Intuition and visionaries
The world may not be as black and white as we have been conditioned to think. In every movie we see from the time we are children, there is this struggle between good and bad, right and wrong, this or that. We learn early on that being different or sensitive is harder, and in fact, perhaps wrong. We reflect and assess things with a more careful processing of information. By reflecting on everything, we sort things into finer distinctions. Dr. Aron likens this to the machines that grade fruit by size: “Highly sensitive people sort into ten sizes while others sort into two or three.” The greater awareness of the subtle tends to make us more intuitive, which simply means picking up and working through information in a semiconscious or unconscious way.
As a child, my bedroom was adjacent to the living room where my father would watch TV with the volume turned up to some ridiculous number. I found the distant mumbling of MASH reruns through the wall to be overwhelming, and what I would describe as my version of “sound torture.” There weren’t many places I could go to avoid the sounds and feelings I was experiencing in my family’s small house, so I retreated inward and escaped into my own world of thoughts stirrings in my head, thinking about the day when I could get away. I learned how to dull my senses to cope with the over stimulation early on.
By being highly sensitive and intuitive, I realized that I was pre-wired to pick up on all of the subtleties that others may have missed. My finely tuned antenna picked up on all of the feelings in others, even those emotions that they may have wanted to hide from others or themselves, or that they were not even aware that they were sharing. Body language, facial expressions, tone of speech and words selected were like puzzle pieces to the overarching experience for me. I found that I was able to know when others were lying or when their behavior was inconsistent with their words. This incongruity confused me, and for years I had to teach myself how to process something that I just innately knew to be true, while also receiving information to the contrary. This duality and the understanding of challenging the status quo will become an important theme that I would learn to understand better later in life.
Since roughly 20% of our population are highly sensitive or intuitive, we are the ones who evolutionarily have been on the alert for danger, new food, the needs of the young and the sick. Human HSPs in particular, more so than other species, are extremely important because we can imagine POSSIBILITIES. We are acutely aware of the past and the future. Necessity is the mother of invention, and HSPs must spend far more time trying to invent solutions to human problems just because they are more sensitive to hunger, cold, insecurity, exhaustion and illness.
If we take a step back and think about the HSPs that we know, these people tend to be visionaries, highly intuitive, artists, inventors, as well as more conscientious, cautions and wise. What do John Lennon, Einstein, Martin Luther King, Thoreau and Walt Disney all have in common? You guessed it - they are all HSPs. For the Game of Thrones fans, I believe Tyrion Lannister would qualify as a HSP. Think of how important these types of people are – often serving as advisors, insisting that we stop and think. Think a “King’s Hand” of today’s time. Imagine the possibilities of a collective effort between those of us with these abilities!
“And it tries, I think with growing success in modern times, to direct the wonderful, expansive energy of their society away from aggression and domination. Better to use that energy for creative inventions, exploration, and protection of the planet and the powerless.” - Dr. Aaron.
