In her book, Personal Boundaries for Highly Sensitive People, author and writing coach Grace Kerina says something really interesting about how she talks with her highly sensitive clients about sensitivity.
She says:
“Because the word sensitive has multiple associations, some of which are used as snubs (“You’re too sensitive”), I like to bring in the word sensing, which can have less charge for some people. We are highly sensing people. We sense the world with sensitivity.”
I just loved this! And I think it’s much more than just semantics or saying the same thing in a different way.
When I think of the term highly sensitive person, sometimes, it feels more like a noun, something fixed. It makes me feel like someone to whom things happen. When I think of a highly sensing person, it feels more active, as if I am an antenna poised to receive signals. It makes me think of the registering of nuances and catching of subtleties that I think is a big part of sensitivity.
Of course, I am so grateful that the term highly sensitive person exists in the first place.
It’s a result of Dr. Elaine Aron’s groundbreaking work on sensitivity. And it has helped me and countless others come home to ourselves and not be so divided against what’s so essential about us.
But all words and all terms are inherently limited. And sometimes, we have to pick up different words and experiment with the new lens that they offer.
Grace’s “highly sensing person” makes me think less about my emotional sensitivity (which is a big part of me, but which can become tricky, complicated territory) and more about the sensitivity I have to picking up on nuances. It makes me think of the fact that I should position my antenna proactively in exactly those environments that I am interested in, and that there are other times when I can disconnect and stop receiving signals.
Like her other idea, “I am built for depth, not speed as a highly sensitive person,” a thought that resonates deep within my bones and that I talk about here, I loved this new elaboration! It made me think of how we can find new paths into the forests of our psyches.
If words feel like a barrier to you in accepting or understanding your sensitivity, I hope you experiment with a different lens, whether this or something else. It’s very possible that this may help you see things differently & illuminate different corners of your vast, unexplored terrain.
Find out more about Grace here on her site. She also writes fiction under the name Alice Archer.
Ritu Kaushal is the author of the book The Empath’s Journey and a Silver Medal Awardee at the Rex Awards, co-presented by the United Nations in India. Find more about Ritu HERE.
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