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PERSONNAL OPENING THOUGHTS

A few months ago, I decided to see a therapist during a particularly challenging time in my life. Initially, I hesitated, fearing it might be seen as a sign of ‘weakness.’ But looking back now, I realize it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Therapy not only helped me explore and understand hidden aspects of myself, but it also opened the door to new perspectives. My therapist introduced me to Imi Lo’s book, Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity, suggesting that many of its insights on hypersensitivity could resonate with me. She encouraged me to explore the subject further ; not just to cope with my emotional sensitivity, but to learn how to embrace and use it as a strength rather than simply endure it.

INTRODUCTION

• Some people feel more than others
• We often call them ‘too much’ ; ‘too intense’ ; ‘too emotional‘
• Highly sensitive people (HSP) represent roughly 15-20 % of our population
• We often label or diagnose those people with BPD, bipolar disorder, ADHD, or depression , without seeking further
• Hypersensibility is not a condition, it is a superpower, a gift, that is sadly misunderstood
• Challenges :
  • At a young age: rejection, shame, loneliness. Over- or under-stimulated
  • Adult: self-doubt, existencial loneliness, judgement, setting boundaries
• As an emotionally gifted person, you can experience cycles of ‘emotional crises‘ called ‘positive disintegration‘ : growth requires constantly breaking down your existing structures (way of thinking, feelings, etc)
  • They are developmental
  • Think of it as shedding the old, making space for the new
  • You could later learn to forgive, live authentically and creatively

Growth is to see what you have not seen, feel what you have not felt , do what you have not done. It requires you to relinquish who you thought you were, questions the conventional life trajectory, and be plunged into a space of not knowing. You may also have to endure a period of loneliness, where you become out-of-sync with your peers, whose norms are incompatible with your new-found authenticity and higher values.

P. xi

• They are not only sensitive, but also deeply passionate and loving
• Reclaiming your identity as a sensitive person comes with respecting your needs and boundaries and not shaming yourself for being different, thus embracing your identity

Part 1 : The emotionally intense person

1 : Emotional sensitivity, intensity and giftedness

• Emotional depth, intensity and complexity
  • Those traits can make you feel extremely alive, sometimes painfully so
  • Passionate
  • Can experience strong connexions with people, places, objects…
• Deep empathy and sensitivity
  • Feeling that you can absorb others physical and psychological reactions
  • More vulnerable to relational injuries
  • Heightened sensory system (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell)
• Highly acute percepitivity
  • Awarness and intuition
  • Others may find you intimidating, feeling that you can see through them
  • You can be described as an old soul
  • Potential to be a leader with a strong sense of justice
• A rich inner world, imbued with sensual, imaginary and intellectual excitability
  • You may be an avid reader and a keen observer
  • Could deal with obsessive thoughts, perfectionism, or being too critical of yourself
  • Sensitive to the spiritual world
• Creative potential and existential angst
  • Impulse to move forward, like you’re running out of time
  • Feeling a split between being accepted by society and being your true self

2 : What do we know about emotional sensitivity and intensity?

• Dr Elain Aron’s research on highly sensitive people
  • 15-20 % of people : Too high to be a disorder and too low to be mainstream
  • More activity in the right hemisphere of the brain. More reactive immune and nervous system
• Gifted people are powerful processors, absorbing and digesting sensory and emotive information at high speed
  • Growth for a gifted person can be challenging because they constantly need to rethink and outgrow their opinions and worldview
• Empaths are often described as individuals who have the ability to physicaly feel the energy fields of others and their surroundings
  • Better in identifying emotions in others (could have a ‘bias‘ towards negative feelings)
  • It is important to differenciate your feelings from those of others
• People with thin VS thick boundaries
  • Thin boundaries : sensibility to sensory stimuli, physical and emotional pain, childhood events and reactive immune system. More creativity-oriented
  • Thick boundaries : less mood swings, upsetting emotions and experience a certain emptiness or detachment
  • They are like passive VS reactive
• Energetic boundaries
  • Regulates our interactions with people and environment
  • People who have a safe sense of their boundaries feel good in their own company and are able to set appropriate limits with others and the world around them
  • Environmental sensitivity and failure to filter external stimuli can be a sign of a weak energetic boundary
    • Can be a feeling or ‘having no skin’
    • Constant state of tension, hyper-vigilance – may feel the need to isolate
• The main difference between introverts and extroverts is their source of energy
  • Emotionaly gifted people are often perceived as introverts, with their highly introspective nature
  • 70 % of HSP are introverts

3 : Emotional intensity and giftedness

• Giftedness = innate abilities. Talent = something that is developped with education, guidance and practise
• We live in a world that glorifies rational and logical ‘head’ intelligence, to be ‘head smart’, rather to develop our ‘personnal intelligence’ and ‘heart-wisdom’
• Forms of emotional giftedness
  • Empathetic and perceptive giftedness : understanding various qualities of others. Children with those traits appear to be more mature. Moral sensitivity
  • Introspective giftedness : essential to attain a developed sense of self and a high level of wisdom. Self knowledge. Essential for growth. Often experiencing a split between who they want to be and who they are in the present = psycho-spiritual growth
  • Existential giftedness : capacity to associate oneself with the existential features of the human condition (significance of life, death, love…). Existential questions. Idealists
  • Spiritual giftedness : perceive things beyond the concrete and literal
• Some characteristics of the gifted: multipotentiality, idealitsts, perfectionists, curious, sensitive, perceptive, intuitive…
• Over-excitabilities (heightened capacity to respond to stimuli of various types)
  • Emotional OE – sometimes accused of ‘overreacting’
  • Intellectual OE – often driven by the search of understanding and truth than by academic achievement
  • Psychomotor OE – ex. athletes
  • Sensual OE
  • Imaginational OE – visualization abilities
• Being gifted does not mean being superior, it may just mean that you are wired differentely

4 : Emotional intensity and mental health

• Because of the fact that we lack information and awarness about the topics of emotional sensitivity and intensity, people with those traits are often mislabelled and misdiagnosed
  • Society has a particular standart of what ‘normal‘ is
• Difficulty in emotional regulation can be a result of :
  • Being born with heightened sensitivity and perceptivity
  • Living in a negative childhood environment that often fails to meet emotional needs
• Trust and believe your fundamental goodness

Part 2 : The complexities of being emotionally intense

5 : At home

• Characteristics of sensitivity in children usually become noticeable before 18 months old (!)
  • They may already feel that what they sense is different from their family members, even feeling that they do not belong
• Forms of invisible wounds of the emotionally sensitive child
  • Role reversal : parents toxically depending on the empathetic child to fulfill their needs (parentification). Studies have found that children who have had a strong parental figure are more able to soothe themselves, and vice versa
  • Scapegoating : the child becomes the blacksheep that their family members can judge and criticize as a way to not face their own flaws and vulnerabilities
  • Emotionally stunted parents : it is important as a parent to be physically AND emotionally present for their child. Babies need emotional feedback, they are not born with an innate ability to manage their emotions
  • The unseen child : children need to feel a sense of validation from their parents to develop a sense of self-worth and self-esteem (mirroring)

6 : In the world

• Society does not like people who stand out. It brings a lot of envy and jealousy
  • Tall poppy syndrome : people who stand out in a group being resented, attacked, and ridiculed
  • Crab-in-the-bucket mentality : when placed in a bucket, one crab finding its way to the top will be put back down by the others (‘If I can’t have it, neither can you !’)
  • Law of Jante : implicit rules (such as ‘you’re not to think you’re anything special`) that governs the way people think and act

You aren’t worth a thing, nobody is interested in what you think, mediocrity and anonymity are your best bet. If you act this way, you will never have any big problems in life.

Paulo Coelho (2006)

• Many gifted people experience the Impostor Syndrom (difficulty to accept their own success) because they see their giftedness as a burden
• Some psychological factors that could lead you to hide and shrink:
  • The need to feel safe from demeaning and hostile social interactions
  • The desire to belong and to be accepted by others : a conflict between wanting to be authentic VS the fear of not being accepted for who we are
  • Separation anxiety (feeling that your well-being is the threat for the well-being of your loved ones) and survivor guilt (feeling that you do not deserve the opportunities you’ve had that are not accessible to others)
• Hiding your true self to fit in will make you feel more alone and separated from the rest of the world
• You do not have to choose between power and love, freedom and connection. You can have both

7 : In your mind

• As an emotionally sensitive person, people can make you feel like you are ‘not okay’ , ‘weird’ , ‘too much’
• Shame is the biggest factor that holds you back from being your true self
  • You may even lose faith in the idea that your authentic self is lovable
• Shame also blocks your creative potential
  • Where lies your playfulness, spontaneity, and joy
• The more you supress your authentic self, the more mental and physical tantrums it will throw at you
• Your past experiences shape your memories which shape your perception of things and situations
• According to the Adaptive Information Processing Model, our brain has a processing system that is naturally geared towards integration and healing. When uninterrupted, it can link up useful and restorative memories with the difficult ones, to help us maintain a certain degree of emotional equilibrium
  • Without this emotional equilibrium and awarness, we are more prone to suddent shifts and mood-swings, or even entering a ‘fight or flight’ mode, without even being aware of the stimulus that has caused this response (which is almost always a memory)
• We can become emotionally numb when a part of our personal history is too painful to revisit
  • Young called it the ‘detached protector mode’
  • Suppressing your emotions may result in impulsive behaviors
  • When you turn away from feeling bad emotions, you turn away from feeling good emotions too

Part 2 : From healing to thriving

8 : Healing old wounds

• Face and acknowledge the truth, be real with yourself. Feel those emotions
• Talk with someone who can listen and recognize the pain and injustices you’ve experienced
• Allow yourslef to grieve. Grief is the best medicine for your pain ; it is a sacred process that offers true liberation. You will start to see the reality as it is and letting go of the past in order to open to the present
  • If you don’t, you may experience depression
  • What you push away hunts you the most
• It is by emptying the cup that you can fill it with fresh water
• Forgive for yourself. Move forward by acknowledging that everyone did the best they could. Understand that all humans are a combination of contradictions
• ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that’ – Martin Luther King Jr
• You will always carry with you a version of your younger self – those repeated disappointments are an indicator of your desire to heal and move towards integration. See it as a sign of resilience
• Let others live their honest truth
• The more you fight against reality, the more you suffer
  • Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional
• Relinquish any expectations and allow the possibility and everything can change, at any time

9 : Building emotional resilience

• Fixed mindset VS growth mindstet
  • Life is a process
• Train emotional resilience like it’s a muscle
• Neuroplasticity: brain’s ability to CHANGE throughout life
• By allowing yourself to open up, we become robust and loving, rather than vulnerable and victimized
• Fear is the belief that you would not be able to handle what might happen if you took action, and that the way to rise above fear is to believe in your ability to handle whatever it is that you face in life. (Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, 2012)
• Nowadays, we live in an emotion-phobic culture
  • The absence of emotion does not bring peace, but depression
• Be confident that you can deal with emotional intensity
  • Cultivate a secure base
  • Practise mindfulness – create a space for all of your emotions to come and go, so that you no longer feel trapped in them
    • Practise being behind the emotion, rather than dwelling on it
• Like our body, our mind has the ability to heal and adapt itself
• Learn to separate your thoughts and judgement from the pure and raw feeling of the experience, you will understand that these strong feelings are nothing but energy that needs to go through you
  • ‘Let go of the storyline, but stay with the energy’ – Pema Chodron (2009)
  • Remember: emotions are energy in motion
• Change is the only constant in life – our perceptions are not as solid and fixed as they seem
  • As a season comes, it is already going. As a leaf starts to flourish, it is simultaneously on its way to decay
• Flow with life’s natural order

Real freedom comes from the conviction that no matter what the outcome is, you will either deal with it or grow from it. Intead of being attached to a particular outcome (e.g. I want that very job, that very partner), you can focus on growing from increased adaptability. With consistent practice, you can feel pleasure without clinging to it or worrying about its ceasing, and you can feel pain without perpetuating it.

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• Quote from Steve Jobs : ‘You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.’
• Trusting life is a continuous practice
  • Sometimes, a situation cannot resolve or heal itself until you fully release

10 : Stepping into your truth

• Find a balance between your values and the demands of society
• Stages of finding your true self:
  • 1 : Being unaware : a member of the mainstream population, trying to be like everyone else
  • 2 : Becoming aware : you begin to notice your differences, it is at this stage that you can feel the need to put up a ‘false self’
  • 3 : Ambivalence and the development of a new self-narrative : discovering illuminating information about empaths, high sensitivity and giftedness. Healing and eye-opening moment. Realizing that you are not the only one.
    • You can also feel ashamed or guilty for being different, which may make you want to reduce contact with the outside world – to ‘hide and shrink’.
    • This stage will necessitate to let go of false ideas and expectations, and the fear of others’
  • 4 : Finding new alignments in the world : you start to understand how to be your most open and authentic self without being naive. You realize nothing is really wrong with you – positive anger
  • 5 : Becoming real : building a strong and rich personality

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

Marianne Williamson, 1992

• The optimal state of flow (optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best) is achieved when there is a balance between the level of our skills and the difficulty of the task at hand
  • Your lifestyle needs to feed your emotional, psychological and physical needs
  • You have to get out of your comfort zone to find your zone
  • It is a long process of trial-and-error
• When you are being you authentic self, you naturally filter out the bad apples in your life

Even though I am not yet aware of where this is leading, even though it pains me to have to let go of … I am open to the possibility that it is more aligned with my deeper truth. This is an opportunity for me to train my mental flexibility, and to adopt a wider perspective. Perhaps my discomfort is a growing pain.

As I now begin to remember the truth of who I am, I give myself permission to let go, so I can make space for something that is truer to who I am.

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11 : Being in the world

• As an empath, it is not rare to attract people who may dump their emotional baggage onto you
• Getting to know your vulnerabilities and creating emotional boundaries is empowering
• Having a healthy relationship with anger will allow you to feel more stable and tap into your inner strength
• Take care of your own needs first
• Carl Jung’s collective consciousness : composed by all of our individual consciousness. Researchers have found that collective consciousness is electromagnetic in nature and that we are all interrelated at the level of cells and tissue (Adamski, 2011)
  • There is not a real separation between people
• Our Persona VS our Shadow
  • Persona : the part of ourselves that we acknowledge and recognize, influenced by society’s expectations of us
  • Shadow : parts of ourselves that we reject. Remain unconscious until they are triggered. We tend to project our Shadow onto others
  • True self-esteem is achieved when we can take in all dimensions of ourselves
• Aim to be a wisom seeker – one who proactively learns from whomever or whatever is presented to them on any given day
  • Chinese saying : Of every three people you meet, one of them is your teacher
  • Remember: no one can give you what you already possess. What you seek is already inside you

12 : Finding true intimacy

• Transference : unconsciously projecting an old relationship onto a current one
  • Carrying what’s in the past into the present
  • The closer the relationship, the more it triggers fear and projection
• Being conscious of when and why you use (positive or negative) transference is a great tool for growth, healing and insight ; it can provide you valuable knowledge on your inner world and wounds
• Our tendency to seek a particular type of relationship or individual is often a compulsion to return to our past to gain closure and remove old blockages until we rewrite the ending
• By giving up the compulsion to demand from others what you did not get or cannot give to yourself, you will be trully free
• Our ability to love comes from our ability to grieve for changes in life. To live wholeheartedly comes with accepting loss and endings. Change is life, life does not come with guarantees
• Hurts and heartbreaks will happen but they will always pass. No matter what happens, you will not be shaken, your resilience will always win
• If you take the courage to accept change, loss and death, you will live life to the fullest and learn how to trully love
• Your openheartedness is your natural state and is always within you
  • Once you learn you open your heart, you will realize how painful it is to close it back
• By making peace with your need to depend on others, you will realize how much you have to offer in return

13 : Actualizing your creative potential

• Creative expression is what gives meaning to highly sensitive people
  • They often have a constant feeling that there is something important they should be doing – this is because they feel compelled to express whatever gifts they have
• Your creative vitality comes from within you
  • it is an inside-out process
• By detaching ourselves from the outcome and setting a long to just be the truest expression of you we are, we become truly liberated

We are at our most vulnerable in the middle of our creative journey – away from the inspiring beginning and the exhilarating rush when we are close to the finish line. At this testing time, you can learn to draw strength from something greater than yourself.

Kanter, 1984

• Trust the process, 80% of success is showing up

CLOSING THOUGHTS

This book was truly soul-stirring, eye-opening, and mind-expanding. Before reading Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity, I often felt like an outsider in this world, as if something was inherently wrong with me. I couldn’t understand why I was always ‘too much’—too sensitive, too intense, too emotional. I saw it as a flaw, a burden I had to carry.

But Imi Lo’s beautifully written book transformed my perspective. I now realize that my depth of emotion and intensity is not a weakness—it’s a gift, a superpower. Instead of suppressing or resenting it, I can embrace it as a tool to lead a more fulfilling and authentic life. This book didn’t just validate my experiences; it empowered me to see my sensitivity as a strength. A must-read for anyone who has ever felt ‘too much’ for this world.