One of the biggest problems on the spiritual path is turning an experience of ourselves into an identity.
I’ve met lots of people who have decided that they ARE highly sensitive people (HSP), empathic, and other things. By turning an experience into an identity, inquiry can go no further. In fact, to question this experience is often met with resistance.
Why?
Because their very state of existence is now believed to be a feeling experience.
They ARE the empath.
And then…
Then people turn it into careers and invest thousands of dollars into it.
To find out that you are not this identity and be so deeply invested in it is deeply humbling and upsetting to the ego.
But when is any ego ever happy about finding out it doesn’t exist?
What Is the Sensitivity Actually About?
Consistently for people who describe themselves in this way, I’ve found that they have significant trauma in their background. What the spiritual world has turned into a spiritual identity is better termed: hypervigilance.
When a person is unsafe throughout parts or all of their childhood or has a significant singular moment of trauma, their body learns to always be on the lookout for a threat.
That’s exhausting.
The common response of constantly being on the lookout is fatigue and exhaustion. Being around people is exhausting because the underlying presumption is that you will be hurt if you aren’t vigilant.
What’s worse is that the ego manufactures threats all the time.
Since most of the time the person isn’t under a real threat, it has to create ideas to justify this sense of threat. Thus, the ego will decide a person, a place, or just an ambiguous “energy” is threatening them. This has led to a whole industry of energy protection/shields and fighting off spirits as well as broken promises, relationships, and job losses/departures.
The person is trying to get to safety, but they are ruining their lives and the lives people around them.
They are spreading suffering.
Letting Go of this Ego Too
The solution requires letting go of the HSP/empath ego identity and doing the work to heal.
As far as the spiritual piece in this puzzle, the work is to figure out the ego issues that have gotten involved to create an identity. In clearing away the attachment to the identity, deeper healing can happen with trained somatic specialists, who can help your body release and rebalance so that your body is at peace.
