WHAT IS SENSITIVITY SHAME©?
Humanity's self-destruction is deeply rooted in sensitivity shame© and disdain of sacred feminine power:
life-giving energies that are creative, intuitive, interconnected, Earth-aligned, nurturing, vulnerable, and mysterious.
- Loraine Van Tuyl
Many highly sensitive people (HSP) realize as early as in kindergarten (me!) that something is not quite right. I shed more tears than my siblings, friends, and cousins combined, and was flat-out told that these tears were ‘crocodile tears’ and not real. Why? Because they lacked ‘good reason’ — as if feelings ran on logic. In grade school, HSP like me often get teased for being cry babies. I was even sent to the principal's office so she could address my excessive crying.
Sensitivity Stress© and Sensitivity Shame© — terms I coined to describe the debilitating and distressing blocks and blindspots commonly experienced by HSP— are the result of internalized neuroformative standards and pressures to perform and produce to earn entry in a social group. When we fall short, we blame ourselves for being "troubled," "a loser," "abnormal," and "flawed" and become terrified of imagined and real social rejection. We have trouble seeing the big picture - that we're carrying an extra heavy load of (societal) baggage that needs to be put down first.
THE TRUTH: HSP are prime scapegoat targets because our sensitivity is threatening the collective shadow and status quo. Our sheer existence pokes at deeply buried shame around our human vulnerability that's rooted in centuries of imbalanced patriarchal norms and toxic masculinity. These forces are doubling-down and pushing back hard because of the fear our power and light evoke.
THE RESULT – Not only do HSP experience all feelings, especially shame, more intensely and deeply than most, we are also more self-conscious and "shame-prone" according to Elaine Aron compared to non-HSP, around a whole rainbow of issues. What's worse in my opinion, we have adopted a distinct and very sophisticated flavor of shame –sensitivity shame© – that specifically attacks and sabotages our core self and authenticity - and makes us believe that we are doing it to ourselves. If anyone wants proof how crazy and volatile we are, we got boat loads.
HSP often grow up being the scapegoat or the black sheep in a family or a social group. Our intuition may cause us to unwittingly or clumsily expose the shadow in others in defense by pushing buttons, ruffling feathers, or playing devil's advocate. We hoped that calling out the problem would make it stop but our unskilled efforts were often not well-received.
Throughout our lives, we receive explicit or implicit messages that we are "a hot mess," "overreacting," "too intense," "dramatic," "stirring chaos," "too much or not enough," and "over-the-top", bombarding our brain with beliefs that we are bad, abnormal, defective, and inherently unlovable or inadequate. All this gets woven into our sense of self. Consequently, we become distrustful and even begin to hate our true nature, and sometimes completely abandon our natural genius to fit in.
A different outcome only becomes possible when we realize that being highly sensitive is a super power and offers us many more gifts than challenges but these need to be carefully unpacked, understood, and integrated in alignment with our authentic self, our fullest potential, and the wonder-filled uncertainty and mystery of life.
'I think of the first moment of shame as an initiation into human society. Your capacity to feel the horrible pain of shame has been turned on, like burning yourself for the first time. The pain will make you try your hardest not to feel it again, just as you will try never to burn yourself again. I am convinced that HSPs are more shame-prone than others. '
- Elaine Aaron (Click here for full article HSP & Shame)
'Toxic shame is not something we are born with. It comes from the negative external messages and cues we’ve been exposed to that become applied to part of our identities. That shame may come from a religion, culture, or upbringing.'
- Erika Morris, JD, MA, LMFT, creative & queer HSP & therapist
Our self-advocacy becomes a layered and complex 3-D puzzle that we start working on long before we can say the word "oppression" and understand why we feel bad for experiencing healthy and normal human emotions. Fortunately, our emotions and energy are more stubbornly linked to a truth that can puncture and see through the illusion of patriarchal sucker punches and low blows. We feel compelled to follow and honor this truth because of the instant relief that reconnecting to it offers. It's the reason why so many of us are tripling-down with tools and resources to support the potent potential of our sensitivity as a super power and bad ass change catalyst (Brené Brown's TED TALK - the Power of Vulnerability).
Sensitivity Shame© can disguise itself as SORRY, NO ACCESS or BREAK FOR YOU, as a deep-seated insecurity, social anxiety, self-consciousness, self-loathing, impostor syndrome, and/or fear and confirmation of failure, not deserving good, or rejection. It is hands-down the biggest confidence block, relationship blindspot, and opportunity cost that hold big-hearted BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color), HS healers, and women leaders back from realizing their fullest potential.
Soul Authority composts and transforms debilitating Sensitivity Shame© and Sensitivity Stress© into fuel that energizes our path of liberation. By honoring healthy anger and grief associated to the loss of our true nature and authentic self, we are able to realign our energetic boundaries, first as an inside job, then with all the energies around us. This greatly reduced our proneness to Sensitivity Shame© and Sensitivity Stress© and cultivates the agency and audacity we need to reclaim our true HS self and Own our Natural Genius Zone®.
SOUL AUTHORITY TIP: When sacred anger and energetic boundary work is avoided, it grows into an insurmountable block that makes HSP very susceptibility to manipulative "love bombing" or "admiration bombing" (feasts and famine of this) by narcissists, who are well-known for being the least interested in transforming their own shame and ego-defenses and struggle with grandiosity. Because of sensitivity shame® (lack of self-trust), self-blame, and bleeding-heart tendencies, they are also prone to having a hard time discerning between carrying vs caring and often end up taking (grandiose) responsibility for other people's unhealed wounds and/or being taken for granted.