By Alessia of @Alelamarca77
What does it really mean to be a highly sensitive person, and what changes when we begin to understand our sensitivity instead of judging it?
I have always believed that perspective matters.
The same thing can look very different depending on where we are standing and what we have lived. I think about sensitivity in much the same way.
I am a highly sensitive person, and I am proud of it.
That doesn’t mean that being sensitive is easy. It can hurt. Sometimes there is simply too much: too much noise, too much emotion, too much happening at once. And when I lose my balance, I often find my way back by remembering this part of myself.
But sensitivity has another side too.
When its brighter sides come through, I can feel incredibly alive. I can be deeply moved by a piece of music, in awe of a dancer, a work of art, a beautiful gesture, a colour, or a moment that someone else might simply pass by.
I notice things, feel things deeply, connect dots, pick up nuances, empathise, communicate.
Beauty can stay with me too.
As a dancer and dance educator, I have spent much of my life in movement, music, expression and connection.
But the same openness that allows us to experience something deeply can sometimes leave us overwhelmed.
For a long time, I didn’t have the language to understand why some things affected me so deeply.
I was shy, introverted, always thinking and noticing, and yet I also had empathy, communication, and a strong presence on stage.
Learning about high sensitivity gave me a language for experiences I had already been living. It helped me understand myself a little better.
When sensitivity looks like “too much”
A person who becomes deeply moved by music, overwhelmed by strong smells or bright lights, or unexpectedly emotional about something small can sometimes look like they are reacting a little too much.
Sometimes even we might wonder the same thing.
But perhaps “too much” is not always the most useful way to look at it.
We don’t all experience the same moment with the same intensity.
A piece of music may simply be playing in the background for one person and feel almost physical to another. A crowded room may be manageable for someone and exhausting for someone else. A smell, a light, a tone of voice, a small gesture can have a real impact on the person experiencing them.
And sometimes it is not even something we can easily name.
We may notice the atmosphere of a room before anyone has said anything. We may sense that something has shifted between two people because of a change in tone, expression or energy. We may remember a tiny detail from a conversation that seemed unimportant at the time.
We may also crave conversations that go somewhere deeper. Small talk can feel tiring, while a meaningful conversation about life, relationships, ideas or what someone is really experiencing can leave us feeling energized and connected.
These experiences are not universal signs of high sensitivity, but they are familiar parts of my own experience.
This doesn’t make one person more right, more fragile, or more special than the other.
It means we are different.
I can notice that something is intense for me, and become curious about what I need.
So, what does it actually mean to be highly sensitive?
The term highly sensitive person is commonly used to describe people who experience and process sensory, emotional and social information with greater sensitivity. In research, this is often referred to as sensory processing sensitivity, or SPS.
SPS is understood as a temperament trait—an individual difference in how people respond to their environment. It is not a disorder, and being highly sensitive does not automatically mean being anxious, introverted, fragile, or overwhelmed.
Research suggests that people higher in this trait may process information more deeply, notice subtleties more readily and respond more strongly to experiences.
That matters to me.
It is easy to focus only on overstimulation, emotional intensity, tiredness, or needing recovery time. But sensitivity can also mean being deeply moved by music, art, beauty and connection.
There is no single way to be sensitive.
I don’t think learning about high sensitivity should give us another box to squeeze ourselves into. For me, it offered another perspective.
When the body speaks
As a dancer, I learned early that the body often knows that something is too much before the mind has found the words for it.
A rehearsal can be physically demanding, but that is not always what makes it overwhelming. There is the music, the movement, the space, the expectations, the corrections, the comparison and everything you bring with you that day.
As a dance teacher, this has changed the way I look at my students.
Before I ask a dancer to do more, I want to notice the person in front of me. Are they tired, frustrated, overloaded, afraid of making a mistake? Are they still able to hear me, or have I already given them more information than they can take in?
This doesn’t mean lowering expectations or avoiding challenge. It means understanding that learning does not happen in exactly the same way for everyone and I think this is true far beyond the dance studio.
When we notice our own signs of overwhelm, we can ask: What is happening inside me? What has become too much? What do I need more of, or less of?
This is where nervous-system awareness becomes interesting to me: not as another thing to control, but as another way of listening.
Our bodies are constantly responding to what we experience. We may notice tension, restlessness, fatigue, a racing mind, the urge to withdraw, or simply the feeling that we have reached our limit.
These signals are not necessarily problems to eliminate.
Sometimes they are information.
Recognizing yourself without labelling yourself
Once we begin paying attention, we may recognize patterns.
Perhaps crowded places drain us, we need quiet after a full day, or emotions stay with us for a long time.
Perhaps we replay conversations because there was something beneath the words that we are still trying to understand. Perhaps we notice details in a person’s face or voice, remember small moments that mattered to us, or think about a question long after someone else has moved on.
And sometimes what stays with us most is beauty.
A piece of music can move us unexpectedly. A performance can leave us speechless. A colour, a landscape, a gesture, a sentence, a shared look can stay with us long after the moment has passed.
For me, these experiences belong to the same picture.
But recognising these patterns doesn’t mean we need to explain everything through sensitivity.
I can be sensitive and strong, sensitive and capable, shy in some situations and completely present and expressive in others.
These things do not contradict each other.
They are part of being human.
This is also where I think we need to be careful with wellbeing advice.
There are countless practices and ideas that promise to help us regulate ourselves or understand ourselves more deeply. Some may be helpful; others may not resonate with us. I have explored many approaches, and some have given me valuable tools.
But I don’t believe that what works for me automatically belongs in someone else’s toolbox.
Even two highly sensitive people can have completely different needs and ways of responding to the world.
So perhaps self-awareness is not about collecting the right answers.
Perhaps it is about becoming curious enough to notice what is true for us—to listen, experiment, and learn our own language.
Coming back to yourself
For me, understanding my sensitivity has not meant learning how to avoid everything that overwhelms me.
It has meant learning to recognise myself when I am overwhelmed.
Sometimes I need silence, space, time, or simply a moment without having to respond to anything.
What has changed is that I am less interested in asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and more interested in asking, “What is happening here?”
I have found this especially meaningful through dance. Dance has taught me to pay attention to things that cannot always be explained with words: a change in breath, a body that suddenly becomes rigid, a movement that feels free one day and difficult the next, or the difference between physical tiredness and being saturated by what is happening around you.
Sometimes what looks like resistance is tiredness. Sometimes what looks like distraction is overload. Sometimes a dancer does not need another explanation, but more space to process the one they already received.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is stop and come back to the last place where we felt steady.
Not every difficult moment needs to become a lesson.
Sometimes we simply need to notice what is happening and meet ourselves there.
Making room for all of it
The more I understand my sensitivity, the less interested I am in deciding whether it is a good thing or a difficult thing.
It can be both.
Sometimes sensitivity hurts deeply.
Sometimes it makes me feel deeply alive.
Sometimes I can be overwhelmed by noise, emotion or having taken in too much.
And sometimes I can hear music, watch a dancer move, or notice something beautiful in an ordinary moment and feel completely awake to the world.
Perhaps that is why perspective matters so much. We can look at sensitivity from the place where it hurts and see only what feels difficult, or from another point and notice depth, connection, empathy, creativity and the capacity to be moved.
Neither view tells the whole story.
For me, sensitivity is a superpower.
Not because it makes life easier, and not because every part of it feels good. It is a superpower because it allows me to perceive, feel, connect and experience the world with a depth that I have come to value deeply.
I don’t want to become less sensitive.
I want to know myself well enough to recognise its different sides, and to use what this sensitivity gives me with awareness and care.
I am highly sensitive. I am also a dancer, a teacher, and a human being with many sides.
Sensitivity is part of my experience of the world, not the whole of me.
And what supports me may not be what supports you.
Because we are not formulas.
We are human.
Highly sensitive.
Highly human.