Lesson 2 Undertanding your Sensitive System
00:00:00 Jess: Lesson two understanding your sensitive system. Welcome to understanding your sensitive system. You now know the science in general of what makes you a highly sensitive person. But in this lesson, I'm going to walk you through the h s p r assessment. Why you should do it, what it is and how you can understand the results once you have taken this test. This is not here to diagnose you or put you in a box. And it is not here to tell you that you're too sensitive, too emotional too reactive, or too affected by life. It is here to help you understand how your sensitive system receives processes and responds to the world. The h, s, p r stands for the Highly sensitive person scale revised. It is an updated version of the original highly sensitive person scale, which came from research into sensory processing sensitivity. Often shortened to s PS sensory processing sensitivity is the scientific term often used to describe high sensitivity. It refers to a nervous system and brain that may process information more deeply, respond more strongly to emotional and sensory input, and be more affected by both difficult and nourishing environments. So when we talk about being a highly sensitive person, we are not simply talking about being emotional. I really want to make sure you know that. And we are not talking about someone that just cries easily. And we're definitely not talking about this as a weakness. We are talking about a very real sensitivity trait that can affect the way you think, feel, relate, notice, process, becoming overwhelmed and receiving goodness. The reason the HSP R was created and updated is because sensitivity is not one single thing. Older ways of talking about high sensitivity often focused heavily on overwhelm, overstimulation, and emotional reactivity. And of course, those things can be part of the sensitive experience, but they are not the whole picture. Sensitivity also includes depth awareness, relational attunement, subtle noticing, responsiveness to beauty, and the ability to deeply nourish, be deeply nourished by positive experiences. And this matters because if we only measure the difficult side of sensitivity, people can start to believe that their sensitivity is only a burden. But sensitivity is more nuanced than that. It can make life more intense. Yes, it can make certain environments harder. Yes, it can make stress, conflict, pressure, noise, criticism, and overwhelm feel really heavy. But it can also make beauty more moving connection, more meaningful music, more powerful nature, more regulating insight, more profound and safe relationships even more healing. So the HSP-R helps us look at sensitivity in a more balanced and specific way. Not just am I a sensitive person, but more how does my sensitivity express itself? And what kind of support does my system actually need? The HSP-R looks at six different aspects of sensitivity. You may think these are six sensitivity areas or six ways your sensitivity might show up. They're not rigid personality types. They're not fixed identities. And you may score pretty high on all of them. You may score more strongly just in one or two, and your scores may also shift depending on your life season. The stress levels, health hormones, relationships, work, and how supported your nervous system currently feels. So as you complete this assessment, try not to approach it like a test that you pass or fail. It's simply a mirror. I've always felt quite seen and understood when I read these questions. It makes me feel not alone. So this is just basically a way of becoming more honest with your own system. The first area of sensitivity is overstimulation. So this tells us how easily your system may become overloaded by too much input. This might be too much noise, too much light pressure demands social interaction, too much emotional intensity, or just simply too much happening at once. If you score high here, it may mean that your body reaches capacity quite quickly. It doesn't mean that you're incapable. It just means that your system may need more space, pacing, recovery, and input reduction. A high overstimulation score often asks, where is life? Asking my system to process more than it can comfortably hold. The second area is sensitivity to positive experiences. This is such an important part of this assessment, because sensitivity is not only about what overwhelms you. It is also about what nourishes you. So if you score high here, you may be deeply affected by beauty, nature, music, kindness, meaningful conversations, creativity, safe connection, spiritual experiences, or moments where your body finally feels calm, like it can soften. This area shows your capacity to receive that good stuff, and if your score here is lower, that doesn't mean you're wrong. It may simply suggest that your system has learned to protect, brace, numb, and scan for what is unsafe before it can fully let goodness in. So this area asks what helps my sensitive system feel nourished, softened, supported, and alive. The third area is social sensitivity. This is sensitivity to what happens between people tone. Facial expression. conflict, approval, disapproval, tension in a room, a pause in someone's reply. A shift in someone's energy. If you score high here, relationships may have a strong effect on your nervous system. You may easily sense how others are feeling, and you may replay conversations over and over. You may adapt quickly to keep peace. You may feel responsible for the emotional atmosphere. This can actually be a gift. It can make you really compassionate, relationally aware, and deeply attuned. But without boundaries, it can feel absolutely exhausting. A high social sensitivity score asks, where do I leave myself in order to track, manage or respond to other people? The fourth area is depth of processing. This is about how deeply you think, reflect, connect dots, search for meaning and process experience. If you score high here, you may not simply move through life at surface level. You may think deeply about conversations, decisions, emotions, patterns, relationships, and meaning. You may notice layers other people totally miss. You may ask, why seek the truth? You may need more time to integrate what has happened. And this can be a beautiful strength, but it can also become exhausting when the mind cannot switch off. A high depth of processing score asks, how can I honor my depth without becoming consumed by my own processing? The fifth area is emotional reactivity. I know the word reactivity can sound negative, but here it simply means your emotional system responds strongly. So if you score high here, you may feel emotions deeply. You may be moved easily. You may feel conflict, criticism, rejection, injustice, grief, beauty, or kindness in a very full bodied way. You may need longer to recover from emotional experiences. This does not mean you're dramatic or over the top. It means emotions move strongly through your system, and the work is not to stop feeling. The work is to build enough safety and capacity that you can feel without being flooded. A high emotional reactivity score asks, what support does my body need so emotion can move without overwhelming me? The sixth area and final area is sensitivity to details. This is your sensitivity to subtle information small changes, textures, sounds, smells, light, atmosphere, body cues, tone, A shift in a room. A detail other people may not register. If you score high here, you may notice a lot. It can really support your intuition, creativity, discernment, relational awareness, and body awareness. But your nervous system is under stress. Noticing can turn into scanning, and scanning becomes exhausting. So this area invites discernment. A high sensitivity to detail score asks am I noticing from presence or scanning for protection? So once you complete the HSP are. You will have two kinds of information. First, you'll have your overall sensitivity score. This gives you a general sense of how strongly you identify with the high sensitivity. Your score is based on your answers from one to seven. A higher average score suggests a stronger tendency towards high sensitivity. As a gentle guide, an average score above five may suggest a tendency towards high sensitivity. But again, this is not a diagnosis. It's simply a reflective tool. It gives us information, but it doesn't define your whole identity. The second part of your result is your subscale profile. This is the part I really want to pay attention to, because two people can both be highly sensitive, but their sensitivity may express in very different ways. One person may be affected by overstimulation, another will be affected by relationships. Another may process everything deeply but not appear outwardly emotional. Another may be highly sensitive to beauty and positive environments, but less overwhelmed by sensory input. So your subscale scores help you understand your particular sensitivity pattern. They help you move from a broad label into a more personal relationship with your system. When you look at your results, I would suggest asking four questions first. Which area is strongest for me? This may show the part of your sensitivity that is most active or impactful in your life right now. Second. Which area feels most difficult for me to live with? Sometimes your high score may also be the area causing the most distress, but not always. You might score high in positive sensitivity and experience this as a gift. Or you might score high in social sensitivity and realize this is where you lose most of your energy. Third, which area feels most unsupported in my current life? This is really important because the problem isn't always the sensitivity in general. Often the distress comes from the living conditions that do not support that sensitivity. A highly overstimulated person may not need to become less sensitive. They may need less input, more recovery, better pacing, and more nervous system support. A socially sensitive person may not need to stop caring. They may need clearer boundaries and more time to return to their own body. A deep processor may not need to stop thinking. They may need practices that help them process without spiraling. And the fourth question is what does this part of my sensitivity need? This is where the work becomes practical because awareness alone is not enough. Once you understand your sensitivity profile, the next step is learning how to live in a way that supports it. So that might mean changes in your environment, in your relationships, how you structure work, how much recovery time you allow in the way that you process your emotions. Changes in the kind of self-care you reach for and changes in the way you relate to stimulation, conflict, beauty, rest, and your body. This is why once you've completed the HS PR, I want you to look at the sensitivity informed Living document. That document will help you take your scores and turn them into real life reflection. Inside it, you will find recommendations for each part of the sensitivity. So rather than just thinking I scored high in overstimulation, you can begin asking what does overstimulation support look like in my actual life? Rather than just thinking, oh, okay, I scored high in social sensitivity. You can ask, you know, what relational boundaries might my system need rather than just thinking, oh, I have high depth of processing. You need to begin to ask, how do I give my mind space to process without letting it take over? And rather than using your sensitivity as another reason to judge yourself, You can begin using it as a map. A map for how to care for your body, a map for how to shape your environment, and a map for how to relate more honestly. A map for how to stop forcing yourself into lives, rhythms, relationships, and expectations that your sensitive system was never designed to thrive inside. So as you complete the HSP-R, be honest. Try not to answer as the version of you who copes, performs, pushes through, or tells yourself it's fine. Answer is the version of you who is beginning to listen. The version of you who is willing to notice what life actually feels like in your body. And remember, your results are not here to limit you. They are here to help you build self-understanding. They are here to help you stop asking what is wrong with me and start asking what does my sensitive system need in order to feel safer, steadier, and more supported? That is the beginning of sensitivity informed living. Not fixing your sensitivity, not overriding it. Not turning it into your whole identity, but learning how to live with it in a way that creates more capacity, more self-trust, more nourishment, and more freedom. When you are ready, complete the assessment. Look at your total score. Look at your six sensitivity areas and notice what stands out, what feels validating and what may feel surprising. And then move into the sensitivity informed living document to explore what your system may be asking for next. Take your time with this. There is no rush. This is not about figuring yourself out perfectly. It's about beginning a more honest relationship with the way your system experiences life. And once you've completed this process, and perhaps you begin working with your environment. This is where I've created Beyond the story and Stabilising with Somatics. Moving Beyond the Story allows you to have a framework to work with your highly sensitive mind, to work with the stories and the parts of ourselves that are keeping your life small and giving you less freedom. Stabilising with Somatics and offers you a framework for your physical body to create safety so that your mind and body can be in harmony. And you can see that here we have this highly sensitive ecosystem where environment, mind, and body work together. I can't wait to take you on this journey.
