Seven Confessions About Being "Highly Sensitive"

Finding Freedom in taking responsibility for my sensitivity.

Welcome to new readers and long-time friends. I am back from recent journeys to the East Coast and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, where I shared the Art of Ensoulment. In the next few weeks, I’m looking forward to reflecting on how I’m finding my way in the dance of everything, stumbling and falls included.

First, let me pause to share a peek into the land loved so deeply by Georgia O’Keefe and everyone else. The retreat was a blessing beyond words.

ghost ranch views- O'Keefe home, Paternal, Labyrinth, with my sister and art by Rebecca Whitecotton on the altar.

INVITATIONS

I’m sharing my shrine art on Thursday, April 4th, at 4:30 PM Pacific with Sheila Collins in her Art of Grieving Series. Link Here.

I’ll guide an Art of Divining Purpose workshop on Friday, April 12, from 12:30–4:30 pm PT. It's juicy, impactful stuff. Link Here.

I’ll join Jamie McHugh and Taira Resta in a public conversation to inspire embodied action in the face of planetary dysregulation on April 18, 2024, at 10 am PT/1 pm ET/ 19:00 CET, hosted by The International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. Link Here.

---

Confessions

The word confess means "tell the truth."
It's difficult to tell my truth, own, fess up, 
realize (real-eyes) my limited, beautiful, 
human dance, but such relief when I do.


There is no end to distress these days. It’s in our cells, meetings, and dreams. We’ve moved from stress as a massive focus to trauma. The difference is that trauma ignites fight-flight and freeze responses and wants us to shut down or fight.

The collective learning curve has never been steeper as we struggle for emotional and social intelligence amidst nastiness, violence, and greed. At the same time, millions of humans are rallying for those who have been terminally despised, if not killed, for generations.

I’m sensitive to all of it. What role does high sensitivity play in times like these? Does it help to clamp down on our sensitivity? To let her rip? Are we to be retraumatized victims because of our nature?

I’ve said before that sensitivity is not a diagnosis or problem. In an embodied lexicon, I am among the 1/5th of humans for whom feeling, noticing, and sensing is FULL-ON—like how a dog or cat senses sound and smell beyond the average human. While sensitivity is natural for 70 percent of our species, high sensitivity can happen to anyone in a state of trauma, from ingesting substances, in a spiritual emergence or big initiation, or after being subjected to technologies that awaken and stimulate sensory processing.

In other words, it's good for all of us to understand high sensitivity and that activating "higher states" comes with responsibility and accountability.

Looking at the limits of my high sensitivity, I thought I'd share an honest accounting or inventory of what I notice in me and others.

1. Confession: I'm highly sensitive. I don't know how much more intense my sensations are—two or ten times more than average? I do seem to pick up and attend to a lot of data that others don't even notice. It takes extra energy to process these streams of information that flow through my nerves, guts, mind, eyes, ears, heart, and imagination. Add the energy it takes to explain myself or hold back my canary in a coal mine experience. It's demanding. (If you are BIPOC, I hope your culture is more appreciative of your sacred sensitivity than mine is. Otherwise, this could be another double whammy.)

   High sensitivity shapes my life so much that failing to include it as part of my identity doesn't make sense. I don't want to be a victim of any of my realities. I aim to artfully dance with them. Frankly, it's a relief to be out about the limits of it all—being white, bisexual, female, college-educated, middle-class North American, and a dancing theologian. 

   
   When I stand in the facts, it frees up energy to be me.

   
   So, I take responsibility for being highly sensitive and for managing and living graciously with my physicality. I release others from compensating for my sensitivity.
   

2. Confession: My nervous system reacts A LOT! As a passenger in a car, my nerves jump, clench, and sound the alarm. Out in the world, my system fills up with buckets of hard and gorgeous stuff. I need to manually reset to serenity multiple times a day. In harsh, demanding conditions, my data collector shorts out on overload. I become irritable—even in good times. This isn't about introversion or extraversion. In chaotic structures or relationships, I require dozens of practices and allies to restore a healthy balance. In roles that ask me to stay calm and connected in scary situations, I know that I will be working hard. When I am overly anxious, diligent, determined, and demanding, I appreciate the world of high sensitivity and seek however much support is needed.

   
   I take responsibility for reactivity. I refrain from blaming the source of a reaction.
   

3. Confession: My sensations are not THE ONLY reality. I read someone else’s harsh words as trauma. A kind word is read as The Goddess Herself. I try to remember that though HSPs do have exaggerated, highly nuanced experiences that feel very real to us. Other people aren't wrong when they don't share my experience. I appreciate my numerous accountability partners who help me reflect on my beliefs about reality and stay accountable to the whole, not just my own experience.

   I take responsibility for my limited view of reality, even when it feels intense. I check out my version of reality with those I trust.
   

4. Confession: I get righteous and bossy. Sustaining harm over time is painfully acute and confusing. My fight-flight responses take over as I spend an inordinate amount of time noticing and analyzing problems. Sensing the struggle and suffering of others, too, as if they are my own, sets me up on lifelong quests to right all wrongs. I forget that suffering is one aspect of reality, not the whole enchilada. I become indignant, righteous, bossy, and dismissive of the experience of others. I blame others. Alas. This feels like victimization.

   
   I take responsibility for my bossy self-righteousness reactivity and offer to the Divine all concerns that exceed my capacity. I also apologize when I need to.
   

5. Confession: I shut down difficult and beautiful sensations. I couldn't name anxiety in my experience until after I created InterPlay. I just did things that felt right. I didn't have a felt framework to understand the anxiety I aroused in others. Along the way, I've retrieved some sensations that I'd withdrawn or put on hold, like anxiety, shame, and tender love for myself. Living fully in the passionate dance of sensations, today I understand better why many of us need to lift the burden of sensation and the courage it takes to engage the entire emotional spectrum.

   
   I take responsibility for my body's wisdom and timing about emotional experience and seek to be kind about the presence and absence of emotions in others.
   

6. Confession: As a visionary, I admit an addiction to creative sensation. A bunch of creative prompts pop up and around my imagination each day: images, poems, writing ideas, and projects. All of them take time, energy, and resources. I have the ability to give life to many of them, and it's hard to say no to what seems yummy or necessary. Thankfully, I've recognized that I lack the capacity to consume most of what I imagine, as do others. As someone who wants sustainable practices that honor Earth, I'm obligated to think of the impact of my "creativity" on the planet, me, and others.

   
   I take responsibility for my visionary impulses and seek to ground and limit over-productivity.
   

7. Confession: My knowingness is partial. When my HSP thoughts and experiences don't jive, it drives me bananas. A lot of inherited knowledge doesn't dance, laugh, respect all beings, and create with love. As a sensitive person who needs ritual structures, ideas, and practices encouraging body and soul, I've followed the learning path. Like many sensitive people, I've sought "mastery" to understand 1) Why inorganic education, religion, and health care fail us, and 2) To ask if I could create more of what I want.
   
   Helping to design two interlocking systems that feel congruent, playful, and foster freedom, InterPlay and The Art of Ensoulment, I see how my knowingness leads to a lust for center stage, a lust credentialed among entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, play and freedom get the backseat. Knowingness is not what I am seeking. There's a deeper reality. Maybe it's just being.

   
   I take responsibility for acting like a Know-It-All. With amusement, I surrender my knowingness to Mystery.
   

8. Confession: In challenging, highly sensitive times, I rely on my 1) Spirit Team, 2) creativity, and 3) clarity of purpose more than ever. I find my way to grace, kindness, and beauty when I follow the wisdom practices that people have relied on forever. The good news is I don’t have to be good at any of it. I only need to keep playing. Play is our genius and the key to The Art of Ensoulment.

   
   I take responsibility for activating and sustaining my Spirit Team, creativity, and purpose, especially in sensitive times.

What do you want to add to this inventory? I’d love to hear and would be curious to hear your comments.

Bowing,