Do you ever find yourself hiding your sensitivity?
‘This all sounds wonderful, we’d love to work with you on this project!’ she beamed at me.
‘Oh that’s amazing, thank you so much for the opportunity. I’m really excited!’ I enthused back.
‘So, we’ll be in touch in the next few days with all the details and your contract…oh and just to check, some of the venues are a bit tricky to get to, so you do have access to a car…?’
My heart sank. My smile froze. Ah. Crap.
‘Yep.’ I replied, pausing for just a fraction too long. ‘Yes, well…my partner and I share a car…and if possible I do use public transport because – you know – the environment! Gotta do your best for that! But yes. Yep. If I need to use the car…I um..I can arrange that.’
‘Ok…’ she said slightly more hesitantly ‘Ok that’s…great.’
As I walked away from the meeting I was already going through my personal set list of Ways In Which This Might Be Ok.
I could get refresher lessons in the next few weeks – maybe that was all I needed to crack this once and for all!
Perhaps there would be someone else working on the project who lived near me I could car share with – that would be better for everyone right!?
Maybe I could just get in the car and do it! Maybe I had been underestimating myself this whole time and this was the pressure I needed to just overcome my fear of driving.
But by the time I got on the bus home my heady optimism that my fear of driving was nothing more then a blip to overcome had faded away into the reality of the situation.
I hated driving. Hated it.
The thought of driving by myself to a place I had never been felt like planning a trip to the moon. Utterly unfeasible.
I spent the next 30 minutes on my phone accumulating bus and train timetables, taxi numbers and a heavy feeling of shame that made my face burn.
Yet again…
😔 I was going to have to turn a 45 minute car journey into a 3 hour epic on public transport while laden with IKEA bags full of art materials.
😔 I was going to have to wake up at 5.30am instead of 8.30am, and get home so late that my dinner had been a train station sandwich and a packet of crisps.
😔 I was going to have to spend 5 times as much money on each and every journey, cutting deeply into a daily rate that was already on the low side.
‘Well!’ I told myself ‘At least I got the job!’
So why am I telling you this story?
Well, in all honesty, this is more of a parable to represent many, many meetings I had over the years as a creative freelancer who was expected to transport themselves and a ton of materials to a variety of hard to reach venues across the UK…whilst also navigating a worsening fear of driving in a car dependant culture.
My fear of driving may not be exclusively at the hands of being sensitive – my long term dance with anxiety has played a strong role in this particular relationship.
But – for me – my high sensitivity is the root cause of my struggles to do something so many people find second nature and do without even thinking.
I wasn’t always incapable of driving.
For a few years I was able to get from A-B – but each journey was so stressfull I often felt wiped out before I’d even reached my destination.
Soon I began to fear feeling the feelings that came with driving - shaking hands, the buzz of adrenaline and the exhaustion it left in it’s wake, the feeling that my brain was putty that had been overstretched. Because that then made everything else I had to cope with that day like being in new places, connecting with people, keeping on top of a tight schedule and making sure every participant left happy, feel so much harder.
I think this story is a good example of the challenges many neurodivergent creatives have to navigate every day to do the work they love.
Once we have managed all our fears and worries, supported ourselves through our physical responses to these, navigating people-pleasing and the urge to overdeliver and made time for the self-care practices that are essential to our wellbeing…it can feel like it leaves us with a 5cm window to be our best creative selves.
And that it not a lot of space to create all those wonderful things your imagination gifts you everyday (even when you are meant to be sleeping!). To explore the depths of your curiosity, or to transform all that beauty you see in the everyday into artworks that will bring joy to others. To do that powerful work that brings you meaning, or share the wonder you find in the creative act with the world.
So how do you make more space to be your amazing, sensitive self when it feels like you are often preoccupied with all the mental contortion it takes to operate in society?
What if you believed that your sensitivity was nothing to be ashamed of or that you needed to hide?
How would that change the ways that you interacted with others? What difficult scenarios might that help you to avoid? How might that empower you to ask for simple changes to be made that would make a big difference to you?
What if you felt able to tell the truth about your own needs?
In my case that was experimenting with the response to ‘Do you have access to a car’ with ‘I would love to work on this project, and I feel I have so much to bring to it. But I’m not comfortable driving. I’m happy to find my own way to the venues but if there are opportunities to car share please let me know, and I’m sure I’ll find other was to contribute to the group’.
Does it always work? Nope. Sometimes people don’t want the burden of a non-driver on their team.
But I have learned that it’s often better for everyone involved that if driving is essential to the project, I step away. It’s better that I can find work which I can contribute to fully without making myself suffer, and opening that opportunity up for someone who really wants it.
What if instead of trying to suppress your needs and fit yourself into things that don’t feel right, you could create some space to work out what does work for you?
In such a time of financial and work scarcity I know this can feel impossible. I have had that thought of ‘who on earth do I think I am to be so needy when people are desperate for these jobs?! I should just get over myself and get over it or no-one will ever want to work with me.’
But sometimes we can feel so powerless as sensitive people we don’t even give ourselves the chance to look at what we can change.
I’ve gone from someone whose nerves were run ragged by constant travel and overstimulation, to someone who defines what projects I want to do, and who applies for my own funding to make them happen. Who sets my own hours, and works mostly from home.
I’ve seen how difficult this can be for sensitive creatives. I worked with clients who are amazing, talented people but who aren’t enjoying their creativity any more because their days have become filled with tasks that leave them overwhelmed or overstimulated.
Who believe – as I did – that they are doomed to just always always feel like they are pushing a big rock up a hill with no end in sight.
Who work hard to hide the toll this is taking on them so they don’t have to experience the judgement of others who just don’t get it, or the shame that creates.
But there are lots of things you can do to make this work better for you.
✨ You can define and practice setting boundaries that protect your needs.
✨ You can advocate for the changes that are small tweaks for other people but profoundly important to you.
✨ You can identify where you are most likely to slip into people-pleasing and develop systems to manage this.
✨ You can raise your prices so you can afford the taxis, the mindfulness classes or the time in nature you need.
✨ You can recognise all the wonderful things you bring, to value yourself and to focus on your strengths rather then pouring all your energy into making up for where you see yourself as ‘lacking’.
✨ You can start to build a creative future on your own foundations, rather then always trying to keep up, catch up or fit in with what other people think works.
And of course not everything will be exactly, ideally as you want it to be. But imagine what you could create or do if even some of the energy you were investing into meeting other people’s expectations was channelled into doing the things that bring your joy or meaning.
As for me and driving…I haven’t given up completely! I’m going to get some refresher lessons with the initial goal that we can drive somewhere nice for a picnic on a sunny day, rather then because I’m trying to dodge humiliation. To revisit driving from a place of what it could open up in the quality of my life rather then from a place of ‘I should’.
But I’ve also accepted I’ll always choose the train whenever possible…I like looking out of the window and seeing all the little things and magical moments I’d miss if I was concentrating on the road.
If this resonated with you then you might enjoy these:
Watch replays of recent Sensitive Creatives Meetup events on 'Permission', 'Motivation' and 'HSP-Friendly Systems.
Learn about my 1:1 coaching support for highly sensitive neurodivergent people 'Stellar Sensitive Creatives'.
Listen to my audio mini series on reducing overwhelm as a highly sensitive person.
And to spread the love please pass this post on to anyone who you think might benefit from it!
Keep honouring your creative magic!
Eleanor 🌠