If you aren’t familiar with the term “Highly Sensitive Person” or “HSP” it refers to about 15-20% of the population which possess a unique sensory processing trait which allows them to pick up more on subtleties in the environment, resulting in deeper processing and often being easily overwhelmed. Take the self-test here.
Are you weary from pandemic fatigue?
Are you struggling with the coming of colder, darker days?
Does climate change, social injustice, or global suffering weigh heavy on your tender heart?
If you aren’t familiar with the term “Highly Sensitive Person”, it refers to about 20% of the population that possess a unique sensory processing trait that allows them to pick up more on subtleties in the environment, resulting in deeper processing and often being easily overwhelmed with stimuli. (To learn more, you can visit this website:www.hsperson.com).
The infamous Santa Bed figurine. Photo Courtesy of Arianna Smith Counseling LLC.
Does anyone else feel like the world suddenly gets put into fast forward when the holidays start to come around? Come mid-November, I feel I am given a tremendous to-do list of holiday duties that are not even important to me.
1. Take advantage of Black Friday deals. 2. Find an ugly Christmas Sweater. 3. Watch ‘Love, Actually’ for the 30th time. 4. Learn how to make pumpkin rolls. 5. Realize that it’s now December and it’s too late to make pumpkin rolls. 6. Instead decide to learn how to make peppermint bark. 7. Get sucked into a Netflix abyss and spend the evening eating candy canes on the couch.
And it goes on.
While I have developed many ways to cope with overwhelm in most circumstances, the holidays can be a time that I run myself ragged. I find myself inundated with unrealistic expectations of myself and my time.
Quiet Moon Counseling 