By: Kumari Mullin
Have
you been labeled by coworkers or family members that you are “too sensitive” or
“overly emotional”? do you often feel overwhelmed when working with certain
people or being in groups, and need time alone to revive? Are you fine one
minute then go smowhere and feel drained and depressed the next with out an
obvious reason?
Many
times we may not understand why we are feeling so overwhelmed by things that
other people don’t seem to be impacted by. You may be what some are no calling
a “sensitive or highly feeling person.”
I
certainly fit the category, to a tee. And it has been a blessing and a curse.
Growing up, i was often labeled as too sensitive, too emotional, and too
introverted or “shy”.
I
quickly learned to stuff my emotions and toughen up my skin. I was so good at
repressing how I left, once in an argument with a boyfriend years ago, he was
demanding I tell him how I feel and I couldn’t even respond!
The
feelings were so buried I had no clue how to uneart them.
Unraveling
this pattern of trying to manage my overwhelming emotions and inexplicable
sensitivity has been the focus of much of my personal healing journey.
Dr.
Elaine Aron has coined the term “Highly Sensitive Person or HSP” and states
they make up 15-20% of the population, both human and animal. You can check out
the full Self-Test at www.hsperson.com , but here are some key features;
Easily
overwhelmed and stressed by outer stimuli, like loud noise, strong smells,
chaotic environments extremely perceptive very sensitive to pain have rich and often intense internal lives, and need
plenty of quiet time to maintain their equilibrium.
Oh how I wish Dr. Aron was around when I was growing
up! However, my own personal challenges learning how to manage being a highly
sensitive empathy has led me to develop and refine energy tools to help many
healers, therapists and intuitive stay balanced and centered.
I have learned many great ways to decipher what is
happening, and then manage and clear your energy so you can become more
detached when other people’s thoughts and emotions are bombarding you.
The good news – you can do this without shutting down
your own feelings. Or cutting off your connections and relationship. I am now
able clearly identify and voice my feelings as they are happening in present
time – quite an achievement for me.
But now comes the tricky part. Is it heightened
sensitivity or heightened awareness? Or both?
Now that we have defined what a “highly sensitive
person” is, you need to distinguish that not everything you are feelings is
yours! As your awareness grows, so does your ensitivity, and this can be both
very helpful and extremely challenging.
Several times in my spiritual journey I have been in
extreme states which are marked first by tremendous expansion or opening to
higher states of awareness and consciousness. It is as if an old cloudy layer
peels away, and everything seems to scintillate with a diamond-like clarity,
and a great sense of peace and love and well-being emerges.
Then the other shoe falls quickly afterward. My
already extreme sensitivity climbs to a new high – everyday happenings feel
like nails on a chalkboard. I feel like one big raw nerve, and everyone is on
it with broken glass, I am unusually exhausted and want to be in a cave. Some
people feel like they are vampires, draining my energy.
The last time I recall this transition, I was at a
fire ceremony about 9 years ago. We were chanting and I felt something like a
peeling of saran wrap from my skin. Then everything felt exquisite – like I
could “see with new eyes and hear with new ears”.
Only a few moments later however, someone left the
circle and sang separately, with a bit of attitude. I literally felt his energy
like a butcher knife in my heart! I had to leave the circle and walk around as
I could barely breathe. I even knew it was nothing aimed at me personally but
it didn’t matter. The energy was unbelievably sharp and cutting and took a
while to soften and release.
So I asked mu guru about it and she explained:
“Whenever you reach a new level of awareness, you have heightened sensitivity
to both positive and negative experiences, until you acclimate.” While it took
several weeks to “acclimate”, it helped to know that ultimately I would learn
to breathe easier in the upper stratospheres.
