HSP Awareness; We need our Highly Sensitive People!
Are you a highly sensitive person? Do you have heightened sensitivity of the brain and nervous system? High Sensitivity, also called Sensory Processing Sensitivity, is a genetically inherited trait. Fifteen to twenty percent of the human population and fifteen to twenty percent of the populations of over one hundred species studied, are highly sensitive. This trait is purposeful for the survival of species.
Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) alert quickly, they are genetically wired to sound alarms to danger for the survival of their families, communities and even species. Being intuitive, they are sensitive to subtle energy. Being empathic they can sense the feelings and thoughts of others. Highly sensitive people sense what is going on around them and their people. They are deep thinkers, processing information more deeply than lesser sensitive humans. Being sensitive to stimulation, such as light, sound, smells and activity, they become easily overwhelmed and need to take time for quiet, restful, restorative time, They are highly intuitive and observant, and in tribal cultures are often the individuals who alert their tribe, not only to danger, but to food and water sources for the rest of their tribe.
It is essential for a group’s survival that a small percent of their members are highly sensitive. Nature is purposeful in setting the percentage of HSP at about fifteen percent. If all individuals are sensitive, all would be sounding alarms, scoping out where to find food, water shelter, needing down time often. Nature set up a perfect proportion, the eight five percent less sensitive humans, can act on the emergency alarms and act on acquiring the food and water from where HSP’s sensed it.
Highly sensitivity people bring much more to their family, to their community, to the world than emergency alarm systems. With their intuition, depth, observance of subtetiess, they are our creatives, our artists, our poets, our writers, our mystics, our actors, our comedians, our psychics, mediums, intuitives and healers. Imagine life without music, art, movies, plays, books and stories, without psychics and mediums and astrologers, and without counselors and psychotherapists to help us connect to, understand and navigate our inner worlds. What a grey, cold, heavy, empty and texture-less vision this brings up in my mind.
In our society, how well do we pay the people who choose the careers in which they can use the talents listed in the above paragraph? Do we make sure they, have good health benefits so they can take care of themselves and their family? In most cases, aside from the rich and famous, we pay them little and don’t give them health benefits. For HSPs, working at the careers they are naturally wired to work, it can be near impossible to make a living or support a family.
In our contemporary western society, the inherent gifts and talents of HSPs often must become hobbies, so they can work another job for a salary and benefits. Now, a person whose brain and nervous system are easily overwhelmed, who needs time to restore and to process deeply, and sense what others are thinking and feeling, are working at a job that zaps their life force energy. How much time and energy will they have now, to do the work of their soul (even if now a hobby)?
One of our purposeful intentions at Numinosity Institute is to change this. Too many sensitives are struggling to find a path in life that doesn’t squelch their life force energy and their talent. In having to abandon their inherent selves, an HSP can become imbalanced. Imbalance for a length of time, can cause illness. They can turn to substances to escape the discomfort of doing everyday work so far away from what they are genetically wired to do.
According to the CDC, today’s suicide rates and death by overdose rates, are higher than they’ve ever been. I hypothesize that a great percentage of those who have died by suicide and overdose were HSPs.
We are losing the very people that humanity needs to solve the profound problems we face today. I have a fierce purpose, to recognize our highly sensitive human family members early, in their infancy even, so we can nurture their unique needs and help them bloom and grow and bless with their sensitivity, their own well-being, their families and societies, as they live in harmony with their inherent nature.
In this series of blog posts on uplifting our Highly Sensitive family members, we will explore the needs of a highly sensitive children and adults, how parents can nurture their child’s sensitivity, and how adults can nurture their own. We will look at the impact of trauma on highly sensitive children, then the correlation between the genetic trait of high sensitivity and psychic and spiritual giftedness.
Are you highly sensitive? Below is a link to an online test created by Elaine Aron
https://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-test/
HSP awareness began in 1990 with the publishing of Elaine Aron’s first book, The Highly Sensitive Person: