Are You A Sensitive Artist? Find Out How It's Really a Superpower Instead of a Hindrance
Do you feel like you're ultra sensitive to the energy of the people around you and overstimulated or impacted by criticism more than other people? Are you stopped or "thrown off" for periods of time by challenges that other people seem to get over quickly and handle just fine? It wouldn't surprise me if you said yes. I've been keeping track of this lately, and I've noticed roughly 80% of the artists that I talk to have these qualities. And these qualities indicate . . . drum roll please. . . you are very likely a Highly Sensitive Person. Yep, it's totally a thing.
High Sensory Processing Sensitivity is a trait found in 15-20% of the population and has been found in over 100 different species on earth.
And think about it for a moment: it makes total sense that you might be a Highly Sensitive Person because As An Artist, Here Are Some Of Your Biggest Assets:
Your ability to be more keenly aware of what you're feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling,
Your ability to tap into your emotions and express them
Your ability to notice subtle details and refine them
Your ability to be able to sense those around you (including your audience) and transmit an experience to them and with them.
The cool thing about this kind of high sensitivity, is that in addition to helping you be a great artist, it also means you are equipped with a natural aptitude for some of life's mysterious little superpowers.(Many Highly Sensitive People are also highly intuitive and adept at healing modalities for example.)
But what likely happened to you is that instead of being encouraged to embrace these wonderful superpowers, you grew up being told you were different, or "too sensitive."
And so instead of learning how to manage being a Highly Sensitive Person, you might have made up stories about "what's wrong with you" and encouraged a petri dish of self-doubt and discouragement to grow. Dude, that totally sucks! I hate that type of conditioning. But here's the silver lining: I also have a lot of hope, because I've seen how with the right awareness you can retrain yourself out of self-doubt and into self-love. Here's what I know:
The information you receive as a highly sensitive artist can be used as guidance instead of triggers.
You can learn to use your high sensitivity to guide yourself to make the right choices, to help you be in the right place at the right time, to increase your ability to be bulletproof to rejection and even! . . . to help you become an even better artist than you already are! Would you like to know what you need to understand in order to start empowering yourself with your sensitivity instead of feeling victimized by it? Over years of helping hundreds of highly sensitive actors, musicians and dancers, I've uncovered a crucial two-part epiphany to learning to use your high sensitivity as a superpower. Read on to learn what that is . . .
If you find this stuff at all fascinating like I do, then you'll love what's coming next!
Are you interested in learning more about HSP?
Check out this podcast episode I did, Your Sensitivity Is A Superpower, with psychotherapist and HSP expert, Brett Rhodes.
He explains the difference between HSP and ESP, exactly what to look for to know if you're an HSP and we have lots of fun playing the game "HSP or not?"
