Why am I so sensitive?
The problem is not that you're sensitive - it's that you've been trying not to be.
If you've ever asked yourself "why am I so sensitive?", you're not alone. If you're highly sensitive you may be familiar with the experience of feeling like you're holding life together by a thread all day, every day. Maybe you feel it as a tight jaw, an ache behind your eyes, or just a constant hum of low-level anxiety in the background of your life, as you navigate the noisy office, tense meeting, and the friends and family members who need stuff from you. Maybe you're exhausted by the time you get home, but determined not to let anyone see how much you're struggling, in case they think you're weak. And maybe deep down you fear that you are.
For many highly sensitive people, this effort is so constant that it no longer registers as effort. It simply feels like life. But it is incredibly hard work, and over the years it takes a huge toll.
The Belief That Something Is Wrong With You
Many of the highly sensitive people I work with come to me with the same belief: that they are too sensitive, too weak, and that if they could only change themselves, they would finally be able to cope with life. It's no wonder. Most have been told this in direct and indirect ways since they were very young. "You're overreacting." "Don't take everything so personally." "Toughen up." Over time these messages sink in and become a constant pressure to self-monitor and self-correct.
I used to believe it too. For years I thought that if I could just fix myself, I wouldn't feel so tired and overwhelmed all the time. It was only through my own healing, and years of studying sensitivity and trauma, that I came to see that this understanding is backwards.
What Nature Knows
Research by psychologist Elaine Aron suggests that 20 to 30 per cent of people are highly sensitive, and that a similar proportion is found in over 100 other species. When a trait appears that consistently across the living world, it must exist for a reason. Aron describes it as a useful survival strategy used by a minority: the ones who pause, observe carefully and take in subtle details before acting. Every group benefits from having some members who notice what others miss.
So why does something nature has preserved so carefully feel like a flaw?
My answer is that we have built a world that works against it. Most of us now live at a pace and volume no nervous system evolved for: constant noise, screens and notifications, long hours, little rest, and a culture that measures our worth by what we produce. Sensitive people feel the strain of this first, as their sensory processing sensitivity means they take in more of it and process it more deeply.
The Canaries in the Coal Mine
This isn't only happening to sensitive people. The rise of chronic stress and poor mental health across the board suggests the pace is costing everyone. In the UK healthy life expectancy, the number of years we can expect to live in good health, is currently at its lowest since records began.
Highly sensitive people are the canaries in our society's coal mine. They feel the effects of its toxic demands first and most acutely, often long before anyone else notices the discomfort. When a sensitive person struggles to cope in an adrenaline-fuelled, productivity-over-humanity culture shaped by capitalism's demand for endless growth, that struggle is not personal failure. It's an accurate response from a nervous system designed for a different reality.
If you're highly sensitive, or even if you're not, and you've been treating it as your duty to keep up with the relentless pace around you, turning on yourself each time you can't, I want to invite you to gently question that premise. What if there is absolutely nothing wrong with you?
The Cost of Keeping Up
For highly sensitive people the internal cost of trying to bridge the gap between who they really are and who they feel they need to be in order to function in the world is high. In the nervous system it often presents as chronic activation and dysregulation, caused by overstimulation and sensory overload. As they force themselves through busy environments, excessive workloads and stressful schedules, without adequate time to rest and recover, their nervous system capacity begins to erode.
They also commonly experience a deep disconnection from their body, caused by the perceived need to override physical sensations and carry on with what's expected no matter how exhausted or overwhelmed they feel. This can often contribute to stress-induced illness, such as chronic unexplained pain, migraines, fatigue and IBS, all of which I see a lot of in the highly sensitive people (HSPs) I work with.
Underneath the physical experience, many sensitive people are running old programmes of shame and guilt about being "too sensitive", attempting to overcompensate with perfectionism, people-pleasing and self-abandonment. The feeling that they are not enough keeps them locked in a constant battle with themselves.
The most painful part is usually the experience of being disconnected from their own true nature and authentic self. After so many years and decades of trying to appear less sensitive, fit in and cope with "normal" life, many HSPs lose touch with their deeper sense of meaning, truth and the things that give them joy.
My Experience
I know all this, not just from working as a psychotherapist for highly sensitive people, but also from first-hand experience of being a highly sensitive person myself. I used to believe that I was too sensitive and needed better systems and a thicker skin to make it in this world. That was until I developed a stress-induced illness myself as a result of the pressure I was putting on myself to live against my nature.
I spent years of my life just coping, dragging myself through the day, exhausted and in pain, still thinking the problem was me. At no point did anyone tell me that my body and nervous system were simply trying to alert me, much as the canary would the miner, that the surroundings were toxic and I needed to get out!
The Homecoming
Once I discovered mind-body medicine and the growing body of evidence linking trauma and nervous system dysregulation to chronic symptoms, it all finally made sense. Through the process of studying the neuroscience, changing my habits and ultimately my relationship with myself, I was able to recover. And not just my health, but my sense of self-worth, purpose and authenticity.
As I learned to regulate my highly sensitive nervous system and take a gentler approach with myself, I was able to release the unhelpful beliefs I had internalised about my sensitivity. This allowed me to connect with myself more fully, feel more at ease in myself and make more decisions that benefitted me in my life.
My Work
What I uncovered, through my own excavation of my conditioning and subsequent healing, has now become the foundations of my Sensitive Soul Framework™.
It is based on four core elements:
Regulate: working with your sensitive nervous system rather than against it, to learn safety and regulation.
Reconnect: coming back into relationship with the body and learning to accurately understand its signals.
Release: gently working through the beliefs and old wounds behind over-functioning and self-abandonment.
Reclaim: a relationship with yourself grounded in self-trust, self-compassion and living in alignment with who you truly are.
This holistic approach underpins all the work I do with sensitive people, supporting them back into wholeness at every level: nervous system, body, mind and soul. It is my life's mission to guide other HSPs in the process of recovering their health and reclaiming themselves from the lives they've built in response to society's unsustainable expectations.
I believe that the more we sensitive people heal and learn to value ourselves on an individual level, the more sensitivity will be honoured and respected in our world. And I think this world could do with a little more empowered sensitivity.
If you are a fellow canary interested in healing, empowerment and deeper connection with meaning, welcome. If you've been asking yourself "why am I so sensitive?", my free Calm & Connected Workbook is a gentle place to start.
