How Can Highly Sensitive People Cope With Their Moods?

Sensitive people may not be born with a thicker coat to protect them. But they may be able to empathise and feel the pain of others.

Sensitive people tend to be part of the lives of others, which is actually not too healthy.

The question to be asked is actually rare and ironical: what do you do to not get too involved in the pain of others?

You need to separate yourslelf from the events of other lives, according to pychcentral. Thomas Merton said: "The truth that many people never understand is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt."

Those who are highly sensitive tend to "have a deeper depth of cognitive processing, are easily overwhelmed, have bigger emotional responses and notice subtleties more," says Dr. Elaine Aron, who has a clinical practice in Mill Valley, California, according to wsj.

Hence, in order to free yourself, you need to detach yourself.

Seconly, you need to identify what is real outside. As one woman put it: "There is a wonderful allegory in The Never-Ending Story where they tell about a magical mirror that even the bravest men cannot look into. This mirror shows us who we truly are, and even the so-called bravest and strongest of men who have dared look into the mirror run away screaming, having lost all sense, becoming irrevocably insane by the truth of self. I don't know why this part of the book speaks to me so much. Maybe I am narcissistic, but I feel that many people with mental illness have looked into this mirror, and have NOT run away but stood facing the painful truth of self and life and others. It's everyone else, our friends, our co-workers, our loved ones who seem so "normal" who are the ones who couldn't stand within 10 feet of this mirror, because it would smash every false concept they have about themselves and about life."

In fact, you need to feel pain proportionate to the problem. For instance, if your pain is too much, it will overtake the value you need to assign to another object, and hence make you overshoot. Everything should be sized correctly.

Thirdly, visualise that you are putting your pain away in a corner. That way, you will be able to deal with it better when you feel you are able to handle it better. Just let it go!

Finally, be self-compassionate, kind and resilient to yourself. In her book 'Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself' author Kristin Neff, PhD, writes: "One of the most robust and consistent findings in the research literature is that people who are more self-compassionate tend to be less anxious and depressed. The relationship is a strong one, with self-compassion explaining one-third to one-half of the variation found in how anxious or depressed people are."