HSPs and the “Real” World: Is it really what you think it is
Sensitive, Schmensative.
When you’re an HSP, you’re sensitive. We’ve pretty much figured that one out. But what we want to do is open up to life, not shut it out.
I have a friend who is also an HSP. For my friend, whom I shall call Stella for our purposes here today, indicators of high sensitivity include all the usual ones like anxiety, depression, and phobias. In purely physical terms, there are allergies (to everything from bug bites to the scent of flowers), massive chemical sensitivities (from dryer sheets to cologne to anything and everything with any kind of smell), and social sensitivities (from crowd aversion to simply needing to spend most of her time alone).
Does Stella sound like anyone you know? Does it sound like you?
Everything is an indicator, but an indicator of what???
For Stella, life has become very small. She has to choose avoid all the things in the world that make her miserable or deal with the resultant misery. Most of the time she stays home because going anywhere has become a challenge. Friend’s shampoo? NO! Window cleaner? NO! The laundry aisle of the supermarket? HOLD YOUR BREATH OR ORDER ONLINE! Stand behind someone in line who wears perfume? HEAD FOR THE NEAREST EXIT!
Because no one understands better than I do how shutting out all the things that offend us feels like the only option, I have lots and lots of compassion for my friend. Who, it has to be said, has lots and lots of compassion for me when I go off. (Like just the other day when the smell of a friend’s Irish Spring soap had me sneezing and sneezing…and sneezing.) It’s never a one-way street. Yet I would like to feel that my ability to tune into the true purpose of the manifested indicator is developing over time. How does that happen?
Through conscious awareness.
For example, here’s how I would have reacted in the past to this one of my personal common indicators.
“That’s the third sneeze in a row. Am I feeling okay? I’m not sure. Now I can’t stop sneezing. Now I’m sneezing uncontrollably. Where’s the darn Kleenex box? I could be getting a cold. I could even have Covid. Do I have any Covid tests lying around? Who did I see lately who could have given it to me? What if I gave it to someone else? Omigod, what if I’m really, really sick? What would I do if I got sick and had to go in the hospital? Who would take care of my house? What about all my clients, all my work?”
People have lots of names and commentary for this kind of thinking. As Eckhart Tolle says in The Power of Now, “As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no ‘I’ except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted.”
My own mind used to go around in so many circles that I rarely, if ever, felt capable of making a right decision. Not only that, but once I’d made the decision, I was always sure it was the wrong one. In the instance of my sneezing indicator, when it shows up, I immediately cop to the fact that it’s associated with having been “out in public,” in the airport, maybe, on a plane, or on a first date. While it wouldn’t be accurate to say I am miserably uncomfortable in those circumstances since I’ve gotten so used to reeling in my good ol’ psychic octopus, it’s usually after the fact, once I get home, that the sneezing begins. What is my sneezing an indicator of? The fact that I am processing whatever leftover resistance I was experiencing during whatever it was I was experiencing!
I was on the plane without an issue. I got all the way to baggage claim before the sneezing kicked in. Relief, once again, at feeling I was back on my home turf.
The date was uncomfortable. I felt in alignment during the date, but relieved to leave, I immediately began to sneeze.
These episodes used to last days, if not longer, and be neatly, conveniently categorized, as “some kind of bug that requires attention…medicine…a doctor…concern…worry…etc. Now? Rarely longer than a few hours at most.
If you were in my head, here’s what you’d be hearing. “Oh. I’m shifting. I’m having one of my shifts. Isn’t this interesting? I don’t particularly like this one because my nose gets so sore, but I know it’ll be over soon because all I’m doing is reacting to the effort I made to handle my recent experience. I know that as it gets easier and easier to be in alignment, with my octopus tentacles snuggled in close, this kind of thing is happening less and less often. I’m really looking forward to the time when it stops happening altogether. Yay for me!”
(In the meantime, where’s that Kleenex?)
