Are you a highly sensitive person?

Does any of this describe you? You are easily affected by other people's moods. You find yourself getting nervous if you are asked to do too much in a short period of time or if people supervise what you do. You are conscientious but you find that you often need time alone to re-charge your batteries. You are deeply moved by the arts or music. You find yourself feeling stressed and overwhelmed by situations that other people seem to find energising? If any of this applies to you, you may be part of the 20% of the population that is a HSP (highly  sensitive person) according to Elaine Aron who has written the best known book on this topic The Highly Sensitive Person). You can take a test at her website as well if you want to check for yourself.

So what are all the implications of this for you in the workplace? Well chances are you are the person that people call reliable and conscientious. They know you will do a good job. You also may be the person who seems to understand how to deal with the difficult people - workers and customers - and you may find yourself falling into that role. You have probably heard nearly everyone's life story at some stage. However, criticism wounds you deeply and you may need to train your co-workers to give you non-positive feedback in a very gentle way; otherwise you can find criticism crushing, which can be most mystifying to the non-sensitive who gave it. Negative feedback can upset you for days - whereas a non-HSP can usually shake it off fairly easily. HSPs are often highly organised and they find this a powerful way to deal with stress and pressure in the workplace. HSPs have a great gift in that they can read people and situations very well. If you come into work feeling bad but try to hide it, the chances are a HSP will notice and ask if you are OK. They are deeply empathic and compassionate.

One of the key things for HSPs is to make sure they recharge their batteries regularly - often by solitude, time in nature, deep conversation with like-minded people or time spent with their favourite art/music. If HSPs do not take good care of themselves, it's easy for them to feel overwhelmed, and then become frazzled, irritable and generally difficult to live with. Self care can be an issue for them as they often view everyone else’s needs as being more pressing than their own. HSPs generally do not function well in highly pressurised environments and their sensitivity can be seen as a weakness. But they work well where the ability to read people and situations  is important. HSPs often perform an important function in that they will ask the questions that help to bring to light maybe unthought-of of consequences and outcomes from a course of action.
 
If you recognise yourself as a HSP the first thing to realise is that you are not alone and you are not flawed. You simply absorb more input than 80% of the population and that means you can often see further ahead than many others. You can download a report on 37 ways to get peace in 5 minutes or less - particularly for HSPs - at www.annewalshcoach.com or you can join our fan page at www.facebook.com/HspIreland to participate in discussions on being a HSP.

Anne Walsh