The Cost of Not Enough for a Highly Sensitive Nervous System

There is more space than scarcity wants you to see.

There are seasons where “not enough” feels like the air you breathe.

Not enough money. Not enough time. Not enough energy or health. Not enough support, purpose, or certainty about where you’re headed next.

If you’re a dual-wired woman — both highly sensitive and high sensation seeking — you’ll probably recognise how quickly this can happen. One thing wobbles, then another, and before you know it, your highly sensitive nervous system is reading everything as threat. Your mind starts running worst-case scenarios; your body quietly moves into a kind of braced, buzzy alert you can’t quite switch off.

Scarcity doesn’t just live in your thoughts; it settles into your muscles, your breath, your sleep. It’s the feeling of being on the edge, even when nothing obvious is “wrong” on the outside.

And for women like us — deep feelers, fast processors, wired for both sensitivity and intensity — that “not enough” story can become the lens through which we see an entire life.

The Old Scarcity Stories We Inherited

Most of us didn’t start life with a spacious sense of “I am safe, I have enough.” We grew up inside other people’s stories:

- Money doesn’t grow on trees.
- You have to work yourself to the bone to deserve rest.
- There’s never enough time.
- Rest is lazy; productivity is proof of worth.

Layer the trait of high sensitivity on top — noticing every tone, every bill, every unfinished task — and those stories land even harder. Then add high sensation seeking — the part of you that craves more from life, more meaning, more movement — and you’ve got a nervous system that’s both easily overloaded and easily wound up.

For years, I lived inside those inherited beliefs. If I wasn’t “doing something useful,” I felt guilty. If I slowed down, I felt like I was falling behind. My body was the one that kept the score: chronic pain, surgeries, burnout, bone-deep exhaustion; my system had to shout to get my attention.

Those scarcity stories were not neutral mindset quirks. They were shaping my physiology, keeping my nervous system on high alert.

When “Not Enough” Lives in a Dual-Wired Body

When you have a highly sensitive nervous system, your threshold for noticing threat is lower — not because you’re weak, but because your wiring is deep, wide, and tuned to nuance. Your brain and body pick up more information, more quickly, and they hold onto it for longer.

When you’re also high sensation seeking, there’s another layer: you’re pulled toward growth, change, new projects, big ideas. You don’t just want a quiet life; you want an alive life.

Put those together, and scarcity feels like this:

- thoughts looping at 3am about money, time, or “what if this never works”
- shoulders creeping higher as you move through the day
- your usual grounding practices quietly slipping away
- a sense that you’re either “on” or completely shut down — no middle ground

Your body isn’t trying to sabotage you. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect you from perceived threat. Unfortunately, old scarcity beliefs — often inherited from families, culture, and past roles — can convince your system that you are in danger even when you’re simply having a hard week.

This is why telling yourself to “just be positive” doesn’t work. Your nervous system needs new experiences of safety, not just new thoughts.

Soft Power: A Different Way to Meet Scarcity

For a long time, I believed power meant pushing: long hours, saying yes to everything, staying in roles that lit up my high sensation seeking while quietly frying my highly sensitive system. If I wasn’t striving, I felt like I was slipping backwards.

It took a lifetime of burnout to realise there is another way to be powerful — one that honours both traits instead of pitting them against each other.

Soft power looks like:

- letting your body call time before you hit the wall
- naming when your **nervous system** is in scarcity mode, rather than assuming you’ve “failed”
- choosing joyful, gentle movement over punishment
- building work and life rhythms that include enough recovery time for a sensitive system

None of this is passive. It is active, engaged, deliberate — just not frantic.

As you begin to unwind old beliefs about rest, work, money, and worth, you’re not only changing your mind; you’re changing the way your body reads the world. You’re giving your nervous system permission to explore something it might never have known in childhood: the experience of “I am safe enough, here and now.”

A Practice for When “Enough” Feels Out of Reach

When scarcity spirals are loud — money panic, time pressure, energy collapse — your brain is usually the wrong place to start. A dual-wired nervous system in full alarm mode doesn’t want logic; it wants safety.

Here’s a simple practice to experiment with when “not enough” is running the show. It’s adapted from cellular memory work (Dr Alexander Loyd) and from my own lived experience of calming a highly sensitive system.

1. Name one specific scarcity story

Rather than “everything is a mess,” choose one focus:

- “Today’s money fear.”
- “Not enough time this week.”
- “I don’t have enough energy for all I want to do.”

Writing it down can help. You’re not exaggerating it or minimising it; you’re simply giving it shape.

2. Set a quiet intention

Something like:

“I’d like this fear to soften in a way that’s safe for my body and kind to everyone involved.” Or maybe it's just, "I'm ok. We're ok."

Let it be gentle. Your nervous system listens to tone as much as words.

3. Use three hand positions (around 1–3 minutes each)

Sit or lie somewhere comfortable. Let your breath move naturally.

- Heart – one or both hands over your upper chest.
- Forehead – one or both hands across your forehead.
- Crown – one or both hands resting on the top of your head.

As you hold each position, allow your attention to rest lightly on your chosen issue, then on a kinder truth:

“I am safe in this moment. I have everything I need.”
“Some of these fears are inherited; I’m allowed to lay them down.”
“I am allowed to have enough — time, money, rest, support.”

If you feel light-headed or uncomfortable, ease off or stop. There’s no gold star for pushing through. This is about offering your body a **new experience of safety**, not performing the practice perfectly.

Small, repeated signals like this help teach a dual-wired nervous system that it doesn’t have to live at an eight out of ten all the time. Stop, for a few moments throughout your day and breathe deeply.

You were never meant to earn your way to “enough” with productivity, self-criticism, or permanent self-improvement projects.

As a highly sensitive, high sensation seeking woman, you carry both depth and fire. Scarcity has likely walked beside you for a long time — in money stories, in time pressure, in the belief that you have to keep proving yourself to be worthy of rest or joy.

You are allowed to write a kinder story.

One where your nervous system doesn’t have to be on constant alert.

One where softness is a form of strength.

One where “enough” isn’t a distant destination, but something you begin to taste in small, repeatable moments now.

You don’t have to get it right all at once. One breath, one gentler belief, one new signal of safety at a time is enough.

If you’d like to try this alongside me, the video below, The Cost of Not Enough, is part reflection, part guided practice. I talk about how scarcity can live in a highly sensitive, high sensation seeking body, and walk you step-by-step through the hand positions so you can use them whenever “not enough” feels loud.

When we fall into a scarcity mindset – believing we don’t have enough time, energy, or resources – the body reacts as if we’re under threat. In this video, I explore how deeply held beliefs can live in our cells, how they shape our sense of safety, and how a simple energy medicine tool can help restore balance.