“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” ~Helen Keller
‘Stop being so sensitive!’ ‘You are too emotional!’ ‘Get a thicker skin!’
Do any of these retorts sound familiar? Do you often get accused of being too sensitive? In our society, it seems like sensitivity is looked down upon and that feeling ‘too much’ is a negative personality trait.
In fact, if you look at the definition of sensitivity, it has changed over time. Traditionally, it was defined as ‘a person who was quick to detect or respond to slight changes, signals or influences.’ Over time, it has evolved to mean someone who is easily offended or upset, a person who is thin-skinned or defensive.
Why has this definition changed throughout the years? When did sensitivity go from a benefit to a drawback?
After all, being ‘quick to detect and respond to slight changes’ seems like it would be an amazing skill, even sort of a superpower. I would be willing to bet that our ancestors relied on sensitivity to keep them safe from in the early days of humankind. A slight change in barometric pressure could mean a storm is coming. A slight change in the taste of food could mean it has spoiled or that it is poisonous. A slight change in a fellow human’s demeanor could mean he has gone from friend to foe. Being able to pick up on these tiny, nearly imperceptible clues probably was a life-saving skill.
But somehow, in our modern world, being sensitive has become almost disdainful. Instead of celebrating people who are tender, aware, and highly attune to their surroundings, we get frustrated and angry with them. It begins even in childhood. When parents drop their young ones off for the first day of school and the kids begin crying, parents hiss “Grow up! Don’t be a baby! There is nothing be scared of!” Yet how can our children really know that until they have those life experiences themselves? Reacting with trepidation to a new and overwhelming situation used to be vital to our survival as humankind…but nowadays we get frustrated when our children aren’t immediately able to absorb new experiences without fear.
It is even worse for young boys. While girls are given more permission to be vulnerable and scared (since we view them as the ‘weaker’ sex), boys are told to ‘man up’ and ‘boys don’t cry.’ What a terrifying thing for a child to hear—your feelings are wrong, your emotions aren’t welcome, we don’t want to hear it. Then we wonder why men can’t communicate!
What a shame. Instead of shaming our boys for being too sensitive, we should help them learn how to use this skill to their advantage. Because it is true that sensitivity run amuck can be problematic. Just ask a highly sensitive person…walking through the world without a protective shell isn’t easy.
I learned this firsthand thanks to my oldest son Ethan. He is ‘clairsentient’—which is a person who is able to clearly read energy. Like the Helen Keller quote says above, he is able to see things not with his eyes, but with his heart. Most of us have this ability to some degree, but think of it this way: Clairsentients are FLUENT in this heart dialect, whereas non-clairsentients have more of conversational grasp of the language. Some clairsentients can even see energy—it takes a material form such as colors or auras that they can see around locations or people. It can be an amazing gift, but also a burden if you don’t know how to manage it.
For example, my son used to become very overwhelmed by other people’s energy. Before he realized he was clairsentient, his wildly shifting moods did not make any sense to him. One minute he would be perfectly happy, and in the next moment, he would feel his mood changing without any cause that he was aware of. But as he began to learn about quantum physics with me, he realized that what he was actually doing was tuning into the energy of people around him without realizing. One day he told me he got very angry out of nowhere and he didn’t know why…then he looked up and saw a very angry girl passing by him in the hallway. Even before he laid eyes on her, he was reading and responding to her energy. So, although he had no ‘personal’ reason to be angry, he found that his energetic state completely went haywire.
That is because for highly sensitive people, everything is personal. Not because they are narcissistic…just the opposite! They realize (even if it is only subconsciously) that there is truly no such thing as personal. Personal is a myth. “You” and “I” is a myth. We are all energetically connected to one another; the atoms of which we are made are not separated from one another despite our seemingly separate bodies.
Still, it is important to know how to protect your own energy and set boundaries. My son had to learn how to disconnect from other people’s toxic energy states in order to safeguard his own energy. He does this by bringing awareness to his mind and body—“Why am I feeling this way right now? Is it because of something going on around me? Am I tuning into someone else’s emotional state?”
If he is, then he can make a conscious choice to ‘tune out’ and get reconnected with his own spirit. Sometimes he also takes downtime away from big groups of people—this is important for highly sensitive people who can be overwhelmed by crowds full of differing, chaotic energy levels.
In my next blog, I will discuss how parents can raise highly sensitive kids and how these little ones need to parented a bit differently.
For more on tuning in to the energy around you and in your mate to build the relationship you most desire, check out Quantum Love HERE