Every Friday morning, I lace up my skates and go skating. I don’t mean that figuratively – I literally go to an adult rollerskating class! It’s joyful highlight of my week. There’s something special about getting together with a group of people all interested in the same thing.
While we’re all there for our love of skating, one thing does set me apart from most of my classmates. While they skate with the wind whipping through their hair, mine is secured under a crash helmet. In fact, if you lined us all up, you might even think I was heading out for a full-contact derby event while they were preparing for something altogether less risky.
Now, before I lose you if you’re not a rollerskating fan, let me assure you, you don’t have to be a rollerskater to benefit from where I’m going with this, I promise. This is less about rollerskating and more about the idea underpinning my safety-first mentality: the notion of scaffolding your sensitivity.
Put simply, I’m nervous about hurting myself. This injury-anxiety is part of my Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) reality, albeit an interesting sensitivity to have as someone who finds themselves doing relatively risky sports for fun. Rollerskating, waterskiing, snow skiing and basketball are my higher-adrenaline hobbies and, yeah, the threat of personal injury looms a little larger than when I’m engaging in my other favourite pastime: reading.
Full transparency though – I’m not there for the adrenaline. More than once I’ve found myself with anxiety my only companion, cold and teary at the top of a mountain. The dilemma: risk life and limb on a far-too-steep decline? Or stubbornly walk my damn skis to the bottom, no matter how many hours it might take?
But I digress. Back to the idea of scaffolding your sensitivity, which applies whether you’re doing physically hard and scary things or things that feel emotionally or mentally out of your comfort zone. Ultimately, scaffolding your sensitivity is the equivalent to me wearing my helmet – it’s something you do so that you feel more capable and safe to take on whatever’s in front of you.
If you’re a highly sensitive person (and I’m assuming that’s why you’re here), there’s something you need to know about your sensitivity: it wants to be seen. It wants to be acknowledged and looked after. And yet, you may have learned, instead, to try to ignore it or push it aside out of embarrassment, shame or inconvenience.
Scaffolding is a better way.
Scaffolding is putting the helmet on. Or holding the nervous child’s hand.
It’s locking eyes with your greatest supporter before stepping on stage.
Or doing your breathing exercises while the plane takes off.
It’s asking: what does my sensitivity need to feel safe enough to do this thing? And then giving it that.
Scaffolding your sensitivity doesn’t deny your sensitivity – it makes space and allowance for it.
Scaffolding your sensitivity doesn’t shame your sensitivity – it respects it.
So, chances are if you see me skating, you’ll see me fully kitted out in my safety equipment. It makes me feel safer. And when I feel safer? I’m capable of hard things.
– Erica