“Others Have It Worse”: A Tricky Story for Highly Sensitive People
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Why nervous systems built to care about others can leave us feeling disconnected in a globally connected world.
I’ve been dipping into Britt Frank’s book, The Science of Stuck, over the past week. It’s much more of a self-help book than I was hoping based on the title, but it’s providing some ideas to explore. This concept of stuckness has been on my mind recently…
What does it mean to be stuck?
What causes us to feel stuck?
Does feeling stuck always mean we are stuck?
How do we get unstuck when we know what we want to do but can’t seem to take the action we know is required?
What happens when our nervous system gets caught in patterns of defence and self-protection when we try to make meaningful changes?
Stuckness and Sensitivity
I’m especially interested in the type of stuckness we might see in highly sensitive people.
Frank writes:
“If you feel guilty because ‘other people have it worse,’ remember—perspective is helpful, but comparison is not. You have a right to exist. You have a right to take up space on this planet. You have a right to feel angry, scared, and hurt. And you also have the right to experience happiness in your life and to feel at home in your body.”
Many HSPs I’ve known downplay their right to take up space, particularly when it comes to valuing their own feelings and needs.
What I liked about this quote is that it invites both/and thinking. At least, that’s how I’ve interpreted it.
It’s not about denying the comparison so much as giving it perspective. Comparison happens because we are social beings. What is unhelpful is letting our response to it diminish ourselves. It’s about making room for both things to be true.
When being built to care about others makes it difficult to care for ourselves
Highly sensitive people may sometimes see need, pain, and injustice around them and feel stuck when it comes to their own needs, wishes, and feelings.
Maybe it’s guilt or shame. Maybe it’s sadness, anger, or hopelessness. We might dismiss our own situation by saying “I shouldn’t complain” or “I should count my blessings.”
And again, to bring some both-and perspective, there is nothing wrong with having a sense of the bigger picture. Being built to care is a survival strength rather than a flaw.
But both things can be true at once…
Allowing your own needs, feelings, and preferences to breathe doesn’t diminish someone else’s. Recognising that someone else is in what appears to be a worse situation doesn’t need to diminish your own.
But this isn’t only about validating our own feelings. It’s also about recognising what is lost when we shrink back and disappear from our own lives in that way.
The world needs people who have come alive
There’s a famous quote by Howard Thurman:
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
For years, I’ve ended my podcast episodes with the words:
“You are an artist. The world needs your art. Now, go and make somebody’s day.”
I say this because when sensitive people disconnect from what makes them come alive, everyone loses something. The world becomes poorer for it.
I shared this idea in my Notes From a Slow Coach email newsletter at the weekend, and someone replied to emphasise their own experience with this.
They quoted:
“When you do bad in the world, you make the whole world that much worse, but when you do good, you take the whole world with you, and you make it that much better. People need so little encouragement for it to make a huge difference in their lives.”
That’s so true. It takes so little encouragement to make someone’s day. And yet, when focused solely on the big picture, we might believe we can’t make a difference at all.
When The “Strategy” of Care Meets a Global World
I wonder whether the paralysing effect of “other people have it worse” is a scaled-up version of a highly sensitive trait that operates at a local level.
One reason high sensitivity has endured as a successful survival trait is its social element. Rather than being a by-product of low self-esteem or a diminished self-concept, it reflects a nervous system that finds safety by nurturing peace and soothing distress within the surrounding community.
At a local level, this is an effective strategy.
When you notice someone struggling in your immediate environment, your awareness and attention can make a meaningful difference. Being wired to care means noticing subtleties and patterns that can predict and prevent escalation. Whether of disease, dis-ease, or potential dangers from the surrounding environment. The capacity to sense subtle changes, anticipate needs, and respond with compassion can strengthen the community.
But when this same instinct is plugged into the whole world, with instant access through technology, it can rapidly become a reason we feel stuck.
It’s impossible to reconcile in any meaningful sense. There will always be people in distress, news of suffering somewhere in the world, and horrifying decisions made by people with far more power to implement than we have to prevent.
The Pressure To Care About Everything
Maybe you feel this. If you’re built to care about everything, the constant flow of news can leave you feeling helpless. Like there’s no meaningful action you can take that will make much of a difference.
And when our attention and compassion are pulled in so many directions, it becomes all too easy to overlook those things that make us come alive. Both what we already know we love, and those things we are yet to discover we love.
When we start close in and small, maybe we can recover some sense of perspective. It’s not about pretending the wider world doesn’t exist or that these other things aren’t happening, but about remembering that we’re part of this tapestry too, and that the art we are creating with our lives creates ripples through space and time. And while it might not feel directly related to those things beyond reach that emotionally affect us, and however trivial they seem, if they matter to us, they matter.
Caring about others isn’t the problem
I would love to hear from you if this feels familiar. Maybe you’ve found ways to reconcile these feelings. Or maybe you’re feeling stuck because you can’t seem to avoid shrinking yourself and feeling like you don’t have as much right as others to take up space on this planet.
We can be gentle and encouraging with ourselves and one another as we explore what makes us come alive, while also caring about, grieving for, and living within the contradictions of our messy world.
Figuring it out together
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