Six Roadblocks to you discovering your Calling as a highly sensitive person
““The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.” ”
For many of us to be able to hear the ‘call from your soul’ (in the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes) there is work to be done and potential blockades to overcome. Here are some of the obstructions that may be preventing you from discovering your calling as a highly sensitive person.
1 Your own resistance to your gifts
‘You’d make a great therapist’ is a phrase I have heard regularly since I was a teenager. It was also a compliment I hated. Although I could sense when someone was struggling and was drawn to listen to them, I also resented it at times because internally I was full of my own ‘mess’ and I really couldn’t hold anymore. So every time someone suggested that path to me, I felt maddened because I didn't want to be listening to more people's problems when I wasn’t really coping!
What I didn't realise, was that synchronicity kept showing me over and over what my natural gifts were, and the path it was pointing to but I kept pushing it away - for nearly 20 years! I was empathic, sensitive and naturally interested in people's life stories. It turned out that people found me insightful too. Anyway, I was repeatedly being shown what my gifts were with that comment and those abilities have opened up further, since I've embraced my highly sensitive nature which opened up channelling.
How about you? I'm certain you will have experienced the same or similar - what gifts do you have that your friends, family or work colleagues commonly point to or appreciate that you perhaps dismiss or resist? What path would it take you down potentially and what is your fear preventing you from stepping towards that direction?
2 Working with self limiting beliefs and integrating the psyche
Our self limiting beliefs are one of the most primary blocking forces to us following our calling. Just the thought of making a change can be incredibly emotionally triggering for many of us as it taps on our root beliefs created by childhood experiences, like:
It’s not safe for me to change
I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m alone and lost
It’s pointless to try, it’s hopeless
I’m not capable, I’m helpless
It’s not safe to be seen etc
This is why if we want to expand into our true potential to find our calling as HSP’s, it can mean (for some) clearing emotional trauma but also doing ongoing work each time to meet a new road block emotionally or mentally to help you to keep expanding and developing - I know I do, everyday!
Some of this might not even be your own but could for example be ancestral or a vow of poverty from past lives etc holding you back. But as we do the work it can get easier the more and more is released and we then meet less resistance. Just because a thought or belief is familiar doesn’t mean you need to keep identifying it, as you can change dramatically if you put in the effort and time.
3 Trust and faith in an unfolding process
For us to do our ‘big work’ or to go ‘off the beaten track’ takes an incredible amount of trust and faith in an unknown unfolding process which can be a block towards unveiling your Calling for many HSP’s. To be trusting, the subtle movements of an internal felt compass to guide us in the dark, takes a great act of courage for many of us. But equally the ‘call from your soul’ (in the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes) commands to be heard and can get louder and louder until we listen.
To follow the creative thread of a calling, can seemingly ask us to risk many things such as finances, our relationships, our self image - as we try to navigate unchartered waters we will potentially completely jump ship from our current course. It can be beyond unnerving. But in doing so, we can end up living our most creative life and developing into our fullest potential, but it requires risk as we are letting go of the familiar and known.
This process of our calling can ask us to take the long view which may be years in the unfolding, as it is about our self development which takes time. So we must not expect to land with all answers next week. Not easy in our culture where we are used to immediacy. Set your intention and move onwards, keep showing up and doing the work, then the gems will keep revealing themselves.
4 Practical barriers
Another barrier to discovering your calling as a highly sensitive can be very practical affairs:
Lack of financial support
Paying for the therapeutic support you need
Motherhood - the cost of childcare or limited time and lack of support
Consuming caring responsibilities
Time needed to explore different trainings or mentors and bed in learning before you feel confident to practice
If you are dealing with one or many of these, this can take your energy and time figuring it out. But it may also be part of the path. When listening to the Shamans Cave podcast, it was refreshing to hear that these roles and responsibilities or difficulties that we come up against; rather than tearing us away from our mission, should be seen as part of our path and spiritual practice. These experiences actually contribute to our growth and are part of our role in the community.
When it comes to support, some of us will have significantly greater privilege than others, that's the truth, (I want to acknowledge I sit in that category), but also at certain times of our lives we might be surviving instead of thriving (i.e. living through the baby and toddler period!). But I do believe in our ability to call-in the help that we need and find ways of becoming more resourced - even if that is setting intentions for the future.
Also, we may not be aware of exactly what this phase is teaching us and how it is maturing us. I remember when I was pregnant, saying to a friend who is a medium ‘I’m worried motherhood is really going to derail my work’. But she said ‘no, your daughter is coming to help you with your work’ which was such a phenomenal thought for me and really reframed my understanding of our relationship.
5 Timing and life experiences yet to come
One of the barriers in terms of our calling that I experience is sometimes we're just not ready. Our life conditions aren't right, we have more work to do emotionally, mentally and spiritually to be able to do the work, or even the core life experience that we will be supporting other people to recover from hasn't happened to us yet, for example the menopause. Therefore the key lessons we need to learn around that experience have not been felt by us. It can be one of life's mysteries.
Equally, we might be ready, but we are resistant to the path (as mentioned above). Once you feel like you're finally getting on track with your healing or Calling, you wonder why you didn't do it sooner! In some ways, I regret that I didn't step into my healing gifts sooner, due to a fear of being woo woo. But realistically I know I wasn't ready - I had other interests, I had lots of learning to do about myself, training to do, as well as a huge healing journey of my own to go on to reach the point where I am now. I wasn’t wasting time. But this feeling of having side tracked can come up for many of us.
Caroline Myss has a lovely video on insta where she says if you didn’t ‘make it’ in your 30’s, you can make it in your 40’s, if you didn’t ‘make it’ in your 40’s you can make it in your 50’s etc. Louise Hays for example didn’t step into her work until her 60’s. Don’t place limitations on yourself. Believe in yourself and your potential, then it will grow.
6 Courage vs fear
There's nothing to fear, but fear itself as the old adage goes. But fear can be a very powerful deterrent from any venture and can come in many forms:
Fear of facing the truth of who we are and how we truly feel, therefore creating necessary boundaries which might mean addressing certain relationships
Fear of our own potential and the change that might be required in our lives to move towards it
Fear of being visible and having a voice
Fear of being different: being seen as a weirdo, a witch, too woo woo (a personal favorite) and so on
Even now for me for example, there's resistance in me to opening up to my potential, because it can feel very vulnerable to be visible. This for me takes the form of doing a very alternative approach to therapy from the mainstream and part of me wants to be ‘normal’ psychotherapist or something (another part doesn’t care too hoots and wants to buck the system!). But ironically the more I lean into ‘my normal’ - ‘the woo woo’ work, the more powerful, the deeper, the more satisfying the work becomes and the greater the interest I’ve had.
Our fear tries to keep us safe, but unchecked and unchallenged, it can keep us very small, living in an unsatisfying life limiting box. Sometimes when I face a fear, I try to broaden my mind to give me courage by thinking of being at the end of my life looking back - in that moment I think when I am close to losing everything at death does this fear even matter?
It immediately shrinks to nothing and I think ‘no’ - i.e. it doesn’t matter if this blog isn’t perfect, it doesn’t matter if I make a mistake in the video I am making, I don’t care if I dance with my daughter in the supermarket and someone laughs; because all I want to do is live fully, love fully and let go of anything holding me back from doing that right now. So I want to ask you, to consider this perspective, what would you do now to listen to your calling and your highest potential?
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