Vibrant Days – December 2023

Sensitive people were designed to think. A lot. But where is the line between deep thinking and excessive worrying?

This is the first installment of Sensitive Refuge’s new advice column for highly sensitive people. Our resident advice columnist is Alane Freund, one of the world’s top therapists for HSPs. Alane has been trained by and worked closely with Elaine Aron, and is here to help you sort out your life conundrums as a sensitive person. Submit a question to Alane here. 

Dear Alane, My daughter and I are both highly sensitive and we always have something to worry about. I feel like I can’t help her with her worry because I don’t even know how to deal with my own! I wish we could just turn both our brains off and stop thinking so much about every little thing. How can I help her (and help myself!) to worry less? —Always Worrying

Dear Always Worrying,

First things first. Worry is our birthright as highly sensitive people. We see it in the youngest among us. I would say it’s a feature and not a bug of our deeply processing brains, but honestly, it can be both!

For example, I remember standing on the high diving board at the public pool as a tween. I can still feel the pressure of the line of kids waiting and jeering as I stood frozen, staring at the water beyond my toes. It wasn’t that I was scared (well, maybe I was a little), I just needed to pause and think before going literally overboard. I just needed a bit more time and a little less pressure – two things kids impatiently awaiting their turns rarely extend.

We sensitive ones were designed to think. A lot. But where is the line between thinking and worrying? And why do some of us cross the line and get lost on the wrong side of it?

And, AW, you’re a parent. Parents become even bigger worriers when our children worry. It can be a tricky cycle — even a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it may be helpful to know we come by our honestly, as do most animals, even flies and fish. Worrying is baked into how nature built our brains.

Nature Made You Worry for a Reason

There are two basic strategies for how people (and animals) behave in the world, particularly in responding to their environment. In fact, in a 2008 study, biologists documented these same two strategies in over one hundred species.

So what are the two strategies?

The first one is to just go for it — and if it doesn’t work, go for it again.

The second one is to do it once and do it right.

Scientists refer to the “just go for it” strategy as a nonresponsive, impulsive, or non-sensitive reaction. It doesn’t take much into consideration, nor does it scan the circumstances and evaluate the best course of action. Instead, it’s opportunistic. It perceives a possible, positive outcome, and it pursues it, and it often pays off. (Thank goodness most people are like this so things get done!)

In contrast, the second strategy is called a responsive, reflective, reactive, or sensitive reaction. This strategy takes advantage of processing the information at hand. It charts a course of action based on all the known facts, hoping to maximize the outcome and minimize the risk. This is what sensitivity researcher Elaine Aron calls the “pause-to-check” response — and it’s a central feature of a highly sensitive person’s brain. Basically, we sensitive people want to get things right the first time. We are careful and deliberate about our actions. And thank goodness humanity has us here thinking more carefully (and hopefully advising the go-for-it majority).

I utilized my ‘pause-to-check’ response on the diving board all those years ago. And, although diving boards are mostly safe, this same response can often make a life-or-death difference.

Scientists have observed this in a remarkable range of species. I love the example of the Pumpkinseed Sunfish, which one study labeled as either “bold” or “timid” when a new trap was set in their pond. Many of the fish boldly swam right into the trap, but a smaller number hesitated before swimming, presumably detecting that there was something new in their environment. From my perspective, the “timid” fish looked pretty smart. Their pause to respond to the environment kept them safe.

So, far from being a hindrance or shortcoming, the “pause to check” response is actually evidence of a sensitive person’s subtle perception and depth of processing. As highly sensitive people (HSPs), our more reactive brains make us more aware of physical subtleties, more emotionally tuned in, and more thoughtful about it all — which Elaine Aron and I esteem as emotional leadership. Emotional leadership means leading with your emotions and empathy, but it also means you will have emotional responses before those who are less sensitive — often the same emotions others might have but take longer to access. You can and should draw from these strengths to advise the more impulsive people in your life and guide those around you to wise action.

But the “pause to check” response comes with a byproduct: worry. Sometimes even unnecessary worry. Not every pond has a trap in it, but the HSP mind is inclined to check every pond just in case. And that can become very frustrating if it turns into constant worry — or seeing your sensitive child worry.

So, AW, how do you make the worrying stop? It starts with changing the way you interact with your deep processing — and transforming the worry into something useful.