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THE HIGHLY SENSITIVE, EMPATHIC NATURE (HS/E) AND SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

Five (5) Stages in a HS/E Awakening (stages often blend together)

1) Becoming aware of your HS/E nature (Spirit works through your individual HS/E nature)
2) Noticing how it has impacted you – how it colors your story (this is where healing begins & continues through #4)
3) Accepting what is: embracing your HS/E nature;
4) Forgiving yourself, Life, and others – you are strengthening your sense of self (ego) through stages 1-4 so it can yield to Spirit
5) Surrendering to the Self: letting the HS/E identity go (non-identity with thoughts, emotions or personality as you give way to the Divine)

Three (3) Principles

1) Spirituality is the net that holds and informs your day to day life.
2) Your personality, your ego and its thoughts and accompanying emotions (of which your HS/E nature is a part), are not who you are. You have them, but they don’t define you. They are not your identity.
3) That life force that is Spirit moves in you, through you, and enlivens you. It is you; it is your identity. When you know that experientially in your bones, you wake up. Ego has become ready to give way, to yield, and grace gently flips your ego from being in the lead to being in service to Spirit. However, this journey is usually taken in stages.

So why learn about your HS/E nature?

Because when you come from a place of feeling less than, in this case the non-approval of a highly sensitive nature by the culture and yourself, you need to find out all you can about that nature. You have to reeducate yourself, reprogram your thinking, own what is and come to accept your HS/E nature.

Before ego can give way, it has to come to accept itself, to stop defending and reacting. Learning about and accepting your nature is a part of that, and this step (which encompasses stages 1-4) often takes a number of years. It’s where our shadows lurk, the ones we must uncover, accept and integrate. Your inner self will attract the experiences and relationships that will assist you in uncovering these issues that hold you back. Your job is to notice.

(It’s possible that you could awaken somewhat without uncovering those shadows & blocks, but you’d be carrying that angst-ridden self with you.)

And why take the time to notice?

Because this way the ego becomes whole enough to give way; it’s on the path to realizing that life needn’t be a struggle. You have to shift your entire way of thinking about sensitivity, empathic knowing, judgment, love and life. It’s the key to the Holy Grail — Remember, to awaken you, Spirit speaks through your individuated HS/E nature.

Once fully awake, the only nature you identify with is your spiritual nature. See Eckert Tolle’s words on being highly sensitive: //talentdevelop.com/articles/OnSensitiv.html

So get the books, listen to teachers with whom you resonate, go to workshops, do the practices, notice, walk the talk, know when enough is enough and live your life with Spirit.

RESOURCES AND TIPS

Tools: healing the trauma of stored emotion

• Therapy with Jungian and/or body-centered therapist

• Educate yourself (see book list with links below)

• Energy work and healing (www.quantumtouch.com, highly trained & experience Reiki healer, etc.)

• Use processes like The Work with Byron Katie (www.thework.com); The Journey (www.thejourney.com) or Focusing (www.focusing.org) – any that resonate with you - and see life as a metaphor

• Learn to come to a point of non-judgment and forgiveness (If judging someone, ask yourself, “How am I like that?”)

• Protect yourself with the image of a 2-way mirror – you see out, but nothing comes in

• Have your cortisol and DHEA levels checked and consider taking amino acids and DHEA supplement

• Experiment with the MAP program (self-healing energetically) as devised by Machaelle Small Wright at Perelandra farms (perelandra-ltd.com)

• Use the power of flower essences as proposed by Dr. Mesich in her book (see link below)

• Food – protein and carbs can often ground and soothe, but need to watch food issues

• Writing/journaling

Flower Essences as a Tool

Essences are an alternative health remedy that can specifically target emotional healing. (They are not essential oils or aromatherapy.)

They can rebalance your empathic ability, release years of painful overload (the build-up) and help you feel more protected and less overwhelmed by your sensitivity. Reminder: empathy doesn’t go away; you need to connect with its positive power once build-up is dissipated.

Machaelle Small Wright, one of the best experts in flower essences, states, “Flower essences are liquid pattern-infused solutions made from individual plant flowers, each containing a specific electrical imprint that responds in a balancing, repairing, and rebuilding manner to imbalances in humans on their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual…levels.”

For the highly sensitive, empathic nature’s emotional build-up, the following essences are recommended:

• Yarrow (listings and links below)
• ETS+ (only from Machaelle Small Wright at www.perelandra-ltd.com)

Books:
The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D.

The Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide by Kyra Mesich, Psy.D.

You Are Psychic! By Pete A. Sanders, Jr.
www.freesoul.net or for an interview with the author go to http://thirdmill.com/html/pete.htm (This is an older book that I include only because of what he says about the “feeling” sense.)

Please Understand Me by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates
Google “Myer Briggs Test” and you’ll get a slew of sites.

Owning Your Own Shadow by Robert A. Johnson

The Dream Book by Betty Bethards

After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path by Jack Kornfield

These are just a few books I include as essential reading for the HS/E nature. There are many other wonderful books to which you may be drawn. FYI: Often I don’t resonate with everything I read in any one particular book. If you’re like that, don’t let it stop you from finishing the book and gaining something from it.

Flower Essences:*

-Featherhawk Essences in Indiana (877/226-7858) www.featherhawk.com
-Melinda Forbes in Garden Farms, SLO County (805/438-5077)
-Star Essence in Santa Barbara for “Strength of Achilles” (their name for White Yarrow) www.staressence.com (805/965-1619)
-Perelandra ETS+ when overwhelmed and for trauma at
www.perelandra-ltd.com

*Flower essences are traditionally put into an alcohol base. You can request a non-alcohol alternative. There are many more sites listed in Kyra’s “…Survival Guide” book listed above and on line.

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Here are some quotes from the books of Dr. Aron (HSP), Dr. Mesich (empathy); and Pete Sanders (feeling sense).

From Dr. Elaine Aron’s book, The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP):

Most people ignore sirens, glaring lights, strange colors, clutter and chaos. HPS’s are disturbed by them: what is moderately arousing for most people is highly arousing for HSP’s.

Most people may be tired at the end of a day in the mall, but they’d be ready to party that night. HSPs need solitude after such a day. They feel jangled and over-aroused. HSP’s don’t seem to tolerate as much as other people. They’re often labeled weak, shy, different or unsociable. Fearing these labels, HSPs may try to be like others leading us to become over-aroused and distressed.

15-20% of the population is HSP

70% of HSPs are socially introverted

30% of HSPs are socially extroverted [a minority within a minority, this 30% is not often mentioned in HSP writing]

If you think you are an HSP and haven’t gotten Dr. Aron’s book or visited her website, please considering doing so. The link is above.

From Dr. Mesich’s book on empathy, The Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide

Kyra lists these attributes [edited] as those of emotionally sensitive people:

They feel emotions often and deeply; are keenly aware of the emotions of people around them; are easily hurt or upset; are not able to shake off emotions easily; are greatly affected by emotions they witness and often avoid sad or violent movies or watching difficult news; can be prone to suffer from recurrent depression, anxiety or other psychological conditions; are keenly aware of and affected by beauty in art, music and nature; and are prone to stimulus overload. Sensitive people are born that way.

“…One of the sure signs of a truly sensitive person is that he [or she] feels animosity toward his [or her] sensitive nature. Most sensitive people whole-heartedly wish they were tougher and more thick-skinned. They feel like their sensitivity is a weakness. They wish things didn’t bother them so much.

“The word empathy is prevalent in our language, but its common usage is too shallow. People need to realize that empathy is not the mere intellectual understanding of another’s emotions. The history of the word empathic refers to the capacity to know another person’s emotions without those feelings having been communicated.

“…Empathic ability is the underlying cause of depression and emotional suffering….It is unfortunate that empathic ability is seen as a radical, unusual explanation for emotional distress because it is in fact very common. Empathic ability is the underlying cause of emotional sensitivity. Sensitive people’s emotional discomfort and overwhelm are explained by empathic ability. People need not suffer from the painful aspects of sensitivity once they realize that empathy is the cause. Common thought dictates that emotionally sensitive people are weak, emotionally fragile and doomed to suffer from psychological symptoms and emotional overwhelm. These ideas are wrong. When sensitive people reconnect with their empathic sense, they can be released from the emotional discomfort that seemed never-ending.

“Empathic ability often manifests as the experience of literally feeling another person’s emotions as if they were your own feelings. This is not the way empathy was intended to work. Empathy becomes distorted over our lives because we have no knowledge of it, and no way to interpret the empathic feelings we sense. Over time, our empathic sense becomes more and more overwhelmed until the emotional pain finally seizes our attention. Sadly, our intellectual mind interprets this emotional pain as faults and weaknesses stemming from our own psyche, rather than empathic information coming from outside ourselves.

“Empathy is intended to be pure emotional communication from a safe, protected vantage. Our empathic sense is designed to provide us with information about people and our environment beyond the limits of our intellect and physical senses. You can rebalance and reconnect with your empathic ability and restore its functioning to the healthy, beneficial manner in which it should be. This not only relieves lifelong psychological symptoms, but also opens the door to connecting with your intuition.

“…Denying, ignoring or diminishing empathic ability does not make it go away. It only causes it to manifest in ways that cause pain and discomfort, which finally force us to stop and take notice that it is there. Empathic ability is our direct connection to emotion and intuition. It is the basis of our humanity. Just because empathy has been tossed aside in favor of the physical and intellectual does not mean that it won’t be reclaimed.”

From Pete Sanders 1989 book, You Are Psychic (1989)

During biomedical chemistry and brain science study at MIT, Pete Sanders came to believe that, “Superstition and dogma, ridicule and cynicism, have combined to shroud ESP and what have come to be called ‘paranormal’ abilities in a veil of fear, mystery, and misunderstanding. The myth that ESP is limited to a few ‘psychics’ or to only random, uncontrollable experiences has barred the door to the greatest human adventure.”

Sanders states, “…You are the water in the glass, not the glass. You are the electricity that runs the machine, not the motor. You are a soul. You have a body. …[you] have four psychic senses rather than only one ‘sixth sense.’ For each of the four psychic senses, there is a specific location on (or around) the body that serves as a natural antenna to pick up and amplify the psychic signals.” Sanders named these special places the “Psychic Reception Areas.

He lists the four senses as follows, and suggests we are dominant in one or two of them:

1) Psychic Feeling (solar plexus is focal point)
2) Psychic Hearing
3) Psychic Intuition or “knowing”
4) Psychic Vision

For our purposes, we’ll concentrate on Psychic Feeling. According to Sanders, “Everyone has all four of the psychic senses, but for simplicity and efficiency it is important to know which psychic senses are your best channels for ESP. A useful analogy is to think of the way one radio or television station always comes in best for you. It doesn’t make sense to listen to or watch a fuzzier station when you have a clearer alternative. The same is true psychically. For example, it is ridiculous for people high in Psychic Feeling to waste time and energy trying to develop extensive clairvoyant skills while ignoring their clearer feeling channel…I frequently meet men and women who feel they are psychic failures because they cannot see an aura. Yet these same people invariably prove to be psychically strong in other areas.

“…Psychic Feelers love to feel the pulse of life but frequently feel overwhelmed by the impressions that bombard them; separating their own…feelings from those they pick up from others is essential. …All those inner sensations you probably thought of as ‘gut feelings’ or ‘instincts’ are in fact psychic impressions, plucked from the energy field that surrounds us.”

Psychic Feelers’ characteristics are as follows: “Primarily, you are concerned for and about other people; can usually sense when something is troubling others and give of yourself freely; trust your feelings implicitly [not “implicitly” in my experience because, not knowing about our empathic abilities and the debris we picked up, we doubted ourselves]; are relatively unconcerned about time and deadlines; and make every effort to put others at their emotional ease and expect them to be equally caring about your feelings.”

“…Psychic Feelers must protect themselves against the vibrational onslaught of psychic pollution in their environment. Many of your negative feelings—tension, depression, anxiety—are actually not yours at all; they are other people’s feelings that you are picking up. In most instances, once you understand what is happening you will quickly be released from the effects of those psychic disturbances.”

When you experience a feeling or intuition, especially when you first begin to take notice, Sanders notes, “the sensations you receive at first will usually be subtle rather than intense.” He suggests the following:

• “Learn to ask yourself what you are feeling. Do not accept ‘nothing’ as the answer.
• If you think you feel nothing, ask yourself ‘What kind of nothing is this? Is it nothing as in ‘nothing different’? Nothing in the sense of a void or vacuum? Nothing in the sense that something is missing, or being hidden from you? Sometimes the nothing you sense may actually carry a great deal of information.
• If what you feel comes to you as ‘feeling good’ or ‘feeling bad,’ ask yourself: “In what way good? Why do I feel bad? Where are these feelings coming from? Is it a fleeting feeling, or something more permanent?’ Continue until you can discover more precisely what you are sensing.
• In the early stages of practicing [noticing]…keep your eyes closed [when asking the above questions]. It’s quite possible to psychically ‘feel’ with your eyes open, but I recommend closed eyes in the early stages to cut down external distractions.

“…The key to success with Psychic Feeling is learning to accept and interpret even the most fleeting or subtle impressions”.

Sanders goes on to note the gifts of Psychic Feeling:

“ADVANTAGES
Most natural of the psychic senses
Easiest of the psychic senses to develop
Best psychic sense for discerning and interpreting subtle energy patterns
Best psychic sense for empathizing with others
Best psychic sense for monitoring safety and personal protection

“DISADVANTAGES
Psychic sense that most easily picks up others’ negativity
Hardest psychic sense to turn off or shut out
Psychic sense that makes it hard to remain detached”

Then he adds that psychic feelers “Are prone to pick up other people’s feelings, good or bad and to being psychically overloaded.” They “Can become…easily overwhelmed by feelings.”

(copyright 2008 by Barbara Atkinson)