Being Time Sensitive
As a highly sensitive person, I am sensitive to and about and around a lot of things. Time sensitivity is just one more checked box on the list. Time is a precious resource and I’ve always felt a scarcity around it.
It’s not the sort of scarcity Alexander Hamilton experienced as portrayed on Broadway — I don’t live (or write) as though I’m running out of it. It’s more that I don’t have the energy to waste my time on just anything. My time is limited because I have to keep a healthy reserve stashed in the back for recovery. I need lots of recovery time as a Highly Sensitive Person.
I am also learning that my Enneagram Type has a lot to say about this. I’m a Five, and according to Truity’s description,
“Enneagram Fives are defined by their desire to conserve their energy and to avoid being drained by engagement with the outside world.”
Even reading that makes me defensive, which in my experience means there must be truth to it.
Ok, so what. I’m protective of my time. I don’t like to be overscheduled. I don’t want to depend too much on others and I don’t want others to depend too much on me because I worry all that dependence will infringe on my most precious resource, my time.
The Perpetually Empty Time Wallet
As an introverted HSP, it makes sense that I’m so defensive of my time. It’s a zero-sum game for me. At least, that’s how it feels. Anything I spend time on equals time I’ll need later to recharge and recover. And often — perhaps the main source of my time sensitivity — the time required to recover is greater than the time spent on the activity. When a friend asks to go grab a coffee, when I consider a volunteer opportunity that piques my interest, even when my kid asks to read one more book before bed — I feel as though I pull out my proverbial time wallet, peek inside to see if I have the necessary minutes, and always come up short.
I haven’t always been aware of this, but I’ve always felt it. I used to be the classic HSP people-pleaser, always saying ‘Yes’ to things and really struggling to ever squeak out a ‘No.’ Dr. Amanda Cassil speaks to this in her Empowered HSP’s Workbook, saying, “Keep in mind that lack of benefit to someone is not the same as being harmful.”
It strikes me how powerful that statement is. It forces me to confront my own sense of self-importance as if my assistance or participation is so invaluable that to not offer it equals harm. Ouch.
But it’s also a freeing idea. It offers an expansive view of the world and reminds me that it’s not my job to fix everything, be everything for everyone, and save the world myself. But it gives me pause because I believe so wholeheartedly that HSPs are essential to the flourishing of humanity and the planet. I am starting to believe that both can be true. Highly Sensitive People certainly have our part to play, but that part isn’t to do everything. It’s to do what we do best and leave the rest to others’ best.
I wouldn’t label myself as a people-pleaser anymore. Saying ‘No’ is part of my daily practice. I still get the pangs of fear that I am harming another by declining my participation. But saying ‘No’ has allowed me to test and prove that the world does in fact keep on spinning. The project I declined got done and turned out great. The friends’ dinner I missed was still delightful without me. My kid still goes to sleep having read one book instead of two.
It’s a necessary realization for most HSPs. Trusting I am not needed for everything has helped me embrace my time sensitivity and experience balance in my daily life. And now, finally prioritizing the rest and recovery time my sensitive self needs, I find myself in a new relationship with my time. Instead of feeling perpetually time-scarce, I find myself wondering — What does it look like to spend my time contributing to human thriving and world flourishing as I’m meant to as an HSP? What does it look like to embrace my time sensitivity and still play my part?
Time and Purpose and Sensitivity
Looking back over my life, becoming a parent was The Thing that forced all of this realization, reprioritization and reimagining of my life and purpose. I did not enter into all this willingly. It was a matter of survival. Becoming a parent required the death of my former self-denying, people-pleasing self because I couldn’t go another second living in that state of depletion and exhaustion with another whole being entirely dependent on my care and attention.
Now, I’m like an infant in this brave new world of attending to my needs and nurturing my time sensitivity. What has surprised me is how quickly prioritizing my own care and well-being has yielded a desire to explore my full potential. Before, I suppose I was always so utterly depleted that I couldn’t even consider it.
That long-debunked saying, “We all have the same 24 hours in a day” comes to mind. Of course we don’t, and I think HSPs come into the world sensing the fallacy of the idea. We have never had the same 24 hours as someone without the sensory sensitivities we endure all day, every day. The glaring impediments of oppression, poverty, classism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and ableism remove all illusions of any of us having the same hours in a day — sensitive or not. What’s shocking is how many of us, sensitive or not, learn so early to ignore the needs these factors produce, then go on for so long in that state of self-neglect and self-denial.
What a waste of time.
In my life, all that wasted time also equaled wasted potential. Wasted effort. Wasted pursuit.
My kids have given birth to a mother more clearly aligned with her true nature. Sure, I wish I could have those wasted years back. But as I learn how to be in this new life, how to honor my needs and follow my potential, I’m noticing a lot more time in that ol’ proverbial wallet. The more time I’m investing in myself, the higher time yield for the things I truly care about anyway.
Spending My Time as an HSP
I have always been frugal. Sometimes it’s to a fault — I can fret over spending anything and obsess over getting the best deal that I go too long without something I really need. But I’m working on honing frugality as a strength instead of an anxiety. I want to spend money well.
I’m learning to treat time the same way.
Highly Sensitive People, Introverts, and Enneagram 5’s have to be intentional with their time. We have to budget and plan for contingencies.
For me, it looks like meal planning so I never have to add feeling over-hungry and hangry to my list of grievances.
It looks like regularly stopping by a little creek on my way to pick up my youngest from preschool, so I can sit still and dip my toes in the water and just be by myself in nature, just for a few minutes.
It looks like going to bed early so I can wake up early to have my daily ritual of breakfast, coffee, meditation, writing, and solitude.
It looks like saying Yes to others’ offers to take my kids on ‘adventures’ and not letting months go by without having a child-free break.
It looks like consistent exercise I prioritize, even if it means I have to say No to other things.
All of this would have felt utterly indulgent just a few years ago. Like a dream entirely out of reach for me and my empty time wallet.
It turns out that embracing my Highly Sensitive, Introverted, Enneagram 5 self has brought more alignment in every imaginable way in my life than denying these traits ever has. As practically as time-budgeting, as lofty as self-actualization.
Scarcity into abundance. Time enough for it all.