A Radical New Approach to High Sensitivity
Welcome to the Land of Definition, where definition translates into thought, into belief, and into life as we know it.
It seems that most writings, documentaries, and people broaching the subject of high sensitivity (and the trait of being a High Sensitive, or HSP) talk about it as if it’s something that must be fixed. Something that must be dealt with, lessened, freed from. Something that is or has been induced by psychological, emotional, genetic, and physical factors, or a combination of all of these.
While it’s absolutely true that our state of being, which includes our emotional, mental, and physical tendencies, contributes to what we might call our sensitivity quotient, a different approach invites us to embark on a new direction by turning the whole enchilada upside-down.
Until very recently, I had never known anyone who was highly sensitive who considered themselves lucky to be that way. I certainly didn’t. Why would I want to experience everything a zillion times more extremely than everyone else? To feel crazy…out of place…like an alien? I wouldn’t. No one would. Yet it was all I knew. The first time someone suggested to me that my reactions and hyper-sensibilities were so much less—and more—than that, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Living with extreme emotional states was all, and everything, I knew how to be. Suddenly, I was being offered the idea that one’s level of sensitivity, by and large, is equal to one’s level of resistance. What???
Resistance describes the way we walk through life, a constant state where everything feels hard, difficult, unachievable, and one feels powerless. Where we must “fight against” in order to “win” or even “be okay.”The energy alone of such words carries such a weight that we seem permanently beyond the point of no return. Resistance appears at every juncture—through our emotions, body, thoughts, and spirit. Basically, all the ways life is made more difficult by how we perceive, react, respond, and take on the mantle of such edicts.
But, resistance to what? Resistance to feeling uncomfortable. To fear. To anxiety. To depression. To the great unknowing. To not getting it right. To getting it wrong. To being a failure. You get the picture.
For today, let’s keep it simple by starting with a few language-flipping techniques. I invite you to really listen to yourself as you think each thought and speak each word. Is the energy of what you’re saying propelling you toward more resistance….?
“I get by/I manage.”
“I need to change.”
“I need to get over myself, be normal.”
“I need to figure it out.” becomes I’m learning how to use my guidance to naturally know what’s in my best interest, and the best interest of all concerned.
“I am too empathetic/sympathetic/compassionate.”
“I need to block out/shield from/protect myself from….”
…Or more freedom?
Every day I’m feeling more comfortable about living my life in alignment.
I’m processing a different way to transform that feels easy and natural.
Employing my “psychic octopus” easily allows me to stay in alignment without feeling I’m putting myself at risk.
Even if I don’t really know who I am yet, I can begin to appreciate that I have the ability to access that knowledge easily.
Having these wonderful traits allows me to relate to the world easily, because they no longer make me feel dysfunctional.
In a nutshell, our old thoughts tell us:
“I wish I had freedom from fear, anxiety, depression, pain, shame, guilt.” Our new approach says, “I have the freedom to live with an open heart without risk, vulnerability, or tension because I have all the tools I need.”
“Sure, you say, easy for you, maybe. But for me? I don’t have any way to do that.”
I didn’t either. So I know exactly how it feels to hear words that sound good but I seem to have no apparent ability to feel, to internalize on all levels so that true shifts are possible. What I’d like to offer you now is one of the most critical tools I have ever used. It’s one I use all the time, every day. It began as something I had to remember to haul out of my toolbox and then remind myself how to use because it was so new to me. Now, it’s second nature—or I might even say first nature, since it feels more natural than any other state in which I have ever found myself to exist. This tool is called the Psychic Octopus.
I have a little stuffed pink-and-purple polka-dot one I keep on hand for myself and clients. (It always makes me happy because it was a gift; when I feel happy I am more receptive to guidance.) Picture yourself as this octopus or whatever picture works for you. We all have tentacles just like the octopus, but ours are psychic, or energetic, ones, not the kind attached to our physical body like octopuses that hang out in the ocean. As HSPs, we build our relationships—or avoid them—based on all the things we feel, all the ways our tentacles glob onto other energies floating around in the world and landing in our field. We feel compassion (glob). We feel sympathy (glob). We feel desperate (glob). We hear your thoughts (glob). We feel what you feel, whatever you might be feeling. While quite a nice technique for understanding people, it’s almost like living in multiple bodies at one time. We are simply picking up what everyone around us is putting down, and doing it without a thought to our own stability because we think that without it we won’t be able to do what we do.
That’s why so many of us in the healing profession become burned out. We’re taking on other people’s energy. Yes, it helps us understand their circumstances, but it also takes us along for the ride. So, what do we do? As I said, we put up shields, build walls, avoid through addiction…even put up bubbles of white light to protect us. Unfortunately, all these efforts take, well, effort. And lots of it. Imagine carrying a 50-pound bronze shield of armor all the time to keep yourself safe from inevitable attack! It’s not only exhausting, but unrealistic and overall impossible.
Now imagine you’re on an airplane surrounded by strangers who are, like most of us, unloading their energy everywhere they go—kind of like Charlie Brown’s Pig-Pen character who shed puffs of dirt wherever he went. Try shielding yourself for a flight of six hours from all that energy. It’ll be a very, very long flight. Now imagine you are the octopus. Just like the octopus, it’s the easiest thing in the world to reel in your long tentacles and tuck them around yourself like a warm blanket. There’s no need to hide or worry, pick up the anxiety of someone sitting next to you, because there you are, sitting in a space of “I’m okay. I’ve brought in all my tentacles so I am comfortable in my own body and spirit. I’m here, but not globbing onto anyone or anything else. I’m simply being, being aware of what’s around me without needing to take it on.”
Practicing the Psychic Octopus is an art form. It’s a wondrous journey that delivers you from dangerous territory—the point of no return—to the other side where you can feel free to be where you want and need to be and do what you need and want to do without risk. Without fear.
In other words, with the High Sensitive’s naturally open heart.
