how being a highly sensitive person shapes my life and business
is it the same for you?
I’ve always known I was different.
Hypersensitive, my mother would say when her subtle criticisms would bring tears in my eyes. Hyper-expressive was another one (“why do you move your face so much when you express yourself?!).
Too intense, my teenage sweetheart would say when I opened my heart to them, just before dumping me for the cool-er girl in school.
An open book, my friends would say later, encouraging me to build a poker face mask asap.
Over-feeling, my boss would say years later, when I tried to take a personal day to process facing my mother in court. (yes, she sued me, I’ll tell you about it one day).
Yet it took me a few decades to realise I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP), that for me as for many, it is deeply connected to a challenging childhood (cPTSD), and that it’s all tied up with neurodivergence, in my case ADHD.
If you’re highly sensitive too, you know it’s not just about being more prone to tears. In fact, I know a few highly sensitive people who never cry.
It’s more about an acute perception and experience of feelings, sensations (meaning, through our “senses”) and energies around us and within us. It’s the lens through which we see and interact with the world, and so of course it influences the way we show up in our relationships, our creativity and how we run our businesses.
There’s a lot of judgment around people who feel too much, so for the longest time I rejected that part of me. Since this is basically “all of me”, you can see how I had a hard time loving and accepting myself.
Over the years however, I’m happy to say I’ve learned - thanks to the raise of literature and awareness on the topic - that highly sensitivity isn’t something to fight against but rather a gift to embrace.
Maybe you too have noticed the way sensitivity seeps into every aspect of your life, sometimes in quiet, invisible ways, other times in overwhelming waves?
When we understand how our sensitivity manifests, we can create the conditions to thrive with it instead of feeling trapped by it. Over the past few months, I’ve been observing how it plays out in my own life and business. My goal is to learn how to anticipate, adapt and ultimately make my sensitivity work for me rather than against me.
In this article, I’m sharing what I’ve noticed. Because I know I’m not alone, and the more we talk about our experiences, the more we learn about how other people have similar experiences, the more we can recognise our patterns and navigate them with intention and self-compassion.
So, as you read, I invite you to reflect: does it show up in the same way for you? Tell me in the comments.
High sensitivity in my life & business
Emotions run deep
I feel a lot, and so I need a lot of time and space to process everything. There’s nothing that doesn’t leave an imprint on me, whether that’s positive encounters, excitement, joy, praise, love, or negative experiences, criticism, loss, grief, and fear.
I sometimes brush it off, like things are not that big of a deal, like I can watch the news and not be too affected by it. But I’ve had to come to terms that this is just not true. I can’t watch the news and not be affected by it. I can’t hear anyone’s story and not be affected by it.
I’ve had to learn to protect my energy and limit my consumption of sensationalists stories : I only read the news occasionally, I no longer use social media, so that I can have enough bandwidth for the people I care about. Myself included.
Empathic overload
Which brings me to my second point: I often absorb the emotions and energies of those around me.
This is very useful in many aspects of my work: I intuitively feel into what my clients need to work on when I wear the coach hat, and as a copywriter, my sales emails connect at an authentic and emotional level, which is paramount especially in the age of AI.
In my every day life however, that often leaves me overloaded with emotions that aren’t mine, and therefore I get completely drained. Especially if I’ve had long interactions with different people in the same day.
Since I’ve come to realise that, I limit the amount of 1-1s I have daily, and I’ve created full days of work without any appointments: only deep work, by myself, and that makes me feel so much more balanced and calm.
I need tons of alone time
I often joke about how ideally I’d need 5 to 6 hours of solitude daily to be a functioning human being. I should stop joking about it: it’s absolutely true.
As a homeschooling mom, of course, this is not doable, but I can see how alone time is actually not a luxury, it’s essential for self-regulation and for processing everything that’s going on in my inner world (= a lot).
Writing has always been my way of processing emotions, of understanding myself and of creating meaning, order and beauty out of chaos. I journal daily between 20 and 60 minutes a day. But I also need to meditate, to stretch my body, to have a creative outlet…
When I don’t get enough alone time, I start to feel disconnected from myself and that makes me irritable, stressed out and just a less pleasant human being to be around. It’s been like this forever, yet I’m only learning now to say it out loud to my loved ones: I need alone time!! Please?
I crave depth in everything
Superficial small talk drains me. I don’t enjoy it, I don’t see the point of it, and honestly, I’d rather stay silent than engage in conversations that never go beyond the surface. What truly nourishes me: real, raw, heart-to-heart exchanges, the kind where both people show up as they are, with all their vulnerability and authenticity.
Being “friends on the surface” has never worked for me. I need connections that are deep, built on care, time, and mutual investment. Understanding this helped me accept that I can only nurture a handful of close friendships, five or six at most. I’ve chosen these beautiful women with intention, and I make it a priority to connect with them regularly, so that our bond stays strong and our presence in each other’s lives can stay meaningful.
It took me time to accept this about me, and I used to downplay my needs because I was afraid of being judged as needy or too demanding. Recently I’ve come to learn that it’s ok to to ask for depth, as long as I’m also willing to give just as much in return.
I get overstimulated
A loud noise, sudden movements, a cluttered environment, being touched repeatedly… my body reacts instantly. I get tense, and soon I go into fight-or-flight mode without realising it.
This means that my ideal work environment is somewhere calm, gentle, with a soft lo-fi playlist in the background. Not necessarily a cabin in the woods, but more like a cosy coffee shop with quiet people, soft lights and books around me. Like this:
Instead, I’m constantly with my kids, one of whom is a joyfully excited and jumping-up-and-down, mess-creating 4-year-old boy. So, at the moment my daily environment looks more like this:
I deal with overstimulation most days, and sometimes, it’s incredibly hard to focus or stay calm.
That’s why I wake up at 5 AM as often as I can: to carve out a few sacred hours of silence before the day begins. Soft lights, warm tea, and uninterrupted writing help me ground myself before the whirlwind starts.
We homeschool in the mornings, and in the afternoons, our babysitter comes for three hours a few times a week. It’s so much better than it used to be, but I can’t wait for the day when I can afford help every afternoon.
Still, there are moments when I have to juggle, and it can feel overwhelming. When that happens (like right now as I’m writing this), I remind myself that this is just a season of life. I’m learning to stay soft, to breathe through the chaos, to wear earplugs when I need to, or put music in my ears so I can create little pockets of quiet whenever I can.
Stress manifests in my body
We often think of emotions as something our minds process, but in reality, they are experienced and stored in our bodies first at a cellular level. Long before we put words to them, our bodies have already felt them.
As a highly sensitive person, my body goes through a lot each day. Even when I tend to my emotions through journaling or reflection, they don’t just disappear, because emotions live in the body.
And if I don’t support my body in processing them, they manifest physically:
Sudden exhaustion : an overwhelming need to sleep right now. If I ignore it, nausea soon follows.
Strong back pain and muscle tension: a deep ache that sometimes turns into full-blown lumbago.
A tightening in my nervous system: this weirdly feels like a long, loose wire inside me suddenly being pulled taut. My body screams for deep stretching, and if I don’t act fast, migraines set in.
By the way, that long wire I’m talking about? It’s my vagus nerve.
For years, I described this sensation to people around me, but no one quite related. Now that I understand what it is, I want to share it just in case you’ve felt something similar.
The vagus nerve is your body’s built-in stress regulator, responsible for shifting you from stress to calm. When it gets dysregulated (something that happens multiple times a day for highly sensitive people ) it sends a distress signal, shouting: "Mayday, mayday! Time to withdraw and unwind!"
Do you experience it too?
I deeply care
I don’t do things half-way, I’m either in or out. That means that when I’m coaching, writing, or supporting someone’s marketing strategy, I become deeply invested in their journey. If you ask any of my clients, they’ll tell you: I care. About your wellbeing, your success, your struggles, your wins, your business, as if they were my own.
Too much? Maybe. It certainly means I can only work with a limited number of people. But those I do work with appreciate this deep level of support. We’re a team, and I’ve got your back.
Honestly, I wouldn’t want to work any other way. And because of that, two things are non-negotiable:
I need strong, healthy boundaries to protect my time and energy. Instead of holding back my care and involvement, I set clear limits on my availability. This way, I can give my best without burning out, and it works better for everyone.
I carefully choose who I work with. I can’t do work that doesn’t feel right in my soul. I need to believe in what you do, to support your mission, to know that your business is making a positive impact. That’s the only way I can create heart-centred, relatable, and authentic content for you, or even feel good supporting you.
Writing this down makes me realise how obvious and logical it is, and yet, seeing it in words makes it a powerful reminder: There’s no need to second-guess or wonder if I should work any other way. This is how I do my best work. This is how I thrive.
Burnout is always a risk
Even if my work is fully aligned, fulfilling, and keeps me excited every day, I have to be mindful not to overextend myself. Because I give so much, feel so much and juggle a lot, burnout is always a risk for me.
I first experienced burnout at 25, working in a high-stress environment for a company that didn’t align with my values and barely used my best skills. I wasn’t just bored or wasting my time, I felt like I was compromising my integrity every single day.
Then, at 39, I burned out again. This time, I was doing work I loved, in my own business, but I had no boundaries and I was carrying so much pressure after the birth of my son, the financial demands of suddenly living in France (vs. Vietnam before), and without enough support.
I’ve learned that simply knowing about burnout doesn’t make me immune to it. I need to actively create the conditions that prevent it. A lesson I have to remind myself of, over and over again.
Conclusion
Being a highly sensitive entrepreneur for me means constantly recognising that this is my reality, that my emotions don’t just exist in my mind but are felt in my body, that my energy is finite, and that my best work happens when I honour my natural rhythms instead of fighting against them.
Over the years, I’ve stopped seeing my sensitivity as something to fix and started embracing it as an essential part of me. My sensitivity is what allows me to create a beautiful life, connect deeply with everything around me, be as creative as I am and work with my clients in a way that is meaningful, impactful and truly supportive.
But it also means I have to be extra mindful of how I structure my life and business to protect my energy and well-being. I have to remember that I’m highly sensitive, and that I need adjustments in my daily life to help me regulate my nervous system so I can keep on being the woman, the writer, the coach, the mother, the wife and the friend I want to be.
Does this resonate with you? I’d love to hear from you. How does high sensitivity show up in your life or business? What adjustments have you learned to make?
Leave me comment below or reply so we can continue the conversation ;)
Power and light,
Jessica
Yes, it’s pretty much the same for me! And it is a gift, in spite of it. Many INFP (meyer’s-briggs) types are, and especially now, I think the world needs us. I have a deeply sensitive main character in my current novel, and early readers have said it’s helped them see the world differently. Glad to have found you, Jessica!