“Kaboom!” “Beep Beep!” “Honk!” Imagine, you left the house to run a few errands and suddenly you find yourself overwhelmed by the noises around you. You find yourself tensing your shoulders and trying to pull yourself inward yet it feels like everything continues to get louder. You feel butterflies in your stomach and fear that you might have an anxiety attack. The more you fear this the faster your heart starts to beat and you fear that you are losing control. You decide that you will walk around the corner only the feel these waves of sadness knock you directly in the chest. Being outside in public feels so overwhelming. The anxiety takes over and you decide to return home.
Being a highly sensitive person can be challenging. Often we are told as children that we are “too sensitive” or to “grow some thick skin.” These negative messages from our past force us to feel like there is something wrong with us. Well here is the truth: THERE IS ABOSULTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU! In fact, your sensitivity is a gift. You have heightened senses. You may be able to hear sounds more intricately or from further away than most of your peers. You may have profound intuitive abilities or even be clairvoyant.
In this culture sensitivity can feel like a burden. This is because intuition is not honored. In many ways it is not understood. Many of use abandoned these gifts generations ago to pursue advancing the mind. Being able to sense energy, tune into the emotions of others, having the ability to know truth are profound gifts. This is not something to hide from the world these are gifts to embrace. As a highly sensitive person myself I have found that the more I accept my gifts the more empowered I feel. There are some powerful skills I have learned a long the way that have made things much easier. Know that you are not alone. The more I tune into these gifts the more they blossom and I have discovered that they are almost never wrong!
Part of the discomfort of being a sensitive person is that it can often be tied into co-dependent patterns. It gets tricky when we empathically feel the emotional pain of someone we love. Suddenly there is a conflict. We want to be with them yet we cannot physically handle being around them while they are in that state. Being a Sensitive also known as an Empath means that you may even feel physical pain in your body that does not belong to you Here is where it gets sticky and tricky.
We love our friends and family therefore we do not want them to be alone in their pain. The default choice in this situation is to feel the pain as if it was your own. The belief is that maybe you can ease their pain by feeling it for them. Or maybe you feel like if you drop down into the swamp of sadness/pain/victimhood with them that no one has to be alone. The beautiful truth of all of this is that the stronger and clearer you are the more you will benefit everyone around you. This is the time for Sensitives to acknowledge our gifts and share them with the world around us. For further assistance in honoring and honing the gifts of sensitivity check out katefitzpatrick.org or make an appointment at https://portal.wecounsel.com/directory/dc84fe64-fb92-44ca-a56a-e363226e9a8f.
