In her wonderfully evocative and imaginative book, What It Is, the multi-talented Lynda Barry maps her own journey as a creative person using drawings and words. She tells us things about her own explorations. She asks us questions about our own journey.
On a page brimming with her drawings -- a little girl crying near the fire with a mouse looking at her, a bear scratching its way out of the page and patterns of birds on branches -- she tells us about the child that she once was.
"There are certain children who are told they are too sensitive, and there are certain adults who believe sensitivity is a problem that can be fixed in the way crooked teeth can be fixed and made straight. And when these two come together, you get a fairy tale, a kind of story with hopelessness in it."
A kind of story with hopelessness. A story that points to where you are in its unfolding. A story that has been played out before and that is spreading its wings in your own life right now.
Barry tells us how immensely helpful this can be, how recognizing the myths we are living can help us transform our feelings.
"They can't transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it. We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable."
We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay. I love that she says this, that imagination can be used not as an escape, but as a way to engage with reality, a way to be in reality without going mad. When we give up our connection to a larger story, when we give up our imagination and just bow down to the clunky reality and rationality, we are crumbling our soul.
We forget that we bring our own way of looking to the experience. We can think of ourselves as bobbing away helplessly in a sea of experiences or we can bring our own meaning, our own imagination into them and make them liveable.
Without the essence of the meaning, without the spark that our imagination gives them, our experiences are meaningless, random things happening to us.
Of course, sometimes we can use our imagination to our detriment. We can become ungrounded. But what Barry is telling us is the positive use of imagination. It gives the golden thread to our life. We don't throw ourselves on the rocks of so-called reality that can sometimes be hard and cold.
We have this instinct to spin stories and meanings right from the time we are little.
Think about a child reading books that makes them cry, Barry tells us. Think about what these stories mean. They tell the little child about who he or she is. They hold up a mirror. Something in them connects to their essence. They provide a shelter for their growing self. Remember how as children we curled inside our stories for comfort?
What would happen to this child if they couldn't imagine, couldn't find their place in the story?
"It seems that human beings everywhere understand that a child who is never allowed to play will eventually go mad. But how do we know this? And why do we know this? And what happens when we forget?"
What happens when we forget?
We do forget as we grow up. Maybe, we give up our playing, our pretending, our imagining ourselves into our stories because we think that that is what grown ups do. But maybe we need to make up our own stories, look for stories that seem like our own and settle down in them to be really comfortable with reality.
We need this to connect to something bigger when things are hard. We need this to steer clear of the harsh edges of things that don't make sense. Our stories lead our way forward through dangerous terrains. They tell us that our answers are made inside of us. We can't find them outside.
What would happen if you again became friends with your imagination? That is what I am trying to imagine. Maybe things will again seem softer, more fluid. Maybe things again will have a shine in them, a reason for their happening, a reason for our going through them. Maybe, the wild imagination that looks "unreasonable" to others is exactly what clears the way for walking on solid ground.
An interesting thing has happened from the time I started using the word empath in my writing. It's a word that I had resisted identifying with, and yet, it describes some core aspects of my sensitivity. Or rather, the core aspect, the ability to experience other people's feelings as if they were my own.
Almost instantly, as I claimed the word empath, it felt like numb spaces in my life awoke. Watching T.V., I felt pain shoot up as someone fell off a building. It was as if the debris that had fallen on my sensitivity or maybe the clutter I had buried it under was again free to roam around.
While reading other people's posts on empath forums some months back, I had congratulated myself that I didn't feel like that any longer. I didn't feel so drowned in other people's feelings. I didn't feel the physical sensations of someone else's pain. But as I am wiping the dirt off my own perception, I am feeling like I was congratulating myself for the wrong thing, for numbing out and becoming denser.
I do want to have strong boundaries. I also want to have more sensitivity, instead of pushing it aside.
I have an image of plaster cracking come up.
I have also been remembering things from long ago. When I was a child, in the lane leading up to my grandparents' house in a village in India, there used to lie a drunk man on the kind of wooden cart that is used to cart groceries around in that part of the world. He was never scary. I was never afraid of him.
It seemed like he was so washed over with all the things around him that the only way he could live was by numbing himself out. I don't know whether he was an empath or not. But I had a feeling that he was a good man, someone who felt the world around him.
And that feeling of the world toppling on top of you - of drowning in its pain and sorrows -- that might be the terrible space in which you can fall if you feel so much. So, sometimes, we construct our dams and numb ourselves so at least we wouldn't dissolve in this too much feeling.
We cope in so many ways. I have coped in so many ways. Being less me, being more like others, being overwhelmed and not doing even the little that I could do.
But on this tricky path of empathy - of feeling too much or adopting numbness - there must be a bend in the road that we are all walking towards. Will I fall? Will you fall? Will we find new ways? Will we get lost for a long time? Will we find the harmony and balance we are looking for?
Like countless other people, I tuned in last week to see the premiere of Sensitive - The Untold Story on Livestream. The trailer for the documentary had felt loud, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But overall, I liked the content. In fact, I got very emotional at certain points.
While there are many vibrant online communities for HSPs, being able to see and hear other HSPs talk is not something I get to do often. That felt very affirming, and I am so happy that the next generation of sensitive people will have this resource to turn to.
I especially liked that they covered a wide range of HSP stories. They talked about HSP relationships, including interviews with some wonderful non-HSP parents working to understand their HSP children. They talked about extroverted HSPs. They featured an HSP basketball player, an HSP entrepreneur, an HSP working with sensitive dogs (every species has both sensitive and non-sensitive members in roughly the same percentages).
They covered different HSP voices in different places in the world. And of course, they talked about Dr Elaine Aron's seminal work. Her work was the main thread binding it all together. Her perspective and the stories shared by different HSPs helped present a balanced view of the HSP trait.
On one hand, the documentary talked about the wonderful responsiveness that HSPs have. On the other, they also talked about differential susceptibility - the idea that different people vary in their responsiveness to qualities of the environment. So, while HSPs benefit even more than non-HSPs from a wonderful environment, the opposite is also true. Bad experiences seep deeper into sensitive people. If you are an HSP who has had a traumatic experience, you will have to fight harder to get out of it. It will leave an indelible impression on you. And yet, the good news about being highly responsive is that once you get help to deal with what has been holding you back, that good energy and effort will also go deep inside.
Both good and bad affects HSPs, and to me that is the balanced perspective on being a sensitive person. Depending on the situation and so many different things, being an HSP can be many different things. I think this is also a reminder for us to pull the right things towards us, the things that nourish us deeply, the things that we often don't give ourselves because other non-HSPs don't seem to need it or give it importance.
Another thing that stood out for me was the discussion that parts of the brain associated with fear are not triggered when sensitive people enter a new environment. We are approaching the new situation with caution, not fear. At some point, for many of us, the caution gets overlaid with the label of fear that other people give it. Sometimes, a real fear gets added in to the mix.
But it is important to remember that pausing before acting is a way of approaching the world. It is not fear. It is consideration. But many of us may have gotten such mixed messages about our style that we might have started discounting it ourselves. For me, there have been a lot of times when I have tried to make myself act before I have considered things. That seemed to be the respected, proactive way. But that meant that I did not consider and then fell flat because that was just not my style, just not my way of being.
Are there ways in which you try to act like non-HSPs? How would owning your trait help you? How could it help you nourish yourself?
This caution also reminded me of some sensitive children I know who are cautious when they interact with strangers and people they don't know. Once they have determined that the place or the person is safe, they are not shy about interacting. But that reminds me of how easily the label of "shy" can be applied to a child who is simply considering, observing and looking before opening up or joining in.
For parents, I think it is so important to see that their HSP children often don't start off "shy." They might become shy if their way of being is not understood or appreciated.
There were other things that came to my mind when I watched Sensitive. Maybe, I will write about it in some other posts.
There were some stylistic things that I didn't like about the documentary. For example, the way the logo appeared or the camera-work that felt frantic at certain times. I hope the dissonance with the aesthetic elements does not discourage HSPs from seeing or appreciating the documentary.
It has a lot of good stuff. It wipes the mirror and helps us connect with other people, somewhere out there, that see and experience the world as we do. It takes us home to a space we often don't find in the environment around us, a space that "gets" us, a space where we don't have to explain who we are or feel misunderstood.
It gives us a sense of connection and community, and for that and many other reasons, I think this pioneering documentary is a wonderful leap forward for all of us.
Did you see the documentary? What did you think of Sensitive - The Untold Story?
Dr Ted Zeff's wonderful new book The Power of Sensitivity gives us many insights into what it means to be a sensitive person. It gives us the privilege of looking through the window as many different HSP lives change and shift patterns.
It includes real stories of sensitive people coming into their own at workplaces, dealing with feelings of overwhelm, and learning how to navigate the world in their own special way, instead of looking outside themselves for guidance.
One such story that deeply touched me is told by Cecilia Bonnevie, who talks about the gifts and challenges of raising an HSP son. Cecilia talks about the deep appreciation that they have for their eight-year old son's sensitivity. He has deep sympathy for people. He has recently turned vegetarian because he feels so sad for the animals that get killed. He is not afraid of expressing his warmth and deep love for people who matter a lot to him.
At the same time, this greatly heightened sensitivity also means that he gets easily overwhelmed, especially when he is entering a new situation. He needs to be well-prepared to perform at his best. He needs guidance in understanding and dealing with his emotional reactions.
What's so heart-warming is the love and thoughtfulness that Cecilia and her husband pour into guiding him in learning about who he is and how he can use that to the greatest advantage. Cecilia tells us about how when her son needs to enter a potentially over-stimulating environment, her husband and she take extra care to prepare him for the shift.
"For example, a week before school started we went to his new school as a family, played at the playground, and talked about his feelings and fears of starting a new school and meeting new friends. We assured him that he wasn't alone in feeling overwhelmed and anxious and let him know that other kids felt the same way on their first day of school. Since the teachers in our school put up a list of children's and their teacher's names before school starts, our son felt more relaxed and confident having this information beforehand."
Cecilia talks about how they work closely with their son's teachers and help to inform them about his trait in a way that would not "label" him. They also give then a copy of "The Twenty Tips for Teachers" from Elaine Aron's book The Highly Sensitive Child. This proactive approach helps create a much more understanding environment for her son.
Cecilia also shows us how love can shape a child's sense of self. When she notices that her son does not participate in big groups because he is overstimulated by the noise and commotion, she starts volunteering for field trips and in gym class. She plays with other kids so that her son can see how much fun it could be to join in on all the fun and games. He just observes her the first few times she volunteers, but pretty soon, he starts participating. As he starts discovering himself and his abilities, he finds that he is, in fact, very athletic and a fast runner. This, further, adds to his confidence.
Cecilia and her husband show us how parenting a sensitive child is about working with their sensitivity, and not against it. They don't try to impose any outer standards of behavior on their son. Instead, they unconditionally love him for who he is.
They see all the amazing gifts of sensitivity, and give it shape and direction. Their love and acceptance ensures that their son become more and more confident as time goes on. He participates in the world around him, and discovers who he is in the process.
This heart-warming real-life story tells us of the ways in which parents can nurture their sensitive children. When the child feels this love and interest, it is natural for him to grow into someone who also loves and accepts themselves. This is one of the gifts that understanding parents can give HSP children - the self-acceptance that is at the core of later success and happiness in life.
