HSP and attatchmentstyles, males/females

How to make a choise / how to make a decision:

Both our slow speed and our final tendency to be right follow from the most central aspect of our trait, our depth of processing. We notice even quite subtle aspects of our world and a vast array of the possible consequences of a choice. All of this goes into our consideration of what may be going to happen and what we should do. Much of the time we are not aware of this process, or aware but it does not complicate decisions. In fact, it can make it easier to decide what to do.

When we must consciously make a choice, however, we can suffer with real dilemmas, even over choosing a flavor of ice cream. All of this awareness of the details and possibilities can make it much more difficult than for non-HSPs. Then we can get teased for it, or frustrate the people around us. The ice cream server wants our order and our mind freezes as stiff as gelato. The realtor wants to close the deal and our mind panics and runs out our imagined new door. If our decision affects others also, eeks!

Part of the problem is that, because of being more emotionally responsive, we are more upset than others by making the wrong decision. Indeed, often when the choice is between two things we want, we tend to process all of the consequences, that is, regret the loss of the one we did not choose.

Tips:

Okay, Your Choice Could be Wrong

First, face how much uncertainty is involved. Often there is a great deal and with serious consequences. An HS couple wants to have a baby, but fear the child might be very difficult in some way, or that given the wife's age the infant might be born with Downs syndrome, autism, or some other genetic problem. The odds are small but go up with age. However, what their baby will be like they can't know.

Uncertainty lurks in almost every decision, and as an HSP you can feel that more than others, often without being fully conscious of the fact. You are trying to decide between two or more jobs, colleges, places to live, apartments to rent or homes to purchase. You can go through endless inspections and investigations, but some things you cannot know until you are in the situation, and some things will change with time, including how you feel about your choice.

If you face the brutal fact that you may be wrong no matter what you do, you can go to step two:

Think about how you will handle being wrong. How serious will it really be? Can you be philosophical about making a mistake? Put it in perspective? See the "big picture"? We all make mistakes. What matters is that we learn from them. Or ask yourself whether in a year or ten years it will even matter? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Sometimes a choice at first feels like a mistake--especially when you give up what you are used to, and naturally you will miss parts of that. However, usually your thoughtful decisions turn out to have huge benefits in the long run. Some of you can also take the stance that things always or usually turn out for the best, or that a higher power is guiding your life. On the other hand...

Have a Way to Undo Your Decision if You Can

I always try to have an exit strategy. Maybe it will cost extra, but can you get home early from where you are planning to go if you want to? Can you take a sabbatical for a year from your job in case you change your mind about leaving it? How much would it cost to move again if you hated where you chose to live? Marriages tend to last longer if you do not have an exit strategy, but sometimes HSPs are better off when trying to commit if they consider how bad it would really be if their marriage ended in divorce. Maybe it would be very painful or costly to make a change, but it helps to know that you could.

Make a List and Maybe Then Some

My husband and I once had to make the difficult decision for him to stay at his current job or accept a new position for more pay at a different university. There were an enormous number of variables to consider as well as uncertainties: How we would like the new city, how he would like the new job, the cost of finding the housing we would like, the enormous effort of moving and settling in, the friends we would leave, the health insurance each offered. Our minds were swirling with all of this, so in order to avoid forgetting any factor or overemphasizing one, we made a list.

The list inspired us to turn that into a spreadsheet. Beside each issue we put numbers, 1 to 10, about how good it would feel if that particular thing worked out for the better, how bad if something did not, how good it would feel to leave something we did not like about where we were, how bad it would feel to give something up that we had where we were. Then we had to estimate the odds of each of these if there was uncertainty involved. Having it on a spreadsheet, we could sum up the columns but also change the weights according to our shifting feelings or new information and instantly see the new resulting sum. There were actually many surprises when we did this, and the end result was that we did not take the job, and have never regretted it. We knew exactly why we did not.

While that method sounds pretty brainy or techy, it was full of feelings because we were rating how we would feel about each, and we could imagine different degrees of feeling, maybe even after we made the change, and see how that affected the overall picture. Mainly it helped us keep it all in the picture, rather than feeling our minds jumping all around from issue to issue, feeling to feeling, during the day when we wanted to think about other things and even more when we wanted to sleep at night.

Take Your Time

My firm advice is to take as long to decide as the situation permits, and ask for more time if you need it and can take it. During this time, try pretending for a minute, hour, day, or even week that you have made up your mind a certain way. How does that feel? Often, on the other side of a decision, things look different and this gives you a chance to imagine more vividly that you are already there.

Balance Carefully Your Needs and Those of Others

Few decisions are made outside of a social context. Very often our decisions affect others. Sometimes people really want or need us to choose something that we are not so sure will be good for us or even good for them. Although we must be very careful to let others make their own decisions, often we can sense what is good for others better than they can and need to state our observations as diplomatically as possible.

When a decision truly affects you and another equally, it's much more complicated. What are the issues for HSPs? One is knowing better. Sometimes I will ask my husband, a non-HSP, what he would like to do, or to choose between this or that. It's painful when, as soon as he tells me, I realize that this is going to be the wrong choice. That trail isn't shady enough for hiking in summer at mid-day, or doesn't he remember the bad food we had at that restaurant last time? Actually, he is used to me being better at these types of choices--I'm the HSP--so he usually agrees as soon as I point out the problems. Of course, sometimes I'm wrong, and taking the responsibility can be hard, too. Then there are times when I can't decide, so he decides on one thing, and only then do I know I want the other.

If you both know what you want and it is different, use all the skills for conflict resolution that can be found on the web or in advice books, but you can also use The Highly Sensitive Person in Love for HSP-specific suggestions. For example, non-HSPs often state their needs with a higher volume, even when in fact they care about the outcome less than you do. Ask any non-HSPs involved to rate how important something is for them from one to ten, and also how important it is if they do not get their way. Do the same for yourself. Now you see the true balance.

When you really must sacrifice your needs, which we are prone to do as especially empathic people, be very careful. Could you go to your grave resenting the other person for this decision? You must make your decision fully conscious of the costs and fully willing to accept them and never bring it up again.

Also remember that if you discussed the decision with the other and you feel he or she agreed to let you have your way, and then it turns out to be wrong, there is no reason for guilt. That's an HSP tendency. We can feel guilty even if something we intended to do by a selfless decision turns out to be good for ourselves, too. Self-interest, when it dovetails with a greater good, is nothing to be ashamed of.

Be Careful About Others' Advice

Sometimes non-HSPs in particular, with no (conscious) stake at all in your decision, will voice strong opinions about what you should decide, often while focusing on only a small part of the decision or thinking of how they would feel in your situation. The sheer strength of their expression can throw you. If you said something in this tone, it would represent near certainty. With non-HSPs, it often turns out "Oh, you heard it that way? I didn't really..." These opinions can stick in our minds and hearts, especially if we care about how the person will feel if we decide to go against this advice.

The people you want to ask are those who have information you may not have--those living in the town you will move to, going to the college you may choose, working in the career you are considering, or who have had that second or third child you are thinking about. Also ask those like vocational or college counselors who have helped others make the same decision.

Above all, talk with those types who really listen to you and reflect back what you are saying. "Sounds like you are saying that it really worries you, living in a big city." Again, be careful of those who do not listen. Some may have strong opinions that are really more philosophical or political. For example, some people feel small or large families are better or even morally right, but your situation is not being considered.

May most of your decisions feel right! Always right, we HSPs know, is too much to expect.

Elaine Aron

www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-highly-sensitive-person/201810/highly-sensitive-people-and-decision-making

Get more warmth in love life - for singles:

Good advice when you are single and going on dates

1. Meet rejections with warmth and understanding
As a sensitive person, you are typically more affected by rejection. Both of others' rejection of you and of having to reject another yourself. Try to face the discomfort - your own and the other's discomfort - with warmth and without condemnation of yourself or the other.

It will enable you to relate more consciously, clarified and strongly to the pain you and the other are going through.

2. Plan self-care for difficult situations
If after a date you are shaken, hurt, disappointed or feel self-critical, it is good to have thought in advance about what you want to do: What makes you open your heart again? How do you calm down? What thoughts should you think? What actions build you up? Who should you talk to? - and who are you not talking to? Be aware of what support you can give yourself and what support you need from others. Write if necessary. in advance a loving and supportive letter to yourself with important messages that you need to remember when you are having a hard time.

3 Practice showing confidence, joy and warmth in your relationship with yourself You have to live with yourself for the rest of your life - no matter who your partner becomes. When you are overstimulated or have negative emotions, you can try to treat yourself as lovingly as possible. Hereby you accustom your brain and your psyche to maintain calm. You train your ability not to get upset when something is difficult - it will not only benefit you here and now, but also strengthen you to cope with challenges in a future relationship.

4. Make room for the many different emotions. Some sensitive people feel very hurt over a previous relationship. Others tell them that they must learn to "let go and move on." But it can be a deep and painful process, when one's emotional life is more intense. Not least for the sensitive, who have had a stressful childhood. Give yourself understanding and acceptance, that it can be a long process for you to heal the wounds of the past. Perhaps you will feel some relief when you allow yourself both to feel the sadness of the past and to open yourself just as quietly to what you yourself can do in the future. Do not climb, but take small affordable steps.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls6yXbVaqhY

Highly sensitive people pick up on many things and are deeply affected by them.

On the video Ilse Sand speak about how they sometimes feel like the canary in the mineshaft, because of their particularly sensitive nerve system.

Social sensitivity:

Sensitive and the Value of Loving Contact - with and without a partner
Tips and advice to bring out the best in your social sensitivity

If you carry genes for social sensitivity, you are more affected by your partner's mood - and as a single you can be more deeply hurt by a relationship and more affected by rejections on a date.

Here in the article you will get tips to handle your social sensitivity optimally and promote loving contact with your partner - and yourself.

- talk to your partner about how you create loving interactions and strengthen your relationship.
- get practical tips and advice to express love with and without words.
- learn what you can do as a single - and get deeper peace in going on dates.

Remember that you are more affected as a socially sensitive person.

Make sure you and your partner get the most out of your social sensitivity
As a socially sensitive person, you are more affected by the expression of emotions, than most others - whether you and your partner express it in words or between the lines. Therefore, it can be even more crucial for you that your emotional communication is of a high quality.

Talk to your partner about how you communicate your loving feelings with each other.
Agree on what you are good at and what you want to get better at.
Make a concrete plan for how your conversation can be the beginning of you sharing more loving and positive feelings with each other in everyday lif

Important point:

YOU CAN AS A SOCIAL SENSITIVE HURT AND DRY OUT LIKE A FLOWER WITHOUT WATER, WHEN THE CONTACT BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR PARTNER IS CRITICAL AND COLD. ON THE OTHER HAND IF YOU AND YOUR PARTNER ARE LOVING AND WARM IN YOUR INTERACTION WITH EACHOTHER, YOU CAN FLOURICH STRONGLY IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP

How can you strengthen the loving contact with your partner?

1. Express negative emotions thoughtfully
From research we know one sure thing about the durability of a relationship: - - if we have very “negative” behavior towards each other, it can be harder for us to stick together and thrive as a couple.

It's not just what we say to each other when we e.g. are excited or when we have put up a “cold wall” . It also means a lot - and apparently even more - how we show each other our feelings without words.
You are allowed to express negative emotions. If you suppress them, the emotional distance can grow. But express your negative feelings thoughtfully and only when necessary. Not as a bad habit.
Before and after expressing negative emotions, you can strengthen the contact between you by showing warmth and positive emotions.

2. Show your warmth and love in words

EXAMPLES:
- When you acknowledge your partner's views - even if they are different from you own - it works like a glue that makes love last.
- You need to say positive words about your partner's actions and attitudes. You need to try to look openly at how your partner is experiencing issues, and you need to be willing to try out some of your partner's suggestions.
- You can thank your partner for help, forgive mistakes and offer your own help whenever possible.
- You can tell your partner how much his/her love means to you. You can remind yourself and your partner of good experiences you have had together.
- If you are upset, hurt or disappointed, you can stop shutting yourself off and pile up anger. You can instead honestly express it and, if possible, avoid using offensive words.

3. Strengthen the loving contact between you without words - it works stronger that words.

HOW CAN YOU SHOW LOVE WITHOUT WORDS?
Your tone of voice, your facial expressions, the way you turn towards or away from your partner, your involuntary movements and your whole body language can reveal friendliness and kindness - or radiate coldness, rejection and anger.

A warm smile, an open attitude, a loving tone of voice, a face that radiates joy, humor and cohesion all help to show your loving feelings. When we often share loving feelings, we can feel happier with each other and can have an easier time getting through conflicts.

IMPORTANT POINTS:
Several studies of relationships show that non-linguistic expressions of emotion seem even stronger than words!

Tips for singles: 

jebkinnisonforum.com/post/39799/

Symptoms of highly sensitivity

Forget their own needs and desires
The symptoms that come with being highly sensitive are burnout and stress. That is, lack of energy, mood swings, lack of short-term memory or walking around with a feeling of not fitting in

Other symptoms can also be that we make decisions that are reactive and that are often bad for oneself. Of course, it also has an impact on the agreements you make with yourself. One can have a hard time keeping them and it ultimately gives poor self-confidence.

Physically, the sympathetic nervous system is largely at work - it is the nervous system we use when we have to make an extraordinary effort. If we are aware of the function and reaction of the nervous system, it is a great state to be in and it is very useful when we need to perform in less time. But when it's the system we use on a more permanent basis, things go wrong and we actually lose our ability to relax.

(this can depend weather you are a male or female, your connective tissue ect.) 

Calm breathing

When we go from the unknown to the familiar, it feels less dangerous. It also allows us to relate and separate the senses and emotions, and that is important in the healing process. For me as a therapist, the most important thing is to get the body to switch from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system, where the body is relaxed and can recover. This is where the body begins to regenerate or heal itself.

When we are in our sympathetic nervous system, we only breathe superficially, but a deep and calm breathing is the key to a more lasting relaxation. I work with the client's attention, sensation and awareness in their breathing, so that they themselves become aware of when the sympathetic nervous system is active and when it is not.

You can also use the increased awareness as a tool to find out in which situations you react to and how it is felt and felt in the body.

A bodyworker, hsp specialist