It’s possible to be BOTH a highly sensitive person and a high sensation seeker.

Do you ever feel like you have two people inside you? One is stepping on the accelerator and the other one is pushing the brakes.

One part of you loves variety & new experiences and can take risks while the other part is very cautious and risk-averse.

This is how I have often felt in my own life. One part of me seeks out new experiences while another part is always ultra-cautious.

This feeling of two disparate parts inside me has informed many of my choices. For example: In my 20s, I was very aware that I have a tendency towards addictive behaviors and consciously decided that I wouldn’t drink a lot. I was convinced that I had something inside me that could cause me to spiral out of control if the conditions were right.

If I were ever depressed or vulnerable, I would go down the drain.

So, for many years, I didn’t drink at all. I missed out on some fun times, even some ritualized growing-up, “rites-of-passage ” type things.

For a while, I went to the extreme.

Now, although I do drink, it’s once-in-a-while, in moderation. I am not scared about it as much. I have a better sense of who I am and what works for me.

But the feeling of having an “uncharacteristic” part of me that doesn’t quite gel with my sensitive self has always been with me.

At times, it’s felt very frustrating. Sometimes, I am almost on the verge of doing something risky, but then another part of me will push the brakes hard, and I’ll come to a screeching halt.

I am stalled then.

I have also known that some highly sensitive people are also high sensation seekers for some years now.

Do you know about this?

About a third of highly sensitive people are also high sensation seekers (The percentage of high sensation seekers in the general population isn’t quite clear).

But I never completely identified with this fact. It always felt like, in some ways, I am a high sensation seeker but in other ways, I am not.

There is often a stalemate inside me, as if these two different threads are acting against each other, canceling each other out.

But recently, I came across more information that connected some dots for me. I heard an interview with Dr. Tracy Cooper that discussed balancing high sensitivity and high sensation seeking.

But what qualifies as high sensation seeking and what does a highly sensitive person who is also a high sensation seeker look like?

There are four characteristics that are related to high sensation seeking. But it’s not necessary that you have all four of them. Even if you are high on one of these four traits, you still “qualify’ as a high sensation seeker.

These are:

1. Thrill and Adventure seeking (Doing things like jumping out of a plane)
2. Novelty and Experience Seeking (Wanting to travel, wanting to try new books, new foods etc).
3. Susceptibility to Boredom (Self-explanatory)
4. Disinhibition (stepping out of personal/societal boundaries with things like wild parties or having multiple sexual partners)

I found myself identifying with Numbers 2 and 3 and not with 1 and 4. I love new experiences. I love to try out new things, go to new places, and read new books. Part of the reason I love writing is because I am always looking for new information and new connections. I love the research part of it. I love finding new experts on topics I love.

I also get bored very easily. At home, for example, right now, I am very bored with the dishes I normally cook (and I already have a large repertoire because my husband is a foodie who also loves variety) I feel like shaking things all up.

Because I have been feeling bored and restless, I also feel like traveling or taking up a completely new hobby or making some big change.

So, I am definitely not one of those people who can eat the same thing every day or do the same, repetitive tasks day in and day out.

What looks like stability to some looks like stagnation and boredom to me.

In the past, at times, I have dealt with this feeling by destroying some of what I already have just because I have this impulse to move towards the new (not a good move!)

But this interview pointed me in a helpful direction. This impulse is related to my needs. I need to try new things. I need novelty to ward off boredom. I don’t do well in the exact same conditions that are ideal for other people.

My ideal conditions look different. I must take care of these needs consciously.

Instead of completely destroying the old, I must focus on pulling in new strands into what I have already built up, so I can feel both stable and feel that I am alive and growing.

Being high sensation seeking is not a flaw, as I’ve sometimes felt in the past.

It does upset the apple cart at times but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Dr. Cooper talked about how the combination of high sensitivity and high sensation seeking can actually be very beneficial.

For example, It can help us come up with creative solutions. After all, we are combining novelty and discernment if we do this well.

And our highly sensitive side has a purpose. It can keep us safe (It’s not good to be too high in sensation seeking either because then you take too many unwarranted risks).

So, all in all, while highly sensitive sensation seekers have an accelerator, we also have brakes.

It was very interesting for me to think about this dynamic.

The part of me that was hitting the brakes in the past was not being a stick-in-the-mud. It was showing me the true cost, the risk involved. And being aware that I also have an accelerator even though I am also highly sensitive means I need to sometimes step on the gas a little bit more and a little more often.

I am also no longer confused about the fact of how I can be a high sensation seeker when some risks feel okay to me, but not all risks.

I like “safe thrills” such as rides in amusement parks. I am a little magpie who is often collecting books and scraps of information. I love to travel and see new places. I love to try new things. And I also like to be safe.

For example: Although I get intellectually why some people use psychedelics for expanding their consciousness and having new experiences (Michael Pollan, the respected journalist, had a book out a while back about his experiments with psychedelics & what they can teach us about the human condition & things like depression), I myself, would rather not use psychedelics for the same purpose.

It’s not that I can’t see their benefits. It’s not that I am not aware that ancient cultures have used some form of them in ritualistic ways for eons.

It’s that I am also hyper-aware of the dangers involved.

I think our psyches are unmapped terrain. I know that I, myself, have deep chasms and valleys. I have traumas and wounds I want to treat with tender care and the utmost caution.

I also know that there is a real risk involved in depending on something outside yourself. As a highly sensitive INFP, I can foresee the possibilities of how things can go wrong, how something gentler could actually be a gateway drug, whether it is an actual drug or a “gateway experience” that leads down the path to even more riskier experiences.

That’s why gentler modalities like breathwork and art therapy and yoga to change consciousness feel better to me.

They are options that are slower but that also have less risk involved.

Again, this is a delicate balancing act.

Like me in those years when I never drank, it’s not good to make too stiff a rule. I have made other stiff rules for myself as a younger INFP that backfired later on and created side-effects that I dealt with for years.

To be safe. To risk.

That’s a constant choice. That’s something I will have to think carefully about in the future.

There is value in both, at different times.

There is no one right way.

But at least now, understanding another part of who I am — a contradictory-looking, highly-sensitive, high-sensation seeker, I have more options, a new way of thinking and a realization that I am calibrated at a specific level — I can only risk this far, and no more.

That’s why the brakes come screeching. That’s why I grind to a halt.

That’s what the sensitive mechanism inside me is supposed to do when I am going too fast, when I am neglecting the risk involved.

The challenge now is to understand my accelerator as well as my brake better, to really understand the speed at which I am comfortable going, instead of going too fast and then abruptly stopping.

I think I’ll get better the more I practice!

If you think you might be a highly sensitive person who is also a high sensation seeker, check out Dr. Cooper’s book on high sensation seekers. This might be another piece in the puzzle of your very self.

No two highly sensitive people are alike. There are extroverted HSPs and introverted ones. There are high sensation seekers and those who are decidedly not sensation seekers. There are those with intense childhood wounds who find the world really hard to navigate and those really comfortable in their own skins who grew up in families that understood them.

Whoever you are, you are okay. Whoever you are, you can call back pieces of your own self back to yourself. This is part of our journey back to our true selves as HSPs and empaths. Finding our missing pieces and joining our own puzzles so we can be exactly who we are!

Ritu Kaushal is the author of the memoir The Empath’s Journey. Set during the first few years after she emigrated from India to the United States, it combines personal stories with practical insights to give highly sensitive people more tools to channel their gifts.