​HSPs and the Psychic Sponge (Part 1)

I love the analogy of the Psychic Sponge because it’s so easy to visualize and understand. Particularly for all of us good ol’ HSPs looking for transformative tools and techniques. No! Not to transform into someone different. To transform into who we really are!
You’ve got to start somewhere, right? Well, the psychic sponge is the perfect place.
As you know, being an HSP makes you seem/feel different from a lot of other people. At least that’s what they’d like you to think. More people are highly sensitive than anyone realizes because so many of us try—and often manage—to hide it so well behind their shields of logic. We hide our fears, our loneliness, our anxiety, our worry, our feelings of overwhelm, and our generalized belief that we’re simultaneously too much and not enough, whatever the context. In my world, even scientists, statisticians, and engineers, and those who stress objectivity and facts are not capable of separating out their human natures from their work. In fact, from what I’ve seen, these people are often on the HSP spectrum . . . big time!
Ever notice their tendency toward antisocial behavior, bluntness, abruptness, isolation, lack of empathy? It may not look like our own specific HSP-isms, but they are just as powerful in the effect they have. Because the more discomfort experienced, the more shutting down occurs. Work in the lab alone all day instead of visiting with friends? Easy choice! Focus on what I do best rather than feel constantly out of place? Why bother asking!
No matter who you are or what you do, your level of discomfort starts and ends with the level of discomfort or comfort you have within yourself. But it also has to do with the discomfort that comes from being a psychic sponge.
I know, I know. If you’re an engineer or a scientist, you’re not gonna like my use of the word “psychic.” Maybe even if you admit to sensitivity, you’re squirming in your seat at the use of a word that yells out “Whacko, occult, stop now!” So, for now, let’s just call it an Energetic Sponge instead.
Which simply means that, again, no matter who you are or what you do, you pick up signals from the world around you. You can try to ignore them, resist them, shut them out, but you still have to engage with them, whether you’re in traffic or on the telephone ordering a pizza. Your experience will always include the outpouring of energetic data supplied by whatever and whoever is in your field of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
My suggestion? Stop trying. Instead, work it. Play with it. Use it to create a whole new range of colors on your palette of life. Just as you might have played with Play-Doh when you were in nursery school. (I know, awesome stuff, smelled crazy good.)
Here’s what you do.

1. Step 1. First, go get a dry sponge and put it down in front of you. (Note: you probably want to do this by the sink.) Notice how dry it is, how hard it might be around the edges, perhaps how it’s shrunken a bit because it’s so dry. This sponge can be any kind, shape, any size. The only thing that matters is that it’s dry.
2. Step 2. Next, get a bowl of water. Drop the sponge in the water. Watch  as it slowly comes alive. How it soaks up the water in the bowl, grows bigger with the moisture, and bigger still, until it can’t absorb any more because it’s so full.
3. Step 3. Take the sponge out of the water. It’s dripping, right? It can’t hold all that water so, now that it’s out of the bowl, it’s dripping everywhere. (Hence, standing over your sink, as advised.)
4. Step 4. Now, slowly wring out the sponge. Wring it and wring it until you’ve gotten as much moisture as possible out of it. The sponge is still damp, right? It’s still the size it always is when wet, a noticeably  different size from when it’s dry.
5. Step 5. This is the really important one. See yourself as the sponge. A sponge that was all nice and comfy sitting alone with your book and waiting for your pizza to arrive. And then, suddenly, 20 people burst into the room with beer and pizza and noise and confusion and laughter and…and…and….

Not helpful. Your sponge-body has now gone from damply comfortable to miserable flooded by all the energies that have entered your space. You panic. You leave. Without your beer, without your pizza, but hoping you’ve escaped with your sanity somewhat intact.
TO BE CONTINUED
Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you hanging (well, too much). In our next installment, I’ll be talking about how fantastic it is to know you’re an Energetic Sponge and that there’s something you can do about it. Something that will inevitably change the way you see yourself and handle your interaction with the world.