I have written about both Dr. Judith Orloff’s work as a Psychic Psychiatrst and Marcy Calhoun’s work teaching Ultra Sensitive people to handle being Psychic. According Marcy Calhoun’s work, she classifies people as Ultra Sensitive if they are experiencing being extasensory perceptive with two or more senses. For instance, I see, hear, taste, touch extrasensory but not smell. Being extrasensitive, I always isolated myself to feel my senses and ponder what I was sensing. I was able to be in crowds but I felt as if I was losing my own sense of self. I have often discussed that I can see, hear and feel other people’s memories. I can sense other people’s memories of their past, present or future. It takes a constant assessment of my senses to feel myself in present space and time. Other people can have extrasensory perceptions which make no sense at all such as smelling colors. My Anglo Saxon Cherokee Great Aunt said that she could ad would “smell things before they happen.” She had also dreamt about my life before my parents met and told my mother the purpose of my life and described me. Honestly, I did every thing I could to not fulfil that dream. However, I was given Near Death Experiences to change my mind and follow my destiny. That said, there are a lot of folks who are struggling with being Highly Sensitive, Ultra Sensitive and any other term we can refer to as “sensitive”.
Some quotes for Highly Sensitive People in Love:
Intuitive Psychiatrist Judith Orloff writes: “Loneliness gets to some more than others. But why it hangs on isn’t always apparent when read by traditional medical eyes. “
In my practice and workshops I’ve been struck by how many sensitive, empathic people who I call ’emotional empaths’ come to me, lonely, wanting a romantic partner, yet remaining single for years.
“Or else they’re in relationships but feel constantly fatigued and overwhelmed. The reason isn’t simply that ‘there aren’t enough emotionally available people out there,’ nor is their burnout ‘neurotic.’ “Personally and professionally, I’ve discovered that something more is going on.”
http://highlysensitive.org/272/relationships-and-highly-sensitive-people/
THE LATEST RESEARCH In about 1991, I began applying the term “sensitive” to adults and I published the research in 1997, but others were studying it in children at the same time or even earlier, all of us working without much fanfare. In my case, I interviewed adults and then created a statistically valid questionnaire and began doing some brain research— approaches you cannot use with children. Others studied physiology or genetics later linked to high sensitivity. Now the research is widely noticed and coming from many different laboratories, sometimes under different names for the trait. My term for it is sensory processing sensitivity, but the same trait is also called environmental sensitivity or reactivity; biological sensitivity to context; differential susceptibility or vantage sensitivity; or identified by the names of certain genetic variations or as in animals, sometimes termed behavioral plasticity or flexibility.
Although new evidence will come, right now, no matter the researcher, we all seem to agree that this trait:
•is innate, genetic, or “constitutional” (although some think other factors may contribute).
•is always found in a minority, around 20 percent.
•involves a preference to notice subtle aspects of the environment and to pause in new situations in order to observe and compare to past knowledge (although sometimes past knowledge leads to comparatively swifter, more confident action).
•evolved in more than 100 species because it provides certain advantages for survival.
•is not a disorder or vulnerability, because while those in poor environments, especially in childhood, are more subject than others to problems, those in supportive, enriched environments function better than others in various ways. This is called “differential susceptibility.”
Aron Phd, Elaine N.. The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You . Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony. Kindle Edition.
Striking Research on What HSPs Bring to Relationships Perhaps the most important new study for this book was done by Bianca Acevedo and her colleagues, including my husband and myself, and published in Brain and Behavior in 2014. (Whenever I mention research, I provide enough details so that it should be easily found through a Web search, and often is listed on my website, www. ? hsperson. ? com.) This study used a brain scanner to learn which parts of the brain were active when HSPs and non-HSPs looked at photos of strangers and loved ones having happy, distressed, or neutral expressions. There were marked differences. In particular, those with the trait had more activity than others in their mirror neuron system. The mirror neurons, coupled with other parts of the brain that were also more active in the HSPs during these activities, are strongly associated with empathy. We can feel empathy through reasoning or even assuming others are like us, but with our mirror-neuron empathy, we actually feel to some degree what others feel. The HSPs in this study were also more responsive than others to emotions in general, more responsive to their partner’s emotions than strangers’, and more responsive to their partner’s positive feelings, because when seeing a distressed partner, their brain went more into “action mode” than with others. Other areas that were more active for HSPs showed that they were, in general, simply more aware during the task. All of these are tangible gifts that HSPs bring to a relationship.
NEW OLD THOUGHTS ON LOVE, HSPS, AND SPIRITUALITY
This book also explores the spiritual side of relationships because I have observed that HSPs tend to be more spiritual than others and this affects their relationships in many ways, including leading others in spiritual directions. As I tried to make clear in this book, any close relationship has the potential to become a spiritual path. There are two resources not in this book, however, that might help some of you, although neither is light reading. One is Guggenbuhl-Craig’s, Marriage: Dead or Alive. His view is that people who marry (I would add, enter any committed relationship) and expect simply happiness are sure to be disappointed. If one sees marriage as a way to develop character, to enrich the soul, often through struggle, then it is very alive. I think HSPs in particular can appreciate that function of a relationship, for example, when on the average they are disappointed about the depth of conversation with their partner yet apparently accept it and are still satisfied.
Another worthy author is Martin Buber. Some find his classic, I and Thou, very difficult, and prefer the easier relevant parts of The Knowledge of Man or Between Man and Man. Whichever you read, you will sense the depth of relationship that HSPs seek when he describes I and Thou (versus I and It). He insists that these depths can be reached for moments in almost every relationship, even those that are brief. To Buber, they can occur not only with other people, but with parts of nature such as a tree or animal, and with God. Indeed, he thought that with enough I and Thou moments with others, even an atheist would stumble upon the I and Thou with God.
I have been thinking these days that HSPs in particular need a spiritual path and a spiritual practice to take them along the path. But perhaps it is really three paths. The shamans divide the world into three realms: The upper world, this “real” world, and the lower world. Familiarity with each is essential to their work of healing and helping. To me, the path in the lower world means trying to grasp the role of dreams and the archetypal, unconscious, shadow world of the psyche, especially my own. The path in the “real” world is deepening close relationships (and perhaps expressing what you have found in the other two worlds in creative ways). These two are perhaps the most developed “worlds” in this book. For me, meditation is my path in the upper world, but it might be prayer, time in nature, or whatever. I have been meditating forty-five years (Transcendental Meditation) and am sure it helps with all aspects of life, including relationships, but, ultimately, it leads upward. Although these days the teachers on each of these three paths often leave out or even deride the other two, in the light of the shamans, the three paths do not contradict, but complement one another, being part of one larger reality.
The above three paths are already threaded throughout this book, but what I want to emphasize is that at least some spiritual practices can develop into something awesome, stupendous, and completely worthwhile, but over many years. We are taught that you cannot begin too young to invest financially for your retirement, but also that it is never too late to start. Above all, we should not stop our financial investing even when times get tough. But what kind of retirement will it be, really, at least for an HSP, if we are not also investing in something deeper? Whatever our age right now, we are all growing older. But if we also grow in a subtler and more spiritual way, the end result is much, much more than an old, dying body. My hope for you is that you find your best way of traveling toward the final, fullest depths of love.
Aron Phd, Elaine N.. The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You . Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony. Kindle Edition.
Just a note: all the work I am advocate is Shamanic as the author states, Shamanism bridges the Upper World, the Middle World and Lower World, a wholistic approach to being human, soul and spirit. Each soul has their own path but we can share our knowledge, feelings and emotions.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.