Self-Trust and Emotional Strength for Sensitive People
Self-trust can be difficult for sensitive people because we were, and some of us still are, being told that we are too much or are overreacting. I think that society has conditioned people through media and pop culture that there is a certain way people must behave, think, and express themselves, which tends to pull the majority of people into a hive-like mind mentality. Individuals, highly sensitive people, empaths, and neurodivergents are deemed weird and falsely labelled, as if there must be something wrong with us. In actuality, we are just trying to navigate the world just like everyone else, to exist and be ourselves.
Self-trust in particular can be difficult when your inner world and the outer world clash instead of co-existing. Instead of integrating and supporting both, our inherent nature is deemed unnatural, weird, and strange for feeling and expressing ourselves the only way we know how. When you are told many times that something touches you emotionally, like a film, a book, a piece of art, poetry, or a book to name a few examples, that crying, feeling, and expressing yourself is strange, it can make you feel ashamed of yourself and create confusion within yourself.
When you are highly sensitive, this is like having a magnifying glass in all of your senses and directions. Self-trust can therefore be extremely difficult to navigate when your senses are overloaded. What thought is really mine? What feeling is true? Is this anxiety or is this just excitement?
Emotional strength is when you have emotional expression without it negatively affecting your actions. For example, you feel overwhelmed in a room full of people and instead of allowing your anxiety to consume you or run away, you instead take control and slow your breathing to regulate your emotions in a positive way.
This article is for anyone who would benefit from guidance and support from someone who has lived experience being misunderstood, dealing with being a highly sensitive person. I wanted to create a safe space where I go through what helped me and has allowed me to find my place in this world even if it doesn’t look like most people’s reality. I wish to raise awareness and also to stop the stigma of people being labelled sensitive, as if that somehow means that we are incapable of logical thinking. I also wish to explore the strengths of self-trust and the emotional strength of highly sensitive individuals. I will also add more information if anyone has suggestions. It is my aim that I can help liberate and celebrate my beautiful unconventional souls to become fearlessly themselves and unapologetically who they are, and feel safe within.
What self-trust means
Self-trust to me is linked with my intuition; this for me is what I have found to be true for myself. For someone else, you might have another way, and I believe that it is important not to make the shoe fit if it does not. So, self-trust is knowing and trusting in either your thought or decision and carrying it or seeing it play out. Sometimes self-trust means surrendering and making a decision not to act, which requires a lot of self-trust to believe in an outcome that will go the way it was meant to.
A sensitive person will know to trust themselves when they feel overwhelmed, or if in a group of people something doesn’t feel right and they decide to leave respectfully, and later on have this proven in one way or another to be the right decision. It’s about trusting in yourself, which is honouring yourself, and by that you are giving yourself self-respect.
Daily self-trust means you pick up a new habit and, for example, exercise. You will aim to have a daily walk even if it is 20/25 mins. Even if you don’t feel like it, you try your best and push yourself from whatever pit of hell you might be in that day and you say, I will do it anyway, despite it raining for example. This doesn’t mean you have to be militant in nature, but you accept radical responsibility for your actions. You know that by going on your daily walk in nature you are less stressed, you feel more connected with the environment around you, and it makes you feel more regulated to see nature instead of concrete.
The difference between self-trust and self-doubt is that self-trust allows you to act with confidence and accept that you can handle the outcome, while self-doubt is often rooted in fear, second-guessing, and lack of confidence in yourself.
Why sensitive people struggle with self-trust
Sensitive people second-guess themselves because their whole life they have had people reflect back a demonised version of natural expression. It’s as if some of the population does othering, which puts the highly sensitive individual in a place alone by themselves because they do not represent a part of the group think. If you were constantly told that you were different in not so nice words and being told you are weak and that there’s something wrong with you, or you’re so sensitive there’s something wrong with you, when you make a decision or try to, you will have conflicting thoughts and therefore conflicting actions. This can make decisions difficult to make as you weigh the pros and cons of a situation, decision, or action because you want to make the right one, and that’s the point.
There are many experiences that can make someone begin to doubt themselves. When a person is repeatedly ignored, dismissed, or made to feel that their feelings are too much or not important, they may start to lose trust in their own inner knowing. What once felt clear can begin to feel confusing.
Being misunderstood or dismissed can deeply affect self-trust. When a person’s feelings are repeatedly ignored, minimized, or questioned, they may begin to doubt their own inner knowing. Over time, this can lead to self-doubt, silence, and a growing distance from their own voice.
What I want the reader to understand is that being dismissed or misunderstood does not mean your feelings are wrong or that you are too much. It can be very painful when people do not hear you properly or make you feel like what you feel is not important, but that does not take away the truth of your experience. You are allowed to trust yourself again, even if that trust was shaken for a long time.
What emotional strength really is
I define emotional strength as something which is linked with resilience. There’s a scene in Rocky Balboa; the quote I am referencing from the 2006 film Rocky Balboa is: “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!” How is emotional strength related to this exactly? It’s about challenges and how you come back from them, not how you respond to the challenge itself.
Emotional strength isn’t about being harsh or closed off, which some people may think, but a thought isn’t necessarily a fact. Emotional strength requires you to see what is and what is not. If anyone has been betrayed, for example, you have lived experience of something gut-wrenching and therefore before you get involved with another person, let’s say a boyfriend or a girlfriend for example, and there are similar traits, you might change your approach based on the experience you had before. You might not be so willing to share things on the first date, but instead you want to court for at least 2 months so that you can really see how that person operates.
For a sensitive person, emotional strength can look like being guarded, and that would be wise because highly sensitive people often wear their hearts on their sleeve, but society can easily twist that into something more perverse such as being labelled weird or abnormal. You will have to make a choice, and one that requires inner strength: to conform and obey others and essentially live your life as a slave, or rise to meet yourself unapologetically and live authentically, true to yourself, and no matter what external pressure, you do not cave in to the super ego, which is outside of you and is not of you.
You might be wondering how can someone be both sensitive and strong, isn’t that just wishful thinking? No. There is no wishful anything. In each moment you breathe, you have choices that are being made, some by habit, some by design, and some that are out of your control. There is a misconception that being sensitive is a weakness. To feel and think everything so deeply is a gift and is a superpower. It may feel like a curse, but that’s probably because you might not have known too much about yourself. As Socrates says, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and most people just want to fall in line and perhaps that is what is good for them, but for individuals who are free thinkers we do not have an option. You can ignore the call but the price you will pay is the happiness or unhappiness of your soul, and if you don’t prescribe to any kind of spirituality that is fine too. I often think of what my life experiences have taught me, many being forced into situations and hurt by the closest people to me, and I believe that to carry all of that weight and not lash out but trying to do the work to heal myself, that is what strength is. Not becoming like one of the monsters who terrorised you, but instead choosing actively to do no harm but take no shit has been extremely healing for me personally.
Signs you are beginning to trust yourself
A sign that you are starting to trust yourself may be when you are given a hunch about something that you shouldn’t go somewhere, shouldn’t eat something, or not divulge a secret to someone you hardly know. Instead you pause and know that time reveals everything. When you get confirmation about whatever it may be, you might be like, ahh, I knew that it wasn’t right to go somewhere, or I’m glad I didn’t eat at the salad bar as Mary got sick. Or you were right not to tell that person anything about you because she likes to gossip about people, and naturally she will also gossip about me. Gossiping is a form of witchcraft and should be avoided as it is very low vibrational and you are unintentionally sending other people energy. I will make a separate post about this in the future for those who are interested in such topics.
Once you begin to trust yourself, you will no longer second-guess your instinct, gut feeling, intuition, or knowing. You will know things and walk in your power, and if or when you change your mind, you will do so with conviction. Your behaviour will be calmer, more poised, and intentional than before. You will be more conscious of yourself, but it’s more light and less dense.
When a person begins to rely on their own voice and knowing, there is a different air in the way that they present themselves and usually other people can see and feel it as the person gives off a certain aura or frequency. It’s not arrogance because when you know that you are a safe space, you can begin to feel at home within yourself and you no longer search for an external home because you know that you are a reliable source of truth. It changes your whole life when you can trust who you are and walk the talk. You say who you are and you are exactly that, and you are the one to report back to, and you don’t need a long line of people’s opinions or their validation. You look within and look at yourself, and you are safe at home within yourself.
How to build more self-trust
One way you can start to build trust with yourself would be when you say you are going to do something, you stick to your word and actually do it. When you break this, you’re essentially telling yourself that you don’t value, believe, or trust in yourself and you show yourself that it is true by not honouring your word. On the other hand, when you do what you say you were going to do, you reinforce this trust in yourself and, like anything done over time, you build muscle there and you can build something you are proud of.
Some practices that you can do is visualize yourself as a strong oak tree that is deeply rooted to the earth. Also grounding, whenever I am preparing for something that might be a challenge I like to wiggle my toes and feet in my shoes or in socks and just feel your feet and visualize touching and connecting to the earth.
If you are dealing with being overwhelmed or dealing with being unsure what I find to be helpful is to take a step back or a moment before I reply or I commit to something. I have found that myself and others like me need more time to process things and to let things settle before making a concrete decision. By doing this you honour yourself and your need for time and space.
Depending on an individual’s journey and pain threshold, it will be different for everyone so I will try to write this in a way that will be open-minded. The very thing that scares you or gives you a queasy feeling in your stomach might be the very thing you need to face head on. I can only write from my own perspective and I jump head first into whatever it is. I weigh up the pros and cons and I believe that discomfort is necessary for growth; think of it as growing pains. The more you gently push yourself and do the thing you are scared to do, you gain muscle and over time that thing that was scaring you has no hold over you because you have faced that thing, whatever it is, and you have overcome it. The first few times can be very daunting and make you sick to your stomach but trust in your own strength and ability. Your ancestors survived somehow and you are the product of that lineage; they made the path so that you could walk or heal whatever it is they couldn’t heal.
Why this matters
Self-trust matters because it changes you, the player in the game of life. There are many of us who have been trodden on and we hold vital positions in this life and perhaps we were told lies about who we were or what we should be according to someone else’s will or opinion. This is also about personal empowerment. To know yourself is key to this game. If you know who you are, you become aware of things which you or others might see as a weakness but in actuality is essential and has its place. When you trust who you are, you are sovereign and anyone who tries to control you has no power. I cannot stress this point enough, it is important to know what your power is and what value you hold because you do.
There is a reason why people pick on the sensitive person because we stand strong and alone but are not lonely. Of course this will be an individual’s experience and depending on how far you are, you would know who you are and actually love who you are and see what you bring to this world is not plentiful on this earth. People usually group up against an individual, now why is that? If this individual is so strange and is a so and so, why does it take so many to come up against one person? You might go through a smear campaign and I also want to address this more in-depth, as to deal with that alone is absolutely unjustified and unnecessarily painful.
When you trust yourself fully, you are liberated from what other people’s opinions are because you won’t listen to hearsay. You will think: does this person really know who I am and how are they qualified to know me so intimately? To know yourself and trust yourself is your superweapon against even the mildest forms of misunderstanding. You begin to feel and know that you are strong and you are capable of great things in this life, and you begin to move with purpose and with meaning.
When you are emotionally strong, there are many benefits and to name a few would be you won’t be as emotionally manipulated as before or fall for the traps which people like to place to test you. In relationships you will know when to add or leave a conversation that is no longer healthy or which might not be beneficial for both parties. In decisions you will have more clarity to decide the best course of action without being swayed by feelings or manipulated.
How this connects to your work
I offer many different offerings which include written or 1:1 calls online. I discuss and delve into the things which people need help to either confront, dive into, or walk by as a supportive figure. I would suggest you take a look at my offerings button at the top and I will link a button here too.
My work is for anyone who is willing to work on themselves and is ready for transformation in their life. It’s for highly sensitive people, empaths of any kind, introverts, neurodivergent, creatives of all kinds, and anyone who doesn’t fit in the traditional mode and is an individual.
What someone can expect from working with me is a space where they can be honest, heard, and met with care. I offer presence, reflection, and support so they can begin to trust themselves more deeply and feel more grounded in who they are.
Closing
Sensitivity is not a curse, it is a gift, and when you know what that is and how it operates, you can use it strategically to take your power back and live with a direction instead of being swayed away emotionally by different emotional currents and be pushed or manipulated into doing what someone else wants. You can live in alignment with what honours you. You have the strength within you and you can get to a point of feeling and being strong within yourself.
Please do check out my website and my offerings, and if you want to go further with me then I invite you to.
