Sensitive people can sometimes feel more comfortable in the uncomfortable.

This is the mechanism that I see happening amongst clients, when they finally grant themselves permission to reach out for support.

Maybe some of the following also sounds familiar to you, when you thought about reaching out for support;

You long for someone to talk to, to share your situation with, to verify if your perspective of the situation is still ‘normal’ and you are not going crazy and to just be yourself with someone. But wait…you hear the words “to be yourself”, but then you start to doubt if you actually ARE the person you say you are. That thought can be confusing at times, because at this point you might just don’t know anymore.

You might also feel in your gut, in every cell and fibre of your body that now is the time to surrender to emotional support. You accept that, but just …”not right now, not today, I am too exhausted now”.

You long for clarity into your daily situation, but it is “just too much to also have that on top of all the other things” that you are already ruminating about.

Meanwhile you do observe several professionals that you think might be a good fit to reach out, but some don’t match with your energy. That’s actually very convenient for you, because that is a great excuse to not look further right now. Oof luckily, now you are off the hook. A feeling of relief comes over your shoulders.

While temporary, very soon that gnawing feeling comes back, because you know you can’t continue in this way. You continue your search to observe some more professionals whom you could potentially contact. The observing means safety to your sensitive nervous system, you want to be able to connect all the dots. This surviving mechanism provides you with an overview of the situation.

Maybe you are that kind of person that already KNEW in your gut that you should contact that specific person from the beginning, but then your perfectionism, procrastination, feeling of being overwhelmed and fear of failure came along. Because you just wanted to make sure that your feeling is aligned with the specific energy… of probably that specific day :)

Then you regret not contacting that professional sooner, because you very well know that then you would be in a different phase in your life right now.

We, sensitives, have the tendency to also apply our sensitive biological pause and check system, when we ask for help. It’s a good thing, first you want to check out the person, their vibe, is there a match?, what do they stand for in life, are their actions aligned with their words, how do they react, and maybe later also their credentials, etc.

But then thoughts like this come along: “What if that professional is too direct, will the new insights hurt me, once I start I can’t worm myself a way out of it, I am conscientious and it means that I will have to act on it, otherwise I know I will punish and blame myself even more. Acting on it means change, and change is something I can’t handle right now, that is too overwhelming, too much to handle right now, although I want change, but just not now…no, I DO want change …I am just so tired right now”.

And then you feel guilty of feeling this way, you might define yourself as weak, because you are very strict on yourself.

On the other hand, other people can just walk all over you and you are not that strict with boundaries towards others in the same way, but with yourself it somehow feels much safer not to see yourself as a priority. It might not even have crossed your mind that you could make yourself a priority in life. These thoughts make you extend the highly sensitive pause and check system, beyond the length of what is necessary.

I totally get that; it can be an uncomfortable emotional roller coaster. Yet, we sensitives, sometimes rather stay in that overwhelming uncomfortable roller coaster. Because for several years you are used to that familiar lifestyle and you created this so carefully for yourself, it brought you to where you are now and “hey, I survived”.

It became your personal surviving mechanism and that feels safe now, even though it does give you an uncomfortable feeling.

Then you’d sometimes rather choose the ostrich approach, continue in the way you were doing and deep down you know it is a great short-term solution. You are totally allowed to do that, grant yourself that at times. But even an ostrich needs to come to the surface sometime 😊

All of the above can come in the way of loving yourself enough to ask for support. Then as the years go by, you wonder why you feel that overwhelming feeling of being stuck in life, it’s all just too much at times and it feels like drowning in your own life full of thoughts, principals, beliefs and attached emotions.

You might, sometime in your life, have desperately screamed and cried at the same time within yourself the following words “I just want a simple life”.

Now, the world needs YOU to see your worth, lovingly act on it!