The Truth About Sensitivity

It's Not The Curse You Think It Is

I used to think I had nothing of value to offer the world—because all I had were feelings. When I was younger, I thought my sensitivity was useless. I envied people with hard skills—people who could build things, code things, sell their work on Etsy. All I had were soft skills—empathy, communication, emotional insight—and I couldn’t figure out how that was ever going to be useful. But over time, I realized that what I thought was a weakness…was actually the most valuable skill I had. It’s a huge reason I’ve been able to build a life I genuinely love.

I’m Sean, a mental health coach. I see over 40 clients a week and have a 98% satisfaction score from more than 1500 reviews—and so many of the people I work with have felt like their sensitivity was a curse.

Maybe you’ve felt that too.

In this article, we’re going to completely debunk the myth that sensitivity makes you weak—and I’m going to show you how it can become your superpower.

We’ll do that in 3 steps:

1. We’ll validate why it feels like a curse

2. I’ll share my own journey

3. And I’ll walk you through the transformation I see in my clients every day

So first let me just say that if you feel like your sensitivity is a curse I totally get it. It makes sense. Being sensitive can be really painful. It’s like superman. When he was a kid he had to hide in closets and cover his ears because the world was just so overwhelming for him. It can feel like every little thing that happens breaks you. Not to mention what I talked about earlier—in this capitalistic society is doesn’t seem very marketable. Being sensitive isn’t a product you can sell. And then on top of that if you do try to show your sensitivity by expressing your emotions people tell you that you’re too much or that you’re overthinking or that you’re being dramatic. So of course you come to the conclusion that it’s a curse! But just like Superman it’s not that it’s a curse it’s an unrefined superpower

Let me walk you through how I came to this conclusion. When I was younger I was working a customer service job and I was talking to a friend of mine about his skills. This particular friend worked in tech and his skills served him very well. I told him that I was jealous because I didn’t have any hard skills like that. He asked me what I was good at and I told him that I could communicate well, I was empathic, and I was able to cut through noise and get to the heart of things quickly. And I still remember what he said to me. He said,

“That skill will serve you in anything and everything you do in life.” And that started to stew in the back of my mind. As I started working on the phones in this customer service job I started to get a lot of feedback about how great I was on the phones. A lot of people would send difficult customers to me because they knew that I was able to navigate those conversations well. I started to get more curious about this idea and so I started asking people whose opinions I trusted about what they thought I was good at. Every. Single. Person I talked to said basically the same thing that I had talked to my friend about.

And as I started thinking back on my life up until that point I realized that this had always played a major role in my life. When I first started going to therapy my therapist told me that she thought I should be a therapist, when I worked a job at Target I was one of the top red card sellers because of my ability to connect with the customers, I was always the “therapist” friend for the people in my life.

But I still wasn’t sure what I could do with it to make a living for myself. Until I started to pay attention to what was happening in my streams. For about 10 years I streamed on Twitch and played games with viewers but what I started to notice was that the part that people seemed to value the most about my streams was when we would pause the games and just have long deep conversations. I realized that on my stream people gave me money even though they could watch for free because they valued what I was providing that deeply.

So I thought “heck! Why not try doing that in a more official capacity” So I started offering coaching to my community and that’s how I got my first few clients. As I continued to build my business and learn more about entrepreneurship I heard someone say “Pretty much anything you want is on the other side of a few difficult conversations.” Which reinforced this idea further that my ability to communicate was actually an incredibly valuable skill. And here we are today where I now coach full time and love the work that I do.

Real quick! If you’d like to have deep conversations and have help in embracing the super power that is your sensitivity schedule a free 50 minute session with me here

And the more I do this work the more I realize that my experience is not rare at all. So many clients I work with have worked so incredibly hard to try to stifle their sensitivity because it has only brought them pain and suffering. They either are completely out of touch with themselves and feel completely numb or they feel completely overwhelmed with emotions. After all not everyone who is sensitive is just going to become a coach. So how is sensitivity valuable outside of that? Like my friend said it’s actually valuable in any and every field you go into. I read a book a while ago called “Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got” and one of the things that the book talks about is the idea that everyone is in sales whether they know it or not.

Let me explain with an example. Have you ever done any sort of job hunting? Guess what? That’s sales. It matches onto the sales process 1 for 1. Sending out resumes and checking back in with the company is outreach. Interviews are like consultations or sales calls. Even once you start working the job negotiating for a raise is a business negotiation. “But Sean. I hate job hunting.” Yes. Because it’s always come from a place of disempowerment. It’s always been trying to shrink and shape yourself into what you thought the employer wanted of you. The super power that you have is that you can read other people like a book. That gives you such power in a room. You can quickly identify if something feels like a good fit for you or not and you can quickly see when things are landing or not with other people.

The trick is learning how to wield your sensitivity which is actually the first step in my coaching process. I call it emotional empowerment where we give your emotions room to breathe. Remember when I said that a lot the clients I work with either feel numb or overwhelmed by their emotions? Those are actually two sides of the same coin and at the core of it is invalidation. Because we have felt punished for our emotions we invalidate them in one way or another. “It is what it is.” “Nothing I can do it about it now” “Other people have it worse” And as I list these off you may be saying in your head “Well sometimes there IS nothing I can do about it” or “Other people DO have it worse” You see how insidious it is?

At the end of my sessions with clients I give them a little assignment to work on over the week. And there’s a couple things I always talk to them about when it comes to assignments.

1. If I ever suggest anything that doesn’t feel quite right always feel free to say so

2. Assignments are like scientific hypotheses—if they work, great and if not that gives us information which is also great.

So I’m going to give you a couple of action items based on what we talked about today but feel free to leave a comment and let me know if something doesn’t feel quite right or what your experience of it was if you try it out.

1. Any time you notice yourself saying one of these phrases I want you to imagine that you’re talking to a friend that is going through the same thing. You really care about this person and want to make them feel as heard and understood as possible. What would you ask or say to them?

2. Ask a few people in your life that you really care about what they think you’re good at and see what responses you get. I’d love to hear what responses you get.

I hope this helps! And like I said, if you want help learning how to hone the superpower that is sensitivity click here for a free 50 minute session with me.

With care and service,

Sean