Replace the pressure to “stop being so sensitive” — with learning how to properly digest and absorb big feelings.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a client ask me how to “stop being so sensitive” or a parent ask me how to control their highly sensitive child.
I am going to offer a 4 step process of emotional assimilation adapted from Bill Plotkin’s book, Wild Mind, to guide you in healthy processing of feelings.
Lisa Dion of the Synergetic Play Therapy Institute (where I received my child therapy training) suggests that emotion is actually just “energy in motion” alive in the body…and that moving towards the challenging emotions is necessary to achieve more empowered states of being and decision making.
And I believe that the best way to teach children how to handle big feelings is for the adults in their lives to model healthy emotional processing.
The oxford dictionary defines “assimilation” as "The process of taking in and fully understanding information or ideas” OR “the absorption and digestion of food or nutritions by the body.” By learning how to properly assimilate emotions, you can receive the nourishing information that feelings provide then more easily let that sh*t go.
I often walk clients through this process and witness them replace feelings of resentment, stuckness, and avoidance with more excitement to show up for their life in integrity with who they really are.
Follow these 4 steps to properly move through and learn from big feelings.
STEP 1: EXPERIENCE THE RAW EMOTION
WITHOUT INTERPRETATION or creating stories, notice how the raw sensation of this emotion feels in your body. Where in your body is it located? What color is it? Do you notice any images or textures?
WITHOUT CENSORING, express the emotion with sound, movement, gesture, posture, or fantasy. For example, if you are working with anger you may imagine running your car into something while sensing the energy moving in your body...or you may literally make the gesture of flicking off your boss (just to your mirror of course!)
STEP 2: COMPASSIONATE SELF INQUIRY
Explore what the emotion in a particular situation tells you about your expectations, values, needs, desires, and attitudes. Watch your tendency to blame other people or situations for your experience, and bring the attention back to you again and again for this step.
Use the following questions to guide your exploration of each of these emotions.
For Anger - How do I believe I deserve to be treated? How should another person, or community of people be treated - or a place or the planet? What seems to be wrong with the world? In what way might I be part of the problem?
For Sadness - What do I love, admire, or desire that I’ve lost or fear I’m about to lose? What can I do to keep the loss from happening or getting worse? If it’s too late, how can I mourn what has been lost? What does my love or desire say about who I am? How might I praise things of this world?
For Guilt - What is expected of me? What do I expect of myself? What are the right ways for me to be and act? What are my genuine values, and which ones have I violated, knowingly or unknowingly? How do I make things right again with myself or others?
For Joy - What makes my world better, more complete? What, in general, do I rejoice in? What does this say about who I am, what I value? How might I praise or celebrate what is good?
For Fear - What is dangerous and therefore to be escaped, avoided, or approached cautiously? What do I need to do to protect myself or others? What degree of risk is tolerable in pursuit of which goals? Given that zero risk can be deadening, what degree of risk is optimal? What is true security? Given life’s inherent risks, what skills or resources do I need to take care of myself and others?
STEP 3: EXPRESS WITH INTEGRITY
Take the information you now have to inform your interactions with yourself, other people, and your world.
Show up with words and actions that celebrate what is being made right again.
For example, you may approach your partner with less resentment and clearer boundaries after taking responsibility for the experience of anger which will ultimately provide more space for intimacy. Or you may realize that the friend you were blaming for not showing up for you, has illuminated a part of you that feels abandoned or rejected and then embody less blame and more space for true connection the next time you hang out, while also more clearly stating what you need in the friendship to feel loved and supported.
STEP 4: REVIEW THE CYCLE THEN LET IT GO
Review the cycle of emotional assimilation now being completed.
Explore how this process fits within the bigger picture of your unique life story.
Then let that sh*t go or as Bill Plotkin says, “Laugh with yourself and others about the adventure of being human.”
Hopefully now instead of viewing your sensitivity as a weakness and asking yourself or your children to “stop being so sensitive”, you might view your sensitivity as your superpower that with healthy attention can inform a more authentic and empowered life.
In other words, “you have to feel it to heal it.”