Are you thinking of yourself with a “fleeting, dismissive mindset?”

Highly sensitive people who can’t give themselves importance tend to struggle a lot.

I know this because I see it in many sensitive people I meet. I also know this because I am a “recovering nice person.”

What tends to happen with emotionally sensitive people when we don’t have good boundaries is something like this: We put others first. They put themselves first. And there’s no one left in the equation to make us a priority.

This time, I want to share something from author Peg Cheng’s newsletter that really spoke to me about this subject.

Peg is a really talented writer I met earlier this year. Instead of doing a regular newsletter for her website, she used to hand-draw and hand-write her newsletter & send it out via snail mail. While she has recently let go of doing the newsletter to focus on writing books, blog posts, and more, something she said in one of them got me thinking.

In a recent letter, Peg shared this soul-to-soul message that really illustrates our inner thoughts when we struggle with giving ourselves importance.

“I think that so many of us run on autopilot. We don’t stop to think about how we think about ourselves OR about how we treat ourselves on a daily basis. When we think of ourselves with a fleeting, dismissive mindset. ( “I really want to do ___, but I’ll do it later.” “Gosh, I so love ___, but why talk about it? No one cares.” “I’m not happy about ___, but I shouldn’t complain. I’ll just keep it to myself.” “Does anyone really care what I think?” “I wish I could be like ___. s/he/they always seem to have it together.”), we are essentially telling ourselves that what we think and feel don’t matter. Or they don’t matter as much as what other people think. BUT IT DOES MATTER. How you think about yourself, and how you treat yourself, matters immensely.”

We think of ourselves with a fleeting, dismissive mindset.

This really hit home for me.

Isn’t this what so many of us tend to do? As highly sensitive people who are anyways hyper-tuned in to others’ feelings, many of us were also raised to put other people’s needs first.

Their needs, their wants, their feelings were important.

And so, we took on a way of being where we got used to constantly talking ourselves out of what we need as if our very needs were dismissable.

Oh, what does it matter if we want to dance or sing or write? What use are all these things anyway? OR What use is calling out that person who disrespected us? OR What’s the point of talking about things that truly matter to us? No one really cares.

But when we say all these things to ourselves, as Peg says, what we are really telling ourselves is that what we think and feel don’t matter.

Let’s dig deep into this for a moment.

If there is actually no one who is willing to listen to us, if we are right that the answer to “Does anyone really care what I think?” is a resounding NO, then there is something wrong with the kind of people we are surrounded by.

If that’s the case, we need to start walking away.

If that’s the case, we need to start unhooking from them & start trying to find our own tribe.

AND if that’s NOT the case and we are surrounded by good people, then we need to stop replaying old stories that might have been true once but that are no longer true for the life we are living right now.

But getting stuck in constantly saying “Does anyone really care what I think?” and just accepting that as status quo means we are telling ourselves that we are not important.

What we think and feel don’t matter.

But as Peg says, it DOES MATTER. It matters immensely. It matters because if we treated ourselves like the precious little child we are, as the soulful one, we would become the change we want to see in the world and the world would be a vastly different place.

Peg says: “I truly believe it would be more loving, more caring, more compassionate, MORE VIBRANT. Changing the world begins with changing ourselves. One thought a day. One action a day.”

Changing the world begins with changing ourselves.

If we, as highly sensitive people wish that the world respected our sensitivity, then we have to respect our own selves. We have to give at least as much importance to our needs, wants, and preferences as we give to those of other people.

We have to learn how to take time to rest, set boundaries, and acknowledge that because we are sensitive, we will feel drained and exhausted faster than others when it comes to emotionally fraught situations.

Today, as the collective anxiety rises in the world because of the pandemic, we will take in things deeply when we come across them — whether it’s in the news or social media or in our daily lives.

So, then, are we acknowledging these needs? Are we setting boundaries? Are we limiting social media and other energy drains? Or are we, as highly sensitive people, only giving ourselves a “fleeting, dismissive thought?”

I think all the statements that Peg mentions can be used as excellent journaling prompts. Try freewriting with them. When are the times that you say: “I really want to do ___, but I’ll do it later?” When are you saying: “I’m not happy about ___, but I shouldn’t complain?”

Writing your answers will help clarify what you need and what action you need to take.

One of the things I have neglected in my own life is my love for dance. Dance is my first love, my most natural talent. But there’s also a lot of grief I have associated with it. It’s a talent I didn’t fully pursue, that I wasn’t encouraged to follow.

And so, although I learned classical Indian dance for a few years, I left it at a certain point. And now, for years and years, it’s been so that I hardly ever dance.

Even though it’s the thing that brings me the most joy.

As I type this, I can feel tears well up. I have a fractured relationship with my body and a fractured relationship with a part of my soul. So, dance is the thing I want to do more and more of. No more saying “I’ll do it later.” No more giving this piece of myself a “fleeting, dismissive” glance.

No more shoving of this wound into the cellar.

I hope I’ll keep at it, keep bringing this true love back, and I hope you will too, whatever your love is — whether it’s painting or singing or performing — that true love you don’t fully do, that love that would bring more of your spirit back.

You deserve it. You deserve your own love.

I am grateful to Peg for her clarifying words. Check out her author site here.

Read more about her lovely middle-grade children’s book The Contenders here and shop for it here. It has a fabulous spunky little heroine as the main character and is a really charming and fun book I highly recommend!