What you focus on grows, gaining strength and power. This piece is for my fellow sensitive souls- people affected a great deal by seemingly minuscule events.
I’ve been here, and I assume you have, too:
You hold the door for someone… for a long time. You could be halfway up the elevator by the time she shuffles past you, thanks to the kindness of your heart. She keeps her eyes on the floor and breezes right past you without uttering a thank you or giving a head nod.
You feel like she punched you in the face.
What happens next is like magic: for the rest of the day, everyone kind of sucks.
The clerk at the gas station didn’t say “have a nice day” after you bought from his store.
The Cava employee didn’t say “hello” before asking what base you want in your bowl.
What’s happening: You continue to notice situations that feel negative, so you keep attracting them.
The ungrateful person you held the door for robbed your happiness by not even saying a word, affecting the rest of your day.
As a highly sensitive person, I’m still learning how to manage this so that I have more positive inclined days than negative. As you know, one small thing can set the day off in an entirely new direction.
The way I’ve not let door walkers ruin my attitude is by giving them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she just got life-altering news from the doctor and feels as if nothing matters anymore.
Maybe the clerk isn’t having a nice day himself and doesn’t feel strong enough to grant a nice one to someone else.
The Cava employee could be first-day-on-the-job, slightly-shaking-nervous and forgot that “hello” is a natural part of customer service, and is more focused on getting your order perfect than on the simple nicety.
By learning to give others the benefit of the doubt and not let someone else’s apparent rudeness affect my energy in a negative way, I’m able to avoid letting small things bother me to the point of a downward spiral.
In addition, giving the benefit of the doubt in situations like these feels more powerful than choosing to believe that I’m invisible to the rest of the world.
This takes practice because in what seems to be the zombie apocalypse, at least in the D.C. area, people are less and less nice to each other and in more of a hurry than ever. (Sidenote… What the heck has happened to drivers?! It’s terrifying out there!)
The best thing you can do as a sensitive person is to be aware of when a person or situation zaps your energy and to not carry it with you for the rest of the day. You can say “I take my energy back,” or imagine cutting a cord between you and the other.
However, just the simple decision to not let it affect you for very long and to enjoy the rest of your day as you originally intended is powerful enough.