Embracing High Sensitivity

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 population 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, their tribes and communities (and even their species). Being intuitive, they are sensitive to subtle energy. Being empathic they can sense the feelings and thoughts of others. Highly sensitive people sense the subtleties in their environment, in social situations, in communication with another person. They are often at ease with animals. 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 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.

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 found them.

Highly sensitivity people bring much more to their family, to their community, to the world than emergency alarm systems. With their intuition, depth of processing, depth of emotion, their observance of the subtlest things, they are also are creatives, our artists, our poets, writers, mystics, actors, comedians, 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 and navigate through our inner worlds. (What a grey, cold, heavy, empty and texture-less vision this brings up in my mind.) HSP’s help bring beauty, meaning and purpose to all.

In our society, how well do we pay the people who choose to work careers using the talents above ? How well do we do at making sure the humans in these careers have health benefits so they can take care of themselves and their family? In most cases, aside from the few rich and famous, we pay them little, and don’t give them health benefits. For HSPs the careers they are naturally wired to work, can be near impossible to make a living at.

One of my missions is to bring awareness to the highly sensitive, and to help create paths to careers that are inherently called to, that pay them enough (money and benefits) to support themselves and their families. In our contemporary western society, the inherent talents of HSPs often must become hobbies, as they have to work another job to make enough money and for the benefits. Now a person whose brain and nervous system are easily overwhelmed, who need 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, that provides an essential need in their community? Very little.

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 and imbalanced for a length of time, become ill. They can turn to substances to escape the discomfort of living daily life so far away from who they inherently are.

According to the CDC, today’s suicide rates and deaths by overdose, 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 bring awareness to HSPS. I want us 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 in so doing bless their personal well-being, the well-being of their family, their society, and their species.

In this series of blog posts on uplifting our HSP family members, we will explore how to recognize a highly sensitive person at the earliest stage possible, in utero? infancy? Childhoo? Then we will explore the needs of a highly sensitive child and how parents can nurture their child’s sensitivity. We will also take a look at the impact of trauma on highly sensitive children, and finally I will share my research study that found a correlation between HSP’s and psychic and spiritual giftedness. Some of us are genetically wired with subtle energy sensitivity for psychic and spiritual healing work.

Are you wondering if you are 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. Follow the link : https://www.amazon.com/Highly-Sensitive-Person-Elaine-Aron-ebook/dp/B00GT1YES8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=E4Z2YZ6SK21T&keywords=elaine+aron+highly+sensitive+person&qid=1696688751&sprefix=Elaine+Aron%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-1

Please reach out to me through email with comments…inspirit.anisha.zo@gmail.com