You may not have heard the term before, but if you're reading this blog, I suspect you or someone you love is one.
You may not have heard this term before, but if you’re reading this blog, I suspect you or someone you love is one. Someone you love (or maybe even you?) may be masking their super feeler self, and quietly are suffering the consequences, living with such huge shame, for their neurologically sensitive presentation.
Some people are just born feeling more than others and some people develop a more sensitive emotional barometer due to traumatic life experiences, such a bullying, going through divorce or pushing themselves to do it all (which is actually impossible, because we are born human, not as baby robots)! Often, without intervention and understanding of this internal sensitivity, super-feelers adopt maladaptive coping strategies, to dull down their physiology.
Not-So-Fun Fact:
Do you know that you are at higher risk for developing anxiety, depression and/or an eating disorder if you are a Super Feeler?
Learn more from me, Tasha Belix, a self-diagnosed Super Feeler & Registered Psychologist
What is a Super-Feeler anyways?
- Highly sensitive individuals who deeply absorb emotions—their own and others’
- Their empathy can lead to anxiety, depression, self-harm, and eating disorders
- It develops through a combination of genetic predisposition and life experiences
How Super-Feelers Experience the World:
- Act as emotional sponge, soaking up the stress in their environment
- Suppress their own emotions to care for others, leading to emotional overwhelm
- Struggle to express difficult emotions like fear or sadness and needs go unnoticed
- Often super-feelers develop unhealthy strategies to cope with their tough feelings
Signs of a Super-Feeler:
- Worries excessively about others’ feelings and anticipating others’ needs
- Experiences frequent stomach aches, headaches, or other stress-related symptoms (this is especially true for kids)
- Becomes highly upset or over-compensates by raised voices or conflict
- Avoids talking about their own difficult emotions, because they can’t be tolerated
How to Support a Super-Feeler:
- Create a safe space for emotional expression and learn more about being a Super Feeler
- Validate their feelings without judgment
- Encourage emotional intelligence and self-regulation skills
- Help them embrace their sensitivity as a true strength, not a burden
- Do some work with a skilled therapist, to learn more about your super feeler self
Read more in our blog on Validating Emotions, to learn the steps of Emotional Coaching, a research-based therapeutic approach, to equip caregivers with the skills to lessen the emotional burden that Super Feelers so often carry. Once the emotional burden is shared with another and supported in the moment, many of the problematic behaviours often subside, because they are no longer needed.
A great resource to learn more about Super-Feelers as well as Emotion Focused Family Therapy, can be found on www.mentalhealthfoundations.ca or reach out to one of our fab Psychologists to get the support you need. We’re here to help and love Super-Feelers, if you can’t tell already!
xx Tasha
Clinical Director, Author, Speaker & Psychologist
