Six Essential Resources for Sensitive People to Thrive

by Janice Carlin, PhD, CHHP, CHNP, CNHP

Very sensitive people’s needs are highly misunderstood. We have to do things differently in our lives in order to live to our highest potentials. Being an extremely sensitive person myself, and the mother of a highly sensitive child, I have an experiential perspective, in addition to my education and experience in working with sensitive people of all ages. Additionally, I have learned to use my sensitivity and my other gifts to be able to discern through information and make sense of it in a way that can be directly applied in helpful ways in people’s lives.

Let’s get one thing straight first: Thriving is not just living. It is living to your highest potential in all ways. With that said, here are the most essential pieces of information that sensitive people need to know in order to thrive.

#1 You Have to Know and Value Who You Are in Order to Know Your Needs

Sensitivity is not what most people think it is! Sensitivity is the reaction to stimuli from within or outside of yourself. It is a reaction and it has no limits to how it shows up for different people. Because very sensitive people do not realize this, they can walk around with a whole slew of mental health disorder labels and physical health problems. They believe, because doctors, teachers, and even their parents have told them, that there is something wrong with them and that their differences from others are wrong. Many end up self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, sugar, and other unhealthy choices just so that they will be able to feel like they can fit in in the world. To all of this, I say: Enough is enough. There are ways for sensitive people to thrive naturally—keep reading as I share them.

If you or your child is very highly sensitive, this simply means that you or him/her are more reactive. Why and what are you all reacting to? The answers are more simple than you may realize.

In our world, there are things that we encounter that make us feel good, happy, peaceful, strong, and grounded. These are not the ones that cause concern and lead to diagnostic labels. It’s the other stuff, and unfortunately, on this planet at this time, it abounds. The human body, animal bodies, plants, insects, and the earth itself are not designed to be unaffected by harmful elements. The effects are shown through the ways in which each individual reacts to them, which can be experienced on the emotional, physical or cognitive level. What are some of these harmful things?

Chemicals—This includes pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, medications, additives, preservatives, or something on a label that you cannot pronounce or don’t know what it is.
Violent acts and thoughts—These include physical or emotional violence, beliefs, and actions based upon superiority, racism, and persecution. The energy of these moves around in our world and affects people whether they are physically near it being directly involved or not.
Judgment—This makes us forget who we are and what we really need.
Insistence upon conformity—See judgment above.
Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs—These cause ungrounding and unpresence, damage to the body and the air we all breathe.
Dirty energy sources, polluted water, and polluted air.
Poverty—When you do not have the resources to attend to your and your family’s needs, great suffering occurs.

But how can those things that we don’t even touch or come into contact with hurt us? Read on…

As you will read in point number 2 below, energy is interconnected with itself. Although we cannot see all of these connections, they do exist. We are intricately entwined within them as they are with us. Whether it’s physical energy that we can sense with our five senses or more subtle energy, it’s all here with us in this world and we are affected by it and we affect it.

Allow me to make the concept of sensitivity and reactions absolutely clear: If you wake up in the morning feeling fine and then step outside and suddenly experience pain, sadness, anxiety, coughing, sneezing, or hives, you are reacting to the energy in this world. I want to emphasize that there is nothing wrong with you. The fault lies in those who create, distribute, use, and contribute to harmful elements such as the ones listed above. I call this The Sensitivity Factor and I believe that once people know about it, the ways in which we approach our health and wellbeing will completely change (for the better!!).

In knowing about The Sensitivity Factor, you can take the powerful action of stopping judgment toward yourself and your children. There is no positive outcome to judging. If you or your child is a highly sensitive person, your and his/her needs are going to be different from others. It serves no good purpose to judge based upon what works for other people. Each person is different and unique. Sensitive people need different things in place within their lives in order to thrive. It’s this simple. Embrace this and move into a state of thriving and peace in knowing who you really are and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you for being you.

Real Life Example: The Birthday Party Reaction

Your child (or you) has been invited to a birthday party. It’s at a bowling alley. The party involves bowling with glowing pins and balls in the dark, listening to loud music, drinking sodas, and eating pizza, ice cream, and cake. You don’t want your precious child to be left out of all of the fun that the other kids are having, so you tell her she’s going and that she will have tons of fun while she’s there. Depending upon how she reacts to these types of stimuli, she may become withdrawn and quiet, not participating at all, or she may become out of control, hyper, and start yelling and jumping or running around. Or she may act strong and hold herself together while she is there, only to find herself distraught with insomnia and nightmares at night and an inability to focus the next day, or she may simply begin to cry or even start screaming as if she is in terrible pain from just being there. You wonder, does she have autism, ADHD, or some kind of emotional disorder? And you do this because you’re judging her in the way that she has reacted to being at that party. Let’s dissect this and look from a broader perspective at what is really going on with your beautiful child who is now so distraught and struggling.

First, she’s a sensitive person. Therefore, her sensory systems are going to be more reactive to stimulation. The more stimulation, the more information to process, the more reaction. This party had an extreme amount of stimulation:

Auditory—Loud music along with the crashing of the pins and the dropping and rolling of the balls at random times is a lot of sound to process. Additionally, there are the kids making noise, yelling, running around, etc.

Visual—Dark lights with moving glow-in-the-dark balls and pins are a lot to process on their own, but add it to the rest and you have the potential for sensory overload.

Physical—The junk food. Chemicals, sugar, wheat, and dairy are not good for sensitives. They contain toxins and are difficult to process through the body. Some children become hyper when they eat them, while others become violent, withdrawn, or have physical reactions such as headaches, stomachaches, hives, eczema, etc.

Emotional—She feels different from the other kids and is now probably starting to doubt her inner strength and believes that surely there must be something wrong with her. All of this fear and anxiety get in the way of her being able to process her sensory experiences effectively.

Her body is in a state of overload and she can’t easily process all of these elements that are coming at her simultaneously. This synergistic combination is exponentially increasing her reactions and it’s not a pretty picture.

So, what can you do?

Again this depends upon your specific child’s needs. Here are ideas to try for any time you are out and about:

Have her wear earplugs and/or sunglasses (yes, even inside if it helps).
Teach her calming tools.
Bring her own healthy foods with you to any party or situation in which people are eating. Don’t cheat and let her have a bite or a drink of junk. Bring things that she likes. Make ahead of time so you’re ready.
Use techniques such as joint compression or brushing to help her nervous system to calm down before falling asleep.
Remind her that she is safe (do this often)
Always have earplugs and sunglasses handy when you go out to cut out some sensory stimuli.

Sensitive people have special needs! If you know that it isn’t in your best interest go to somewhere, but you really want to go, then find something to do that’s more honoring of yourself or your child that you/they will enjoy. For many years, due to extreme hyperacusis, I knew that it was absolutely not in my best interest to see movies at the movie theater. So, I would find movies to watch at home that I really liked. I know that it is not in my or my family’s highest good to eat out at restaurants (unless they are completely organic and gluten-free) so I prepare meals for us that we enjoy eating. Yes, I have had to learn to be a more proficient cook, but this has been completely worth it because now I feel strong and healthy, and my son is thriving!

#2 Educate Yourself About Information That You Didn’t Learn in School or Through the News

Most people have no education whatsoever about how energy works in our world and how to work with it. Therefore, they think that using intuition or working with energy for healing is woo woo or suspect. The very, very short explanation is as follows:

Everything is energy, including you.
No part of energy is more important than any other part.
Energy is connected to itself, not separate.
All is a part of the whole.

Energy exists as vibrations, which form patterns or waves. These patterns and waves determine the makeup of what something is. Some vibrations are pure and light filled. They are natural and they vibrate in resonance to other pure, light-filled, natural energies. You, me, all of us are natural, pure, light-filled energies at our core.

If we encounter vibrations that are not pure, such as greed, jealousy, violence, or chemicals, these are going to cause dissonance within us, which shows up as pain, anxiety, illness, depression, and any kind of imbalance.

We need natural, pure sources of energy in order to thrive. This honors who we are.

Exposing ourselves and our children, our pets, and our plants to more low-vibrational energies than we can effectively process equals toxic overload. When this occurs, you can’t be grounded (connected fully) with your body. And when you aren’t grounded, it becomes more difficult to thrive and live to your highest potential.

Your job is to keep away as many toxic, low-vibrational energies away from you and your children as possible.

#3 Develop Your Intuition and Use Discernment

People say things based on what they believe. This is why it’s essential to develop your intuition and use your discernment in addition to having as much knowledge as possible. Otherwise, you can easily become swept away with the ideas of others who are not interested in honoring you as a sensitive person.

Many years ago, as I was struggling to get onto my true path, I had numerous experiences in which this topic was placed not so gently in front of me. Some of the most extremely painful moments involved healers I was seeing because I didn’t trust myself fully to heal myself yet. Any type of healer (allopathic or alternative), if they aren’t careful, can really hurt people due to their beliefs that it is their job and duty to “heal” or “fix” them. And if you’re completely surrendering your care and well-being to them, you’re at the whim of what they know and believe to be true whether it’s in your best interest or not.

Check out my book, Develop Your Intuition for support.

Remember:

Everyone is unique.
Sensitive people’s needs for thriving are different from other people’s.
Doctors and healers are not taught how to work with sensitive people.
No one knows your energy and your needs better than your own true self (beyond your mind, that is, your Higher Self).

If you truly wish to be free from labels and medications that limit you (and your kids) in living to your highest capacity to thrive, you have to know what’s truly going on with your reactions to energy. And you have to ready to stop listening to the voices that limit you in your fullest expression of yourself.

#4 Be Willing to Do What It Takes for You and Your Children to Thrive

Here’s the part where you have to really roll up your sleeves and do the work to clean out your life to make the space for thriving. Getting chemicals out and living a natural lifestyle may seem uncomfortable to you if you believe the untruths told through certain cultures and societal values. This is why an essential first step is to clean out your beliefs. You have to let go of the limiting beliefs that you hold within yourself that don’t honor who you are and who your children are. Letting them go makes room for you to establish your own empowering, positive beliefs. Once you do this, making lifestyle changes becomes easier.

I will give you a heads up that making these changes means doing things that are different from your normal routine. For instance, if you’re cutting out eating sugar or wheat, then you’re going to find yourself baking more at home and using ingredients that you may not have used before. Just remain calm and know that you’re doing what you need to do for thriving. Free resources are also all over the place online.

#5 Listen Within and Trust Yourself!

Within intuitive development comes a level of trust in yourself. You will know what’s best for you if you’re clearly listening, and you will know the questions to ask and how to ask them and interpret the answers. Listen quietly and respond in the ways you need to honor yourself and your children.

Just because other kids are eating at McDonald’s and playing video games all evening, doesn’t mean that this will serve your child in thriving. This doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with your child! Imagine a world in which no one reacted to toxins—we would never believe that we needed to change anything. The lead would still be in our paint and gasoline, we would all still be driving cars that polluted our air, and we would still believe that smoking is actually a healthy thing to do. It’s in the reactions that people have to toxic energies that we all know how dangerous they are.

Now, all that people need to do is accept that the reactions they and their children are having that are leading to all of these illnesses and disorders are actually directly connected to the toxic energies in the world. They may never be traced directly to their source because there’s such a multitude of different toxins in our world today. So, it’s rather pointless and a waste of precious time to wait for scientists to figure every detail out. But the truth is, the connection is real, and we have the power to make all of this pain and struggle stop.

As someone who has gone through the journey and come out the other side with very little outside support, I remind you to be strong and not succumb to other people’s judgments of you or what you’re doing. Listen to the voice inside that pushes you forward and keep on moving in that direction.

#6 Engage in a Holistic Approach

A truly holistic approach to living includes working with all of the parts of yourself and the rest of energy. Do this by attending to the following on each level:

The Physical Level

Limit exposures to EMFs.
Avoid unnecessary medications and vaccinations.
Remove chemicals.
- What you eat and drink
- What you place upon your body (i.e. body products, cosmetics)
- What you put into your physical space around you (i.e. household cleaning products, sprays, fragrances)
- The other things you put into your body (i.e. medications, herbs, chemicals, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes)

The Mental Level

Your thoughts and the beliefs that you hold.
Replace limiting, negative beliefs with positive, empowering ones.
Energy creates what you focus on, so focus upon positive thoughts of what you want rather than negative ones.

The Emotional Level

Honor your feelings but remember that you aren’t controlled by them.
Allow for them to move through and away from you as you would any other energies.
Shift your emotional state back to peace often throughout your day by focusing upon peace rather than anything unpleasant you may be experiencing.

The Spiritual Level

Align with your purpose for being here.
Get out into nature, sit quietly and breathe while thinking about peace.
Watch uplifting entertainment
Surround yourself with kind, gentle animals and people.
Remember who you are and that you are unique. Don’t lose track of who you really are in an attempt to conform.

Benefits to You and Your Children

So, what are the benefits will you reap from allowing these essential pieces into your and your children’s lives? Here are a few:

Freedom from diagnostic labels and medications
Experiencing more joy and inner peace
Health and wellness
Stability and grounding
Living to your highest potential
Being empowered