navigating the depths: understanding and supporting highly sensitive souls
Highly sensitive humans are highly attuned or aware to other energies in their internal and external environments.
These energies may be, but not limited to:
the energy bodies (including nervous systems) of others
phenomena in the subtle realms
thought forms of others (including ancestors in their own consciousness)
the microbiome in one’s environment
five sense phenomena
EMF’s
For some humans, they are able to shut off their awareness of these subtle cues from the environment, but for the highly sensitive person, they are often unable to disconnect and ignore what is coming into their field and awareness.
What makes someone highly sensitive?
Several factors can contribute to being an empathic or highly sensitive person. Some may include, but not limited to:
Kundalini activation and process
Trauma (makes nervous system more sensitive) , especially childhood trauma
Ancestral pattern
Past life pattern
Spiritual practice
Embodied healing work / energy healing
Mindfulness training
In this post, I want to offer support to those who may be sensitive but may not know much about what that is, and offer ways you can bring balance to your system when feeling triggered by other energies. One thing to note is that there are a lot of dysregulated human nervous systems on this planet, and they are most likely also in your relational life. So learning to care for your nervous system is vital in expanding and growing in your human journey.
Some find their sensitivity as a curse, and others are able to embrace it as a gift. As a sensitive child, there most likely wasn’t a lot of support by your family system, so this could make things quite intense, leaving you fragmented and disconnected from the wisdom of your sensitivity, and feeling isolated from the tribe. I want to honor that potential experience in you, and let you know that you are not alone. This is true for many empaths, and there are even more empathic children in our world today in the same conditions.
What is a dysregulated human nervous system?
Most human nervous systems are active in a fight-flight (Sympathetic Nervous System) or a freeze/ shutdown/ depressed (Parasympathetic NS -Dorsal Vagal). Talking to or being around people in an activated fight-flight response can be quite challenging as an empath., since an environment of quiet and calm is preferred. When in a relational field with someone anxious, the empath may be more tuned into their pushiness, with needing things to be a certain way. Feeling a lack of space in the environment. When humans are anxious, their minds get very narrow and rigid, and they can become what looks like OCD, needing things to be a certain way without any flexibility or space around other potential ways of being.
Shew, just reflecting on that creates a response within my system. This can be quite challenging because empaths normally value self-connection and attunement, and in those fields, the anxious human can’t meet themselves where they are, or you where you are, they are just driven by their primal needs.
Being around someone in a depressed state can actually promote a heaviness and depressed feeling in my system. They can also be quite rigid and stuck in a fearful way of relating to their experience, like some in a stress response. The two are kind of similar, just one has a lot of activated energy and the other is very low energy. My mother has more of a depressed nervous system, while my father has a highly activated nervous system. Recognizing this and preparing my system to be in their fields is vital, as well as bringing balance back into my system afterwards.
Ways to Resource one’s Nervous System (NS)
There are many ways to resource a person’s nervous system. Every body is different in what it needs and how it responds. I find that I absolutely need to resource my NS before being around other humans to bring more clarity into my system, as well as after to clear anything I may have picked up.
Some ways to resource are:
Meditation (this is my top choice, being most potent) stay tuned for another post on great forms to explore for empaths
Fascia awakening + release with body scan to ground and anchor deeper inwards
Energy clear and cord cutting practices
Walking out in nature while taking time to track the activation of different senses (sight, sound, smells, tastes, feelings)
Earthing while consciously connecting with loving care to the earth and self
Resting on a spinal roll for up to 7 minutes (a blanket rolled up to support your spine and head)
Pranayama that grounds and connects you inward
Dance if this shifts you into a state of calm, connection, and clarity
Kundalini practices for the aura with grounding after
Stay tuned for new free resources for your sensitivity.
