One of the gifts of being highly sensitive is your ability to easily sense subtle energy and information in the world around you - which you may be completely unaware of right now, just like I was 12 years ago. However this intuitive sensitivity can contribute to why highly sensitive people feel anxious and overwhelmed. But why? Well read on…

1. Feeling the emotions of others 

‘Somatic empathy’* is an ability we all have, as we each have ‘mirror neurons’ which enable us, (as the name implies) to ‘mirror’ the emotions of another person within ourselves to know how they feel - emotionally, mentally and in their physiology. This enables empathy and connection with others. This ability also helps to keep us safe, as we are able to sense the emotions of potentially threatening people who may cause us harm and make decisions accordingly. However, sensitives have highly keen and responsive mirror neurons. Therefore we very easily pick up on this ‘information’ from others and it's beyond our conscious control.

You may not even be aware it's happening currently but it may register in different ways when you are around other people, here are some examples: 

• you feel confused because you suddenly feel flooded by emotions or thoughts you didn’t have a moment ago

• you feel paranoid as you have this feeling someone dislikes or  are angry with you but when you ask them about it they tell you everything is ok, whilst they are smiling you don’t feel that is true

• a friend is anxious and whilst you are not with them you notice you suddenly feel light headed, your chest tightens and you feel a bit breathless yourself 

• when you're in a crowd of people you become depleted very quickly and feel woozy. 

These are all examples of what it can feel like to be affected and impacted by the experience of others. When you're highly sensitive, being flooded by the emotional experience of others can be very overwhelming, as your body and mind is trying to process a high volume of information which is taxing, draining and you can feel full quickly. 

*If you are interested in learning more about the science of somatic empathy I can recommend Cindy Engel who is an expert on the subject, she is a hybrid biologist PHD and bodyworker and my amazing Qigong Teacher.

2. Connected at a distance 

We are all interconnected yet live with the illusion of being a separate self. We do not operate in isolation, we each affect and influence other people as well as the world around us. The impact of which can be felt physically on a subatomic level as well as mentally and emotionally by the subconscious - albeit it mostly unconsciously! 

Different philosophical, scientific and healing traditions name this theory with varying models but to me they point to the same intersecting truth of interconnection between us on different levels: mind, body and ‘spirit’: 

• The metaphorical image of Indras net in Hinduism and Buddhism. 

• Jung speaks of the power of the collective unconsciousness 

• Somatic practice recognises the impact of the social nervous system

• Shamanic or esoteric tradition work with energetic Cording  

• Quantum physics has proven the Entanglement Theory (atoms at great distance influencing and affecting each other)

• Evidence of ‘the unified field’ the work of Lynn McTaggart - to name a few.

Now when you are a HSP you are likely to be more affected or moved by the influence of this interconnection as you are sensitive to the subtle levels of experience - both with the collective and by your interconnection with loved ones or others, even at a distance. You don’t need to be standing next to someone to be aware of them and impacted by their experience, presence and emotions etc, which can have an affect on you be that pleasant or painful, for example: you can feel the collective anxiety or panic which puts you on edge - think of the pandemic, you ‘suddenly think of’ and feel pained for the struggle of a friend living on another continent, a loved one ‘pops’ into your dream and you know how they are feeling, or strangely you ‘feel attacked’ - you can’t explain how but you sense the anger or hate of someone towards you but no one is present. 

Experiences like these can contribute to that feeling of overwhelm as it’s further ‘input’ and impressions trickling in, subtly or strongly - and just like the air around us, we can feel the breeze (or the hurricane), even though the air itself is not visible the effect of its power and presence still impacts the world. 

3. Sensitive to your subtle realm environment

Sensitives are highly sensitive to their surroundings and are more deeply impacted by both group stress or dynamics, emotional atmospheres and the feeling of the physical environment or structures. Everything in the world is made of energy. Sensitives are highly aware of the flow and quality of this energetic input (albeit unconsciously). 

Not everything in the world can be seen with our vision alone, but just like gravity the impact is felt or like radio waves through the right transmitter information is picked up and heard. Highly sensitive people are sensitive receivers of subtle energetic information in our environment such as: 

• Shifts and changes in the astrological cycle - eclipses, moon cycle, cosmic flares etc and feeling unexpectedly emotional

• Sensing the emotional memories or trauma held in buildings or a landscape, feeling uncomfortable in a room or space

• Feeling drained by EMF’s

• Being sensitive to the energy vibration of food or plants etc

• Vibration of movement from traffic or people hitting you in waves feeling exhausting

• You walk in a room and sense a tense atmosphere only to discover there had been an argument shortly before 

Highly sensitive people, due to the increased awareness of the energetic information from their environment can feel more drained and anxious as they are conscious of the subtle and uncomfortable tensions in the world around them which can increase their anxiety levels. It's also overwhelming to be in a deluge of information and input continuously, as it overloads our nervous system as there is too much to process. 

I remember reading from a source once that a highly sensitive person in bygone times would have been the ‘healer living in a hut in the middle of the woods’ in a community or the shaman. That their sensitivity was acknowledged, their gifts were in service to the community and they lived apart to manage their sensitivity. For me this analogy was a relief as it recognises that there is nothing ‘wrong’ with you as a highly sensitive person. The problem is our ‘normal’ environment is an overbuilt, overpopulated world and the modern western culture is unsupportive or doesn’t recognise our needs. 

4. Sensing and hearing the thoughts of others

Emotions aren't the only information that we sense from other people as Sensitives, we are also able to pick up on their thoughts. I remember the first time it happened to me very clearly. I'd started meditating and I was on a weekend meditation retreat. I was standing in a queue waiting for people to get their shoes on to leave the hall. When abruptly I suddenly heard the voice of the person in front of me shout inside my head “Oh for goodness sake hurry up!” but nothing had been said out loud. Immediately jokingly mentioned it as we left - ‘you know I just heard you say this in my mind’, they turned and said ‘that's the exact words I just thought’, looking at me a little shocked. 

At first I thought it was a fluke and might be happening because I was in a still environment, becoming more sensitive on retreat and ‘stilling in my mind’, but then it started happening more often. I began to realise that it had happened all my life but I had labeled it as ‘paranoia’, when actually I was sensing the unsaid thoughts or intentions of others. You are likely experiencing the same. Just remember everything is energy, that this energetic information travels in waves and you are a sensitive receiver of information. 

For me I now use this sensitivity as a skill, with both clients and in friendships. For example, if in conversation someone is talking and as I'm listening a word just ‘keeps shouting loudly in my mind’ - even if it seems unrelated and I don't understand why, instead of ignoring it I will express what I'm hearing and ask, does this make sense to you? i.e ‘I keep hearing the word ‘power’ (or lost / disappointed / betrayal etc) in my mind as you're talking, does that make sense to you? 99% percent of the time I would say it really lands with them, if not in that moment it usually becomes evident why a little time later after reflection. 

But that was not ‘my thought’, it was something ‘coming to me’, pressing against me, it feels very different to my internal dialogue. I have learnt to trust what I pick up. It may register simply as mental pressure, something bearing down on you or pushing against your mind. The impact of sensitivity to the mental processes of others, an Empath, can however contribute to your sense of overwhelm or further unseen input ‘pressure’ before we were able to channel this ability.

5. Sensing Unseen Beings 

I remember one weekend during my Shiatsu training (energetic bodywork based on TCM meridians) when we were told to ‘tune into the energy in the room’. I gently closed my eyes, and did as instructed, when suddenly and unexpectedly in my mind's eye I could see the room was filled with ‘light beings’, standing around the room next to us all - the room doubled in number. Startled, I immediately asked what was going on. My teachers looked at each other and said ‘Nicole you’re highly sensitive… then quietly as an aside, ‘you’re picking up on another layer of reality’.

Now in that moment a door to a realm opened to me that I had not been aware of before and had not particularly believed in. I had had some slightly ‘odd’ experiences in the past; the sense of warm wings wrapping around me when I was extremely sad or a warm reassuring hand on my shoulder when I felt lost, but I had just dismissed it as just my imagination. But what I was learning in my Shiatsu training was that not everything that is ‘real’ can be ‘seen’ but can be felt intuitively and that everything in reality is vibrating at different frequencies. So when we learn to sense and tune into people or the world around us on different vibrational levels through intention - ie mental, emotional, physical, spiritual - other realms of information open up to us which as HSP we are already sensitive to unconsciously and being impacted by.

Before any of these experiences at the time I would have called myself a logical skeptic, tendency toward nihilism and at best agnostic, but during my Shiatsu training I was learning to trust my sensitivity and what I could feel or pick up and ‘see in my minds eye’, which begun to include encounters with unseen beings of various kinds both light and dark such as: loved ones past over, spirit guides - animal or human, angels, goddesses, earth bound spirits or ghosts, entities etc. 

Once again I began to realise I had always been sensitive to the presence of subtle energy of ‘unseen beings’ as an Empath i.e. avoiding ‘that’ room in a house as you feel deeply uncomfortable like there is a malevolent presence in there or having a nightmare, waking feeling like there is an angry shadow staring at you but thinking you’re imagining it, or gravitating towards certain people or places because they uplift you and they seem to be surrounded by love and light. Our ‘reality’ is so much more than we can see on a material level and being  Sensitive you will be picking up on that information naturally whether you are aware of it or not, which if the presence is harmful or unfriendly can contribute to things feeling out of control or too much (you can learn to clear these or acknowledge them and leave) 

Developing your Intuitive sensitivity 

When you start to develop and train your intuitive sensitivity a new layer of reality can open up to you. You can:

• become conscious of this subtle level of reality as a contributing factor to your experience.

• begin to tune into the information you have been sensing and not just feel the pressure of it unconsciously

• feel confident in what you sense not paranoid.  

• learn techniques to stay balanced

• learn to live intuitively with a greater sense of flow in life and purpose in the world, feel the support of guides around you, loving you, always. 

Training your intuition when you’re highly sensitive is a necessity in my opinion to move from overwhelm towards balance and empowerment. It's like activating your dormant superpower.

Further Reading

Five Shadow sides of being an empath

Overwhelm, triggers and solutions for HSPs and empaths

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