wrote about the trait of high sensitivity nearly twenty years ago, and several books have been written and communities formed since that time. Yet many highly sensitive persons (HSPs) are unaware that their experiences are normal and even a sign of giftedness. 

The highly sensitive long to be understood and to connect deeply with others, but, too often, they have trouble identifying other HSPs and, over time, learn to keep their experiences and gifts to themselves. Finding support and a community of other HSPs is important on the journey to empowerment and acceptance. If this description reminded you of yourself, a child, or a loved one, take the quiz (online at http://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-test/), check out the links, and consider joining us for our workshop on March 1st. 

You and your gifts matter. My work supporting HSPs in embracing their gifts, releasing their burdens, learning to set healthy boundaries, and stepping into their power brings me tremendous joy and meaning. If I can support you on your journey, please reach out to connect at evenart@comcast.net or 215-233-2002. You can learn more about me on my website at http://elizabethvenart.com. 

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