A highly sensitive person, or HSP, is someone born with a nervous system that takes in more, and processes it more deeply, than most people’s. The idea comes from the psychologist Elaine Aron, and it describes a normal trait, not an illness. Therapeutic Shamanism sees sensitivity as part of our original human nature, dulled by domesticationDomestication. The process by which, in domesticating other species, we domesticated ourselves. When dated precisely, Domestication begins with the Neolithic era, before the Fall proper, which begins with the first city-state cultures around 4000 BCE. What rewilding works to undo. More about this, and many highly sensitive people find in shamanic work a place where their sensitivity is valued, along with practical ways of not being overwhelmed.
What is a highly sensitive person? #
Someone who notices and feels more. Aron writes: “HSPs are born with a trait that makes them aware of all kinds of subtle messages from outside and inside. It’s not that our eyes or ears are sharper. It’s that we process more deeply the information we receive”.1 Paul Francis’s books list her book The Highly Sensitive Person in their reading.
It is common, and it is not a disorder. A review of the research, by Aron and colleagues, argues that because “nearly one third of the population may be high” in the trait, it is “unlikely that a disorder would be so prevalent under evolutionary pressure.”2 The psychologist Amanda Cassil puts it simply: “being an HSP is not an illness, but it does mean that you have unique needs around sensory input and processing.”3
How does Therapeutic Shamanism see sensitivity? #
As part of who we originally were. Hunter-gatherer peoples “were also clearly cultures of highly sensitive people”, and, drawing on the political scientist James C. Scott‘s book Against the Grain, domestication “literally deadened us and dumbed down our senses”. The evidence from anthropology is thin, though, and this is a good guess, not a proven fact. See What is neurodiversity, and how does Therapeutic Shamanism see it?
Highly sensitive people as such are not discussed, but what happened to sensitivity in general is. The FallThe Fall. The catastrophe at the root of the whole diagnosis: the shift from animist, egalitarian hunter-gatherer life to owning, agricultural Taker culture. In domesticating other species we domesticated ourselves, cutting ourselves off from Mother Earth (Power-loss) and from parts of our own nature (soul-loss). When dated precisely, the Fall begins with the first city-state cultures, around 4000 BCE (Domestication begins earlier, with the Neolithic). A sickness, not our true nature. ‘Fallen culture’ is used interchangeably with Taker culture; the Great Rupture is a looser alternate name. Read the full answer was marked by the left hemisphere of the brain “suppressing the emotional and sensitive right side of the brain.”4 But the sensitivity did not disappear: “the right-brain’s empathic, interconnected and shamanic perceptions are in fact going on all the time. It is just that, in turning away from shamanism we just stopped paying attention to them.”5 Sensitivity is also one of the qualities people send away to fit in, along with “playfulness, creativity, spontaneity, joy, passion, wildness”.6 See What does domestication do to us?
Why can modern life be so hard for highly sensitive people? #
Partly because modern people are harder to be around. Compared with hunter-gatherers, “collectively this makes modern-day people much harder to be around than hunter-gatherers were.” And “there is a base-line level of stress these days that is there in even the most sociable of people.”7
There is also the state of the world. As shamanic practice makes us more aware, “becoming more aware of the state of the middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer, and to what we humans have done to it, can sometimes feel overwhelming and even lead to feelings of despair.”8 This is why gratitude and other ways of meeting despair are part of Therapeutic Shamanism.
Why are so many highly sensitive people drawn to shamanic work? #
Many of the students who come to Therapeutic Shamanism are highly sensitive. Why is not certain, but two things may help. Shamanic work values the right brain’s “empathic, interconnected and shamanic perceptions” instead of dismissing them. And it belongs to a long history in which sensitive people had a place. Aron herself writes that sensitivity is valued “in most cultures living close to the earth, which need their trackers, herbalists, and shamans.”9
What can shamanic work offer a highly sensitive person? #
Support, protection and ways of not being overwhelmed. The relationship with a Power AnimalPower Animal. The Oversoul of a wild species, met as a single Lower-World being and bonded with in a deep, committed, usually lifelong soul-bond of unconditional love. The practitioner’s first and foremost Guide: Panther, not “my panther”. Read the full answer is central: “Your Power Animal, if you pay close attention to it, has your back.”10
Therapeutic Shamanism also teaches about the energy body. Soul-loss and Power-loss leave our energy body weakened, and “a weakened energy body means that other things, ‘intrusionsIntrusion. Something lodged in us that should not be there, having entered through the holes soul-loss and Power-loss leave. Four broad types: unhelpful thought-forms, introjects, foreign-body energetic intrusions, and entity possessions. More about this’, can get into us and cause harm.”11 Healing soul-lossSoul-loss. The sending-away of parts of the self in order to survive: through shock or trauma, or (the chief modern cause) exiling our own parts to fit in. With Power-loss, one of the two root causes of shamanic illness. Read the full answer and Power-lossPower-loss. Disconnection from nature, the web of life and our place in it: like being unplugged from the national grid. One of the two root causes of shamanic illness, healed by reconnection (not by soul retrieval), beginning with the Power Animal bond. Read the full answer is part of what shamanic work is for. See What is an intrusion, and what is extraction?, How are Power-loss, soul-loss and loss of personal power different? and How do embodiment, grounding and the nervous system support healing?
Is “highly sensitive person” a diagnosis? #
No. It is a description of a temperament, and only the person themselves can say whether it fits them. The research is still developing, and there is debate about how sensitivity is best measured. What matters here is not the label but the experience it describes, and finding ways of living well with sensitivity. See Is shamanic work safe if I have a mental health condition?
