How to Stop Feeling Misunderstood When Others Judge Us for Being “Too Serious” as Highly Sensitive People

 By the end of this episode, you’ll understand how to appreciate your seemingly serious nature as an HSP, even when others can’t.

Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People. A podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host, Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie. A way to question and reduce stressful thoughts, and you guessed it. I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover why people sometimes judge HSPs as being too serious, the repercussions of feeling misunderstood and how to stop buying into this idea so that you can feel good about yourself again. Welcome to this edition of Self-Compassion Wednesdays, where we dive deeper into understanding ourselves as highly sensitive people by exploring the unique traits that shape our experience.

I’ve heard it so many times from my partner, you are so serious, and I take it like it’s a bad thing, and as a result, I’ve sometimes felt like there’s something wrong with me. And I doubt myself even though it doesn’t actually match up with my experience, my internal experience. That’s what happens when you buy into someone else’s judgment about you.

Everybody sees the world from a different point of view, and when you take on the other person’s point of view, it can be helpful from one point of view, but it also can lead you into doubting yourself possibly and. The safe place is What’s your actual experience? So why do people sometimes judge highly sensitive people as being too serious?

I think there are a few aspects of the trait that come into play here. The first is depth of processing and HSPs take in more information and we reflect more deeply on that information than other people do. This kind of internal processing can come across as intense or quiet. We may be a little more distant or occupied by that processing, which others can sometimes judge as being too serious.

A lot of times people think that space in a conversation is a serious thing, like there’s something that is. Bad or unwanted that’s going to surface if I don’t cover up that space in the conversation. And so if we as highly sensitive people take more space and are more reserved, they can often assume that something is wrong, when in fact it’s not at all.

I know for myself, I love to ponder on things. I love to connect the dots. I like to think about anything that I’m working on. And in the back of my mind, I’ll be mulling over just very interesting theories and ideas of how something works or how to better do something or how to better understand something, and that can occupy some of my bandwidth.

And so there can be a quietness there that others pick up on and say, oh, you’re, are you feeling okay today? You seem very serious. And internally I’m feeling great. I’m like really enjoying the process of making some of these connections and listening to my internal inspiration and insights. Depth of processing is one reason why people often misunderstand us and think we’re too serious when we’re not actually necessarily serious.

I think it’s also because if you compare to the percentage of the population that is not. HSP and doesn’t have this innate depth of processing. They’re not, it’s not even on their radar. They don’t even know that’s what we’re doing, and so they assume that it’s something else instead of what it actually is.

Another place where people can end up judging us as being too serious is because of our emotional responsiveness. We are more affected by subtle emotional shifts. Injustices or even beauty, and it means that we care deeply. We do. That is one of the strengths of being a highly sensitive person, is that we care.

Now, other people may not understand that and may think that you’re less of a lighthearted than other people are, and so they may think that there’s something going on. You’re serious, but you’re affected, you’re moved. And this is part of being a highly sensitive person, and it’s a beautiful thing.

It’s something that maybe seems large to others, and it is large, right? We feel things strongly, but this is how we pick up on, and both appreciate and can work with the types of experiences that come into our world. I know I meditate a lot. It’s been passed from of mine my whole life, and I’ve noticed that when I seem to be really dropping in and having deeper experiences in meditation, more quietness, more settledness, more joy on the inside, those are the times when my partner will say, are you okay?

You seem really distant today. You seem really serious today. And my experience is just the opposite. I’m like really in a happy place inside. I’m in a really peaceful place and I’m just savoring that. So this is our nature. We do savor emotions. We also do feel strong emotions, and this is not anything wrong with us.

It’s just something that others don’t always understand because they don’t experience emotions the same way. Another reason why people sometimes judge us as being serious is that we have a tendency to observe before engaging. So in group settings, we’ll often hang back or we’ll tune into the energy, or we’ll wait to speak until we’ve had a chance to see where things are, and we’ve thought about what’s a good direction.

And it may look serious or even distant to more extroverted or fast-paced people. But if you check in with yourself, you may find that you’re just going about interacting in a very natural way for you. We look before we leap. That’s what we as HSPs tend to do. And I sometimes say we do our trial and error in our thinking first before doing it in our action.

And so there’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t mean we’re serious. We’re just taking time to move at our own pace. And other people don’t always understand that. Also, we can think about social conditioning. In Western culture for example. We are often rewarded culturally for being quick and witty and having high energy responses.

Just boom. And that is. A cultural bias. It’s what westerners think of as healthy as good. It tends to be a more extroverted kind of society that’s just honors, extroverts and quiet thoughtfulness can be misunderstood and may, may thought. You can think of it as being awkward, being shy, having some kind of social anxiety.

Or even sometimes people will judge it as arrogance. So this is just, if you’re in this culture, this is the milieu that you are living in, and so it comes with a territory that you may not be always understood from being highly sensitive. The problem is when you internalize this and when you start to actually buy into the judgments that are coming your way, what happens is you start doubting your own nature.

You start thinking. Is there something wrong with me? And you start examining now in a healthy way, that’s not a bad idea. ’cause there may be like maybe my, maybe there is some stress mixed in, but a lot of times it’s not stress related at all. It’s just this is my nature. I do things slowly. I do things methodically, I feel things deeply, and I’m just a quieter kind of person.

So if you buy into other people’s judgements, then you may also try to overcompensate by being louder, trying to be funnier, or trying to be just easygoing, which can actually feel like a drain because you’re not being true to yourself, you’re being fake. You’re putting on a performance of trying to be a regular person, someone who’s not a highly sensitive person, and that’s not who you are.

So if you do that. It’s gonna drain your batteries even quicker. Another thing that can happen if you start buying into people’s judgments is you can start to self silence and shrink your presence in order to avoid judgment. And that leaves you feeling lonely and disconnected and in a way reinforces people’s judgments about you at the same time.

So how do we stop buying into this idea? Of we’re too serious so that we can start feeling good about ourselves again. I think the first thing is just to name this pattern without any shame. So yeah, what’s actually happening here is I’m being misunderstood, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with me.

There’s a disconnect. There’s that person’s experience, which they have a right to, and they may have some, there may be some truth to it. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true just because they think it. And I don’t have to just follow along blindly. I can check in with myself and find out what’s my experience instead.

They may not get me, but that’s okay. I don’t need to twist myself to fit into their pace, into their style. Another thing you can do is reframe this. Serious, quote unquote, serious trait, serious tendency as a strength. So instead of thinking, oh my gosh, you’re too serious. There’s something wrong with you.

Why not look at it as a gift? What are the gifts of being serious? Like for me, I get things done. I am responsible. I go deep with things. I care. These are things that I wouldn’t want to trade for anything because these are actual attributes that I appreciate about myself. So maybe it looks serious to other people, but oh maybe I, when I was a kid, I didn’t go out and play as much as my sisters did.

I stayed in my room and studied more, and you might say, oh my gosh, he’s so serious. Even as a kid. But I had so much discovery and fun and joy in those solo hours studying on my own. So how else is serious? Being serious. A strength. It helps me notice what others miss. And so if I’m paying attention, which some people would say is serious, instead of just not caring and being all carefree and everything, like I notice things, I’m paying attention.

And this allows me, again, to connect with people in a special way. It allows me to problem solve in an effective way. It gives me so much strength by just being a little more quote unquote, serious.

So ask yourself, what have you honored because you were taking things seriously. What have you cultivated by taking things seriously? What have you protected by taking things seriously. Your seriousness might actually reflect your values, which may be high values of truth, values of presence, values of depth, or reverence.

Those are sacred. They’re not flaws. A great analogy of the for this is if you were in a band say, and you’re everybody’s playing different instruments. We as HSPs may be playing the bass in the instrument bass in the in the band. The bass is in the background, and it doesn’t have to be louder. It doesn’t take front center stage, but it’s the depth of the bass that gives the music its soul.

And I think that’s exactly what we do as hsp, is we provide an element of soul to the world in which we live. And that’s a beautiful thing. So another thing you can do is use a little bit of self-inquiry. You know me, I love the work of Byron Katie, which is a great way to question stressful thoughts. So identify next time someone says You’re too serious.

What are you thinking in that moment? It could be simply they think I’m too serious. And question that you may find the turnaround. I think I’m too serious, is really the only problem here. Or you may be judging them thinking it’s a bad thing. Judging yourself and thinking it’s a bad thing to be serious.

That would be a great one to question, and we already touched on this, but to turn it around and find how it could be a great thing to be serious. Even thoughts like, they are judging me, or I want them to accept me as I am. These can be questioned in each in individual situations. And when you do that, it can shift and open your experience.

Even small little shifts can loosen the sting of judgment because people judging us is not really the problem we think it is. The real problem is when we start judging ourselves because they’re judging our US and so we use them as the starting point, but then we take it and we end up judging ourselves, which.

Ends up causing us the pain or the feeling of misunder being misunderstood or the loneliness or the sadness or the hurt. And then one last thing that you can do is find or build a community for yourself of others who also have the HSP trade. If you’re always trying to prove your worth in circles that don’t value your seriousness, it can wear you down.

So having at least some contact with others who share your trait can help you normalize that, help you feel like you are a, that there’s nothing wrong with you, and be with people that also enjoy and appreciate your sensitivity and your thoughtfulness and your depth. Even just one person saying, I get you can heal years of feeling unseen.

So there’s power in being around people who do get you so that you start to understand that you’re not alone. So the feeling I’m left with today is that being too serious is a completely relative thing. What is too serious for an extrovert? Maybe just right or an introvert being too serious for a person who is less sensitive.

Maybe one thing, but it’s actually not too serious for someone who’s highly sensitive. So change the center of your focus. Let it be you. Let it be your experience that determines what is too serious and what is not too serious. Instead of only being swayed by what other people think. In this episode, we looked at why people sometimes judge HSPs as being too serious and we saw it.

Some of it’s just our depth to processing and that are caring and are emotion, and so it’s understandable also that people would judge us because they’re not used to that. That’s not how they are built, and so they may assume something’s wrong with you. We also looked at the repercussions of feeling misunderstood, and it just erodes our self-confidence.

It can make us feel lonely and it can make us doubt ourselves. And then finally, we looked at how to stop buying into this idea so that you can feel good about yourself again. And this comes down to checking in and finding your own experience and using that as your benchmark instead of. What other people say or think.

So thank you for listening. It’s always great to explore with you. This program comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Join me next time for Strategy Fridays where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person.