HSPs and the Inverted Hierarchy of Needs

This week, I want to share something that has been a spark of fire and insight in my own journey as a highly sensitive person (HSP). It comes from Ane Axford’s work.

Ane is a fellow HSP and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who works in different ways to bring joy and light to the world. Like many other sensitive creatives, she doesn’t like being boxed in and wears many different hats.  She describes it like this: “I do therapeutic 1-1 work, I do groups, I do retreats, I work with horses, I design, I coach, I help people start and strengthen businesses, I start businesses, I ride bikes, I live in Salt Lake City in Utah, I travel, I do project management and production, I write, I speak, I teach. I do things that change the way we use sensitivity.” 

I happened upon Ane’s work a few years ago, and I think, you, like me, will love and appreciate her beautiful work, her insights and what she has to say about accepting our own true selves as HSPs.

Highly sensitive people have a different, inverted hierarchy of needs.

Like me, maybe, you learnt about traditional theories, such as the popular Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, at some point in your life. Basically, Abraham Maslow’s theory says that as people, we first have to satisfy lower-level needs in order to move on to higher-level ones. So, at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid are physiological needs. Once we have fulfilled this level, we then move on to fulfilling needs for safety and love and belonging. Only after these needs are met and satiated do people go on to satisfying their “higher-level needs,” such as the need for self-actualization or transcendence.

As a sensitive person growing up, I learnt about this theory sometime in my teens. Because I tried so hard and for so long to be exactly like others, to “be normal” and because I internalized the message that there was something wrong about me, it never quite occurred to me that I am intrinsically different in the way I approach the world.

What I need and what motivates me is not the same as what a lot of people seem to need and are motivated by.

I chanced upon this article by Ane Axford on Tiny Buddha a few years ago in which she talks about how HSPs have an inverted hierarchy of needs. Reading it felt like finding another piece of the puzzle. If you are a sensitive person caught up in the struggle of trying to be like others but never quite feeling moved by what moves them, then what Ane has to say will resonate deeply with you.

HSPs develop in a different way as compared to other people.

Ane tells us: “I discovered that highly sensitive people seem to develop backwards compared to traditional theories. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs states that in order to develop as people, we must meet certain needs in a certain order, starting with physiological needs.

Well, I find that HSPs actually start at the top with transcendence needs and work down to the physiological needs last.”

She goes on:

“As a highly sensitive person, I am starting out with all this raw sensation at the transcendent level. It is up to me to self-actualize it and bring it into my body to feel it there, then bring it to thought and belief, and on down the levels to get a physiological manifestation.

And, it is so easy to just stay at the top, to stay in my head with it.

What a revelation to realize that there is nothing “wrong” with me, and all my thinking. It’s just the way I am built. And, I just hadn’t gone far enough with what I was sensing. I don’t start out at the physiological level, and I am not meant to!” 

This made so much sense to me then, and it resonates with me now. These words many different things to me.

Of course, physical needs are important for everyone, HSP or not. But I think the so-called higher level needs, such as the need to find meaning and self-actualize is especially strong in highly sensitive people. We are not as okay hanging out at the lower-level if it does not take into account the higher level needs in this pyramid. For example, I think it’s much harder for me to do things that are not meaningful than it is for many other people. So, bringing meaning into everything I do, even the mundane, might be the only truly effective way for me to get things done.

Another thing: Because we pick up so much raw, unformed information, we are not oriented in the same way as non-HSPs. We can become overwhelmed with all this sensory input if we just get stuck in our heads and don’t bring these sensations down into our bodies.

Understanding the difference between sensations and emotions can help us as sensitive people.

Ane says: “Your sensitive nervous system can pick up on other people’s emotions, the weather, lighting, sounds, smells, and more. I think of the human body like a vessel for receiving information, and your nervous system is your antennae bringing in that information. You can then process it in your body with your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions.” 

So, first, we have to understand the difference between a sensation and emotion.

“A sensation is neutral sensory information in your body (butterflies in stomach, tension in shoulders, pit in stomach). An emotion is a personal response to a sensation (I personally feel scared about this).” 

Once we understand this difference, we have to allow ourselves to engage with sensations without that automatic overlay of emotion.

Ane gives this example: “I feel my body shaking right now, and that is okay. I can shake.” Rather than judging it by saying, “Why am I shaky right now? What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t be nervous now!”

Of course, this is easier said than done for many of us. If we have been shamed about aspects of our sensitivity, then we have that story playing in our head almost instantly. As soon as that shaky sensation comes up, we feel that something is wrong with our bodies. Why are we so weak?  Why can’t we just go through life in that stable, unmoved way that other people seem to manage?

But the thing is, the real reason we can’t do this is because we are not made that way. Our nervous systems picks up a lot. The containers of our body get overfilled. If we focus on the sensation, we have the chance to discharge what’s inside it. That helps us move the sensations and feelings inside the vessel of our own body. Once this energy is processed, it’s almost as if whatever information the sensation brings becomes usable. It becomes part of our bodies.

Ane Axford’s inverted model illustrates fundamental differences in the way HSPs orient themselves in the world.

It tells us that our heads are often in the clouds, not in a always-problematic way, but in the way that makes us aware of sensory information around us. By engaging with sensations, we can then process this information, and take the second step that we so often miss. The healthy way in which I engage with sensory overload is through some form of creativity. As a sensitive creative, dance helps me stamp out my anger. Painting helps not just channel what’s coming up for me, it also fills me up and nourishes me.

But when I don’t do these things, my body combusts, develops creaky sounds. It splutters. It stalls.

I need practices that help process all that I am receiving. Questioning why I need these things when others don’t is crazy.

Everybody has different needs.

Ane Axford’s model also validates what we, ourselves, might have felt. Keeping one foot in front of the other for too long without their being some intrinsic meaning in what we are doing just doesn’t work for HSPs. Without that meaning, every step feels wooden, weighed down. Again, if we compare ourselves to others who can do certain things without needing this feeling fueling them forward, we will always come up short.

But if we realize that we are not them and they are not us, we can be different. We are different people living in different skins.

We have a right to be ourselves and to own our needs.

Ane’s model feels very important to me. What about you? Do you resonate with it? Does it make sense? If it does, how might it help you re-frame your own life in a different way?