How To Reset Relationships When You're A Sensitive Person

Try the following steps to create healthy space the next time someone in your life is getting under your sensitive skin: 

Whether you really enjoy this person but just need more healthy space—or you're seriously questioning whether the relationship has run its course—get clear in your own mind, in your journal, or in a conversation with a supportive and neutral person that you need to pull back from the relationship. Frame this as a way to be more emotionally healthy, in the same way that a new eating routine or a new savings routine improves your physical or financial health. 

Create space for yourself by not answering their emails, texts, or phone calls immediately. If it's a friend you see often socially, bow out gracefully of some commitments. If it's a roommate or family member you live with, make a habit of running errands on your own, spending time with other people outside the house, or having solo hobbies like gardening, cooking, or writing. 

Where our thoughts go, our energy flows. Are you trying to get space from someone, yet they occupy a lot of your mental real estate? This is the perfect excuse to practice mindfulness techniques like taking your mind elsewhere when you notice you're focusing on the other person, or quieting your mind through meditation.

If you're a sensitive person who finds themselves going on healing rescue missions often with clients, friends, and family, check out my book, Empath Heart: Relationship Strategies for Sensitive People, for more tools. Instead of trying to change the other person, accept them more for who they are and where they're at in their life. 

Empaths and other highly sensitive people can be naturally wired to feel with and absorb the energy and emotions around them—and this isn't a bad thing. It can be nourishing to feel with others, whether they are feeling joyful or painful emotions. Yet when you're resetting a relationship, practice witnessing and observing more with this person. Go into your head instead of your heart, get curious about what they are feeling, and remain neutral. 

Sensitive people who are also very compassionate can sometimes focus too much on other people's needs and feelings—while their own needs and feelings get lost. While you're resetting a relationship, use this as a pivot moment to up your own self-care and prioritize your goals and desires. Resetting a relationship can be a time to shift tendencies around over-giving.

If at all possible, try to let the other person know you need more space instead of ghosting them. This doesn't have to mean telling them you're resetting the relationship. You can simply tell them you're busy with work, tired, or have a lot going on personally and need to pull back. Part of resetting a relationship can be reinstating healthy boundaries. It's normal and healthy for people to have periods of pulling back and creating space in relationships. 

Wanting to reset a relationship is the urge to create more balance, and we are more balanced in general when we don't rely on one person to meet all our relationship needs.

As a sensitive person, remind yourself that just because you can feel other people's energy and emotions in your own system, it does not mean you need to try to manage, contain, or control other people to handle what's coming in. Pulling back and creating healthy space is a much better method of caretaking your sensitivity.