The Great Quest

This world will tell you what or who you should be from day one.  For the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and Empath this is a tragedy.  Without knowledge, we HSPs will listen to any idea out there and abide by it just out of sheer loyalty.  Self can get lost.  Some people feel like they need to forgive themselves.  I think they might have gotten their 'self' really lost. It's essential for the HSP to figure out who and what they are so that they can grow and be effective in society.

Its easy to live in someone's reality.  We do it as children.  We get to live in our parents' reality.  We may not get the message that we are to create our own reality.  That is, live in our own world and play our own game.  It may be a frightening thing to start down that road, but start we inevitably must.  Sooner or later we will be without our parents.  We may start our own families, careers, hobbies, and preferences.  I know of people who have the hardest time taking that step.  I recommend to take a deep breath and jump in.  Like jumping in a pool, it may feel awful at first but you soon get your bearings.

I realize it's hard to disconnect from parents, mentors, or even friends.  If you have a great family life, it is harder to disconnect than if you had a bad family life.  If you do come from a great family, being on your own is important to discover yourself and figure out how to better yourself.  Sometimes separation is thrusted upon you like entering the military, moving because of a new job, or even a death.  In such cases, I think it's important not to latch on to anyone else but to become self sufficient and start planning what you want to do.  It's only when your alone can you meditate and figure out your own feelings.


Eventhough you are on your own, your really not alone.  Parents, mentors, friends should be a phone or text message away for advice.  It's good to listen to your guides.  Guides come not only from people in your life, but also from what people say, what papers and blogs write, what books say...etc.  I think the most important guide to listen to is the guidance you get when you meditate.  You can extend your feelers to the world around you and figure out what it coming.  Feelings and premonitions are normal to have.  Too often people ignore these.  It is good to take these into consideration while you observe the physical world.  Of course, one of the most important guide is the plan you laid out for yourself.  That is, the things you want in the future.

Why am I encouraging HSPs to be their own person?  Well, it's because it took a long time for me to realize that that is the better way.  There are groups out there that recruit the unsuspected into their ideology, theology, or 'mission.'  These groups are self absorbed manipulative masters.  No, the HSP is better off on their own and figuring out how to help people in the world around them.  The Quest in this life should be for the betterment of self and community.  Do not waste it on someone else's ideals.  More often than not, if you do follow someone else they usually are sociopaths.  These people have no concern for anyone else but their own goals no matter what it costs others.  That's why I give this warning to all HSPs and Empaths.

Thinking Through Conflicts

I react to people who push my buttons.  I suppose everyone does.  It's hard in such situations. If you've been there, then you know.  When you react to these things, you do what your pre-set 'programming' says to do.  You vigorously defend yourself.  Then afterwords you feel bad about it when you look over the astonished faces of those around you and you have to deal with the aftermath.  It comes as a surprise to you and to them.  How do you deal with this situation could dictate what your relationship to these people will be.  I recommend excusing yourself and getting away to think it over for a couple of hours.  When you do this you will go through many emotions and plausible plans and outcomes.  Let me give you some advice on how to successfully go through this with minimal damage and maybe come out in a positive light.

After getting away and start to think about what happened, you going to go through some shock and anger.  Your imaginings may shock you because your going to think of extremely extreme things to do that may not be totally legal if at all.  When I go through this, this phase always shocks me and I feel embarrassed of the thoughts.  I think its OK to go through this phase as long as you get to the next phase.  I feel that this phase is the hardest because the strongest emotions are coming out.  These emotion seem to be reactionary emotion.  They do have meaning and should not totally be dismissed, but they shouldn't be acted upon.  The point is that you have been hurt.

To get to the next phase, which is an intermediary phase, you have to tell yourself that your hurt and now it's OK, that your safe.  Then you have to tell yourself that there's a better way to deal with the situation.  Next come the thoughts that evaluate your current situation in a broader aspect.  You start identifying the different people involved and those who could get involved.  You start to think of things to tell the authority whether it's your boss, parent, or even police.  In this phase it's good to seek advice from a trusted friend.  This allows you to express what is going on in your life and helps you think through this phase.  You will come up with ways that may be drastic though legal to retaliate and get revenge or even protection.  If you think through these ideas you will find that they will hurt relationships.  Those relationships include the one with the offender (the person who's pushing your buttons), and your relationship with the authority, and your piers or friends.  In the past I have not moved on from this phase and acted on the thoughts and ended relationships drastically.  It is much much better to say NO to these thoughts and move on to the next phase.  The point here is that your identifying all the direct and indirect players and their positions.

This third phase is a rational phase.  This is where your going to come up with your best ideas.  To get here you need to tell yourself that you really don't want to hurt anyone.  Realize that strife begets strife, that is, if you hurt someone chances are they are going to hurt someone and maybe you.  No, hurting is not the answer.  Empaths and highly sensitive people (HSP) generally don't want to hurt people, but rather prefer healing.  The thoughts in this phase may come as some form of communication which can be verbal and/or non-verbal.  You may choose to tell the person who hurt you to stop hurting you.  You have to gauge this though.  You can use words directly, or you can use body language.  That is, you can walk away or disregard the person when you see they are about to push your buttons.  You also can avoid the person for a time, and later find a way to heal the relationship communicating that you were hurt.  What your doing is a form of punishment on the person.  Everyone has authority on their own person.  You choose who you have a relationship with and who you don't want a relationship with and what kind of relationship that is.  I'm not necessarily talking about love, because love involves a mutual agreement to love each other.  This is more of interpersonal relationship.  Whatever you choose you want to choose a thought that first hurts the least amount of people, and hopefully no one at all.  Second, you want that thought to have some benefit to yourself and the other parties.  Then relationships are strengthened and respect is also strengthened.  The point is to find a win-win situation.

Yes, it's hard when people push your buttons.  It's even a sign that your being bullied.  Taking the necessary steps to think through what your going to do and taking time to think through is important.  Getting to the good thought where relationships are strengthened is preferred.  At first you may feel like the perpetrator, but you have to concede that your also a victim.  If your good thought does not work, then you have your other thoughts in the second phase that should work, but relationships won't be helped.  I think when these things happen they give us an opportunity to grow and become stronger and wiser.  Your wounds will heal through this process.  Some wounds though never heal and you carry them with you all your life, but thinking these actions through can minimize those.  This is a serene subject to write about and think about.  Let's not the hurt build up to some grievous action.  Let's mend the broken hearts.

Inner Self vs Outward Self

The human is a funny individual.  That's funny as in weird.  He/she tends to think of self as two entities, the inner self and the outer self.  This is a big dichotomy in the human experience.  Now you probably already know that, but  it is interesting to note how personal communications get botched for lack of a similar frame of reference.  Where it comes to sensitivity, people's different perception can cause confusion.  People with different levels of sensitivity will levy different importance of the two selves.  For the highly sensitive person (HSP, empath, or sensitive), there is less importance on the outer self since they see people and themselves as a whole, while the non-sensitive will put high importance on the outer self.  This difference in perception can lead to some conflicts and/or misunderstandings.  Let's say a sensitive enters a room and reads the people there.  A non-sensitive is dressed smartly, prim and proper.  Yet the sensitive picks up that the non-sensitive is upset about something and is trying to hide it.  Concerned, the sensitive inquires the other person as to what is bothering them.  The non-sensitive denies that there is anything wrong.  The sensitive bothered by this response tries other attempts at getting the non-sensitive to talk it out.  The non-sensitive who has been trying to keep their cool to not show their hand yells at the sensitive and vehemently asserts that nothing in the world is wrong.  Perhaps some kind of local artifact is bonked on the head of the sensitive for their insolence.  Of course we can see that the non-sensitive contradicts themselves by their actions despite their best efforts.  The way you, as an HSP, can avoid such botches is by acknowledging the situation to yourself, gauging your responses to the non-sensitive so not to blow their cover, and waiting for the non-sensitive to bring up the problem when they feel safe.

Now how do you acknowledge a situation?  The HSP often picks up on situations and gets lots of input on any situation.  The problem arises when you try to sort through the information.  What should your angle be?  In most cases it really won't affect you personally.  Or, it may just affect you indirectly.  A mature adult HSP would try to think of how it affects the other individuals.  So you should think of how your angle would affect the non-sensitive.  Bear in mind that non-sensitives mostly care about themselves.  So, appealing to their ego is a good safe strategy.  You may think that this is wrong.  How could you appeal to the ego of so selfish individuals?  Well, any successful communication has to start with a common frame of reference.  Thus starting off appealing to a non-sensitive's ego can be a useful tool to get them to talk and open up.  Acknowledging the situation is to consider the parties involved and come up with an appropriate strategy.  I mentioned a mature HSP.  What happens with a young HSP?  Well, I will tell you a story from my childhood experience.  While taking a road trip with my parents, we picked up some hitch-hikers.  They were nice people and all, but I thought they could have gotten around better other than hitch-hiking.  So after they got out, I yelled out, "Next time take a taxi."  My father was furious with me about my indiscretion.  I still feel it was the right idea but executed in an immature way.  This is an example of what not to do.

A mature approach to communicating anything wrong you find, as a sensitive with the non-sensitive, would be to gauge your responses so not to blow their cover.  Why do you not want to blow their cover?  By blowing their cover you would be putting them on the defensive, and defensive people are not keen on listening to anyone.  You want to avoid defensiveness.  So in our example, the sensitive could try to approach the non-sensitive in an indirect way.  The sensitive could as a non-committal question like, "Is there something that is bothering you?"  The non-sensitive will either open up or not, but they will feel like they have the option an thus stay in control.   The key here is not to corner the non-sensitive, but give them freedom of choice. 

Waiting for the non-sensitive to feel safe enough to share is important.  They may choose not to open up right away.  If they don't you, as the HSP, have the option to wait or to keep the issue open by saying, "If you need to talk about anything, I'm here."  Though this may not be exactly what you wanted, the benefit would be that the offer is communicated to the non-sensitive, and the relationship is helped. Plus you can avoid the bonk on the head.

Relationships are hard as it is without botches occurring.  Taking care to acknowledge the situation to yourself, to gauge your responses to the non-sensitive so not to blow their cover, and to wait for the non-sensitive to bring up the problem when they feel safe.  The point here is for you, the HSP, to keep a relationship going with a non-sensitive.  When you gauge carefully what you share, the non-sensitive won't feel threatened by your presence, otherwise they may act irrationally such as giving bonks on the head.

Emotion Literacy

In this analytically society based on reason and science, there are oasis of emotional communication.  Some are bars, sports events, clubs, religious get-togethers, game night, or a dinner party.  At these we let our hair down and say what's on our minds with little consideration of the consequences.  We communicate our fears, concerns, hopes, and dreams.  It seems we need an excuse to communicate emotionally.  What if society communicated emotionally on a daily basis?  What if our fears, concerns, hopes, and dreams could be related every day to our friends, co-workers, and love ones?  Sounds scary?  Well, it could be at first, but I believe it could revolutionize our society.  Opening up communications about our concerns can be very therapeutic.  It can also give new ideas to businesses, shore up risks, and foster synergic efforts.  In order to do this people need to be educated on Emotion Literacy.  Emotion Literacy is all about reading people and their emotional state, interacting withe them using empathy, and build solutions and conclusions out of the conversation.

 How do you read people?  For Empaths it comes naturally to read and listen to people's emotions.  For non-Empaths it may take more of an effort, but it can be done.  The key to reading people is first to shut up and second to consider the other person.  To all my fellow talkers and extroverts, I say with all the love and humility in the world, "SHUT UP!"  When you have someone in front of you, you need to be quiet and listen before speaking.  Knowing when to speak, is a key skill to be heard effectively.  To the introverts I ask to withhold judgment until you get the full message.  Often times people need to vent about something that is causing them stress in their lives.  Listening to them eases that stress.  When you listen to someone remember to take in the whole person, that is not only their words but tone as well, their body language, and their facial expressions.  Empaths also take in the person's emotion since they can feel what the person feels as the conversation progresses.  You may ask yourself what is this person actually saying, and how do I summarize what their message is?  These are key questions to answer as your listening.

How does one interact with Empathy?  This Empathy is 'walking in their shoes'.  This means to imagine going through what they are saying they went through.  How did they feel?  What were the circumstances?  What was the outcome?  What could have been done better?  I think this is also as skill Empaths need to learn.  Empaths naturally will listen and not do much else.  They will feel emotion of the person and thus have a deeper experience in listening, but they tend not to think about how things could have been better.  Yes, this skill normal people call Empathy requires analysis.  You have to use the analytical brain to interpret what is going on and what could be done.  The outcome of using Empathy puts you side by side with the person as a friend, confidant, and guide.  That means there is an amount of responsibility on your part.  The other person most always appreciates any Empathy they can get even if they don't say so.

How do you build solutions and conclusions?  This skill is an active one.  You listen and you submit ideas and opinions.  You also acknowledge all the points of the other person.  You make known the points you agree with.  All the while you keep using both reading and empathy skills.  Where you end up in the conversation may surprise you and the other person as well.  What your doing is building.  You are building up the person and yourself at the same time.

The Emotion Literacy I'm defining here is made up of reading people, using empathy, and actively building.  I just looked up Emotion Literacy and got a wiki page. I believe that what I wrote here is in concert with the definition of that wiki page.  The difference is that I'm giving practical advice to use in an interpersonal communication setting, that is talking to someone one on one.  Like any interpersonal communication skill, using the advice here takes practice.  I believe you would see how effective this is.  I use this on a daily basis with people I meet, and the rewards are many.

Insensitives

Empaths tend to look at insensitives as either sociopaths or psychopaths.  These are labels that belong in the realm of psychology.  Any given self indulgent person could be diagnosed with one of these labels, but I would leave that up to psychologists to decide.  Another label that is thrown around in the Empath circles is psychic vampire.  No professional would diagnose someone as a psychic vampire, and some say there are tall tail signs that someone is a psychic vampire.  Then there are people who are just unaware or blind of other people's feelings.  All of these are insensitives.  What I mean by insensitives is a group of people who do not sense other peoples emotion, and may not acknowledge them.  Have you ever wanted to tell someone, "Hey, I have feelings too?"  If so then you've been dealing with an insensitive.  Insensitives are people.  They are not necessarily evil in nature.  A good insensitive could be your best friend.  I want to spell out what I know what insensitives are like.

Insensitives mostly talk about themselves.  They tend to relate everything to themselves.  This may come across as pure selfishness, but I believe it is the way they can learn about the world around them.  So everything interesting to them is relatable to them.  They may oblige your point of view and be polite, but its not their cup of tea.

Insensitives tend to have love ones for selfish reasons.  They may still live or see daily their parents or children.  They may talk about their family as well.  I believe it's because they get some emotional security out of being around family.  While this may not seem uncommon, insensitives to tend to be around family more than normal or highly sensitive people.

Insensitives have to work at understanding another person's position.  If you have a friend that is an insensitive, you will find that they will try to relate to you by asking questions and engaging in endless conversation.  They may ask your opinions about things or reminisce the past with you.  They need to get understanding via only the five physical senses, which to me is a handicap.  I tend to pity them that way.

One annoying thing that insensitives will do is to be pushy.  This means that their minds are made up and give and take is over.  I find it best to let them be for a while when they get in this mood.  They will return to their inquisitive selves.

This is what I know insenstives are like, that is seemingly selfish, family people,  inquisitive, and pushy.  I have insensitive friends and family members.  I feel that for the most part insensitives can be good people.  Bad ones will try to dominate you.  If genuine respect is there, I don't see any reason why an empath can't have a good friendship with an insensitive.