Is it truly possible to enjoy your overwhelm? Yes, if you learn how to be with it in the right way.

If you are highly sensitive, you feel things deeply. Strong emotions come with your temperament. You can’t stop yourself from having the emotional reactions you have. You might as well try to send rain back up into the sky.

You can, however, put on a raincoat. In emotional terms, this means choosing how you respond to your strong emotions. Many HSPs begin to fear their own emotions, having felt overwhelmed by them. But this fear, unlike the original feelings, is negotiable. You can shift from fearing your intense emotions to actually enjoying them. You start by learning how to be present with your feelings.

In the world of Inner Relationship Focusing—the branch of Focusing developed by Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin, this state of mind is called Self-in-Presence. I’ll refer to it as Presence, for short.

For HSPs, Presence is a godsend. We can learn to expand into Presence in the moment. The more you do this, the more you’ll begin—hard as it may be to imagine—to enjoy your intense emotions, and to appreciate them as messengers carrying important information. Let’s explore the qualities of Presence so you can recognize it and cultivate it in yourself.

What exactly is Presence?

This beautiful photograph, taken by my friend Kaitlyn Wyenberg, shows why a picture is worth a thousand words. Presence is a lived experience. But this photo, along with the metaphors I’ll share below, can offer you a sense of this way of being.

Presence is spacious

When you are in Presence, you feel as if there is room in you for anything and everything that is here, now. Don’t be hard on yourself, though, If the “room for anything” you are able to muster feels more like a broom closet than a vast blue sky. When I’m really “up against it,” I count myself lucky if my sense of Presence is a single molecule thick. But that’s enough: any air is better than none. I think of it as a tiny oxygen suit that keeps me from drowning in sadness or anger.

Presence has a quality of stillness

In Presence, I am aware of being here in this moment. This can manifest as subtle quality of inner quiet, even when you are in action. Think of the space shuttle. It orbits outside Earth’s atmosphere, moving silently through space, without apparent hurry. Yet in reality, it is moving 17,500 miles an hour. Presence is like this. It is still, even in the midst of physical or emotional activity.

Presence feels accepting

The space shuttle moves in its calm, unhurried way even if the astronauts inside are anxious. The key is to hold awareness of both experiences. I am the shuttle…and I can sense something in me feels anxious. Both are true, and I can be the space where both can exist. I don’t have to agree with everything that I’m sensing in me, though, in order to accept it. That is, I don’t have to “like” the anxiety in order to keep my “molecule suit” of awareness around it. From Presence, I can simply hold “what is.”

Presence feels like fresh air and flowing water

When I’m present with my inner world, I feel refreshed, relieved, and renewed—the very opposite of stuck, hopeless, confused, or overwhelmed. Quite a paradox. Many HSPs have learned to escape into our minds in an attempt to avoid our intense feelings. Unfortunately, this is like putting a stopper in the spout of a boiling kettle. The kettle doesn’t stop boiling: the pressure just builds up. Stepping back and opening up just that little bit to embrace your whole experience is like taking the stopper out.

Presence feels open to possibility

From Presence, you can see a long way. Your horizon is expanded. This expansion energizes you and makes you curious: “I wonder what is behind that island over there…I wonder how far the water stretches, before it reaches the open sea…” Curiosity and wonder are footholds out of anxiety and depression. If you feel curious, you haven’t succumbed to hopelessness or powerlessness.

Presence brings perspective

You could even say that Presence IS perspective. From Presence, you recover your sense of the right relation to things, people, and events in your life. But if Presence were only perspective, it would be the same as meditative awareness: that is, a consciousness that witnesses but does not interact with what it is witnessing. Presence is more than that.

Certainly, the witnessing qualities of Presence—the curiosity, the spaciousness and openness to possibility, the stillness, the sense of fresh air, and the attitude of acceptance I’ve described—are wonderful in themselves. But by themselves, they are not Presence. Presence is relational. That is, you come into Presence in relationship to something. For HSPs, your intense feelings are that “something.”

Presence and the inner relationship

Your inner parts, which hold your complex feelings, need a relationship with you, in order to be fully expressed. With the act of cultivating a state of Presence, you create exactly that kind of inner relationship with your feelings.

Once you’ve come into Presence with something that is going on in you, how can you take the next step to deepen your relationship with that “something”? One way is to use a mindful kind of language that Ann and Barbara call Presence Language. Start by describing what you are experiencing. Then use the words you’ve come up with to fill in the blanks of this sentence:

I’m sensing [something in me] that feels_________.

Example: I’m sensing something in my stomach that feels tense.
Example: I’m sensing something in my heart that feels like a heavy ball.

As you say the words back to yourself, sense if they resonate with the place you’re describing. If they do, then wait. Sense what comes next, then describe that. If the words aren’t quite right, sense what words might work better to describe this experience you are having, then sense if those fit.

What if the feelings in you simply feel bigger than you? Try a simple body scan. Let your awareness flow through your body. (I like to start with my feet and move up towards my head.) Do you sense any places that feel good right now? Often, even if I’m really upset or stressed, I’ll realize upon scanning that my feet and legs feel fine, along with my hands and arms.

That’s a lot of bodily real estate. However, even if only my left hand feels good, that’s enough. That’s all I need to create a “molecule suit” of Presence. By staying aware of this good feeling, I get just a bit “bigger”—big enough to hold and turn towards the upset places in me.

Presence is a paradigm shift

You don’t have to wait until the floodwaters rise to try this. Just notice what is going on in you now. Humans are biased to notice pain first, so be sure you also notice any place in yourself where you feel spacious, still, or at ease. Even the fact you remembered to do this indicates a level of Presence.

Then, notice how everything feels different. From this place in yourself, you no longer fear your emotions. You can truly appreciate them as messengers bringing insight. With Presence, you can actually enjoy your overwhelm. You can more deeply savor your good feelings.

A final note

Our toughest personal issues are, by definition, the issues around which we most struggle to come into Presence. I do a lot of inner processing on my own, but I seek skilled support around my toughest stuff. Why? Because going in there alone can feel like being thrown off a cliff in a paraglider. I might be open to trying paragliding (even though heights scare me.) But I’d have to do several tandem flights with an instructor before I’d even consider it. Deep inner work is like that.

As a practitioner, I offer clients this “tandem experience” so you can go places you couldn’t go by yourself. Over time your range and independence will increase, which is exciting. If you need this kind of support, you can reach me here.

In the meantime, though, give your HSP self a gift: cultivate of Presence as a daily practice. Keep paying attention and creating the space within you for whatever is going on in you to be as it is. Your Presence muscles will get stronger and stronger.

Image: ©2025 Kaitlyn Wyenberg (kaity.wyenberg@gmail.com). Thank you, Kaitlyn.

Note: This is a substantially edited version of the post that first appeared here on Oct 5, 2015.