How are you?

You’ll notice that I tend to avoid labels of people.

However, “highly sensitive” is one that I do feel comfortable to use – because it has been so helpful in our family – and because it is about valuing and honouring qualities that haven’t been valued in our culture.

I first learnt about the idea of the highly sensitive child (and person) when Aletha Solter was staying with us during her Australian tour, 12 years ago.

My daughter, Lana, had just turned three.

Learning about the qualities of highly sensitive children really helped me understand her (and myself and my Mum) and made a HUGE difference to us.

For example, my daughter would tend to stay very close with me when in groups of people.

She’d take a long time to ‘warm up’ in groups.

She would want me to be with her doing new things, when most other children were happy to run off alone.

Before I knew about the idea of the HSC, I would sometimes feel frustrated, wishing that she would join in more.

Understanding that these are all qualities of HSC helped me feel deeply compassionate and connected with her, and helped me to support her in her own timing and unfolding.

I’d love to share more about that.

AND I also found that understanding Highly Sensitive People really helped me understand myself and my Mum.

I’ve also often taken ages to warm up in groups.

In parties with lots of people whom I don’t know, I often felt uncomfortable.

Until 12 years ago, I’d always judged my quietness, the fact that I talked less than others, and seemed to be so much more affected by things than other people.

Understanding the qualities and gifts of being highly sensitive helped me stop judging those parts of me, and helped me appreciate these qualities.

But growing up, especially at school, those qualities were judged. I was often told that I was “too sensitive” or that I should be different.

Our culture tends to not understand the qualities and gifts of highly sensitive people, and so of course we tend to internalise those judgments of ourselves.

And I could also see that my Mum is highly sensitive too – she was also told that she was “too sensitive” when she was growing up.

She feels things deeply; is very affected by things, and cares deeply about other people, and likes to spend plenty of time with herself.

Watching my daughter grow, I’ve learnt so much, and am still learning so much, about highly sensitive people.

And I think that this can be so relevant to mothers who are into Aware Parenting, because I think, as a parenting paradigm, it tends to resonate lots with HSP, who are often very interested in the emotional worlds of themselves and others.

Back to 12 years ago, I read the books of Elaine Aron (I highly recommend having a look at her website). She has a documentary about Highly Sensitive People there that I’ve been meaning to watch!

What I’m particularly interested in, is how Aware Parenting and high sensitivity interact.

For example:

Highly sensitive children take in more information, especially about people and feelings, and thus are more likely to be overwhelmed in busy places, and are more likely to need to release and express those feelings when they get home by crying with loving support;

Highly sensitive children will often take in information before they act. This often means that they need more support and more connection in new situations. They will often want to stay close to their parents in groups. (I would notice that if we were with a group for about 4 or 5 hours, my daughter would really get into the group by then!)

Highly sensitive children often like spending more time at home with their families, and may not need as much interaction with other children as non highly sensitive children.

Highly sensitive children may seem to be ‘later’ at separating out, for example they might want to keep co-sleeping for longer.

HSC might be much more likely to want to avoid, or be affected by, loud noises, movies or books that are loud or busy.

What I love about Aware Parenting combined to understanding HSC, is that we have the tools to help HSC release and heal from overwhelming experiences, so that they can stay connected to all the beautiful aspects of being highly sensitive.

The other thing that can be helpful, that I learnt from Aletha, is that Highly Sensitive Children may tend to have more internal repression mechanisms than non highly sensitive children. They might tend to be quiet, or suck their thumb, or read, or tense their muscles, when they are upset and aren’t letting those feelings out, and might be less likely to hit or bite when they have upset feelings bubbling.

I’d love to share a little bit about what I’ve learnt from my daughter.

She started ballet classes just before she was three. And for quite a long time (I think it might have been a year), she wanted me to be right there with her. At first, I would actually be in the class too, doing the dancing, and gradually I stepped back a bit as she needed me less.

On the other hand, she would go on stage for performances, at 4 and 5 and 6, and would have no fear. I would notice other children seeming to have accumulated feelings showing up in those places, whereas she would calmly and happily dance in front of a big audience.

She preferred playing with one other child rather than in groups, and was quite happy to spend lots of time with me, or then with me and her brother. It wasn’t until she was about 12 that she started to really want to hang out with more children and in groups.

She co-slept until she was 11, when she decided that she wanted to move into her own bed.

She still tends to be quiet in groups of people, but will chat happily in with one other person.

She loved climbing really high at circus classes as a three year old. And from about the age of 12, she loved doing things like rope challenges, or going on the biggest ride at a theme park or water slide.

She’s just done her first principal role in a ballet production, doing pas de deux (dancing with a man). During the practices, she tended to avoid looking in his eyes, but as soon as the performances started, she had no fear about coming on stage first, doing solos, and looked into his eyes, and so on.

What has been so interesting for me, as a highly sensitive person who also has a lot more accumulated feelings than she does, is to see which of my feelings and behaviours seem to be traits coming from high sensitivity, and which seem to be more caused by painful past experiences and accumulated feelings.

For example, I really don’t enjoy being asked direct questions by my Mum. We’ve both learnt over time that I am much more likely to chat openly to her if she doesn’t ask me a lot of questions.

I always used to think that was upset feelings, but I see the same with my daughter, and now I tend to think it is more a quality of high sensitivity.

She will also often not respond if asked direct questions about how she is feeling or how things went.

I am still learning that what she most responds to is my intention to stay calmly connected with myself, to not speak from a desire to just make conversation, and to offer a nonverbal emotional tone of connection, and to wait for her to speak.

I often used to think, “I should be asking her things and talking,” but in recent years, I’ve often found that we can be sitting next to each other, silently, but with a deep sense of emotional connection.

I also see that she isn’t afraid of physical challenges (ballet performances, high ropes, fast rides) and think that my fear and terror around those things is due to past painful experiences rather than to being highly sensitive.

Most of all, I SO appreciate Elaine Aron’s work for really shifting my thoughts around myself. I used to have so much judgment of myself as a teen and young person.

And now I deeply value the qualities of being highly sensitive. I LOVE that I care so much about the feelings of babies and children and humans and animals.

I honour how much I am affected by big cities and big groups, and I do what I can to help myself when I’m in those kinds of environments, with the help of my inner loving crew.

I’m compassionate with myself when I’m in a group of people I don’t know, and if I want to go off an be on my own and read a book, I do that, and love myself.

And this knowledge has really really helped me trust my daughter and her own gifts and qualities and her own unique timing.

Homeschooling has really helped, so she’s been able to go at her own pace and stay deeply connected with herself and what she needs.

And seeing the beautiful qualities she has, has helped me see my own too.

For example, in her ballet performances last week, she had such a quality of grace and gentleness. Tears come to my eyes thinking of her.

In celebrating her and her own unique qualities, I’ve been able to accept mine, and my Mum’s too.

I wonder if any of this resonates with you.

Do you see yourself, your child/ren, one of your children, your partner, or your friend as highly sensitive?

And if so, how does high sensitivity show up?

What do you or they need to be able to celebrate those qualities?

And what extra support might you or they need, for example in group situations or busy environments, both during and after?

I would like to write another post about this, so if you have things that you want to ask or share, please write back to me and let me know your experiences and if you have requests about what you’d like me to write about.

Love,

Marion

xxx