On Spinning Straw Into Gold
How our sensitivities lead to our gifts
How would you feel if someone said, “you’re very sensitive”?
I bet many of us would take this as slightly critical. Like we should be able to feel less, or handle what we feel better.
But something is shifting.
Google “HSP” and you’ll find a million websites on what it means to be a Highly Sensitive Person, with online quizzes from the thoughtful to the questionable to find out if you are one. Or read Susan Cain’s beautiful work on introversion, which describes it as, in essence, a form of heightened sensitivity (with at least as many gifts in it as challenges). Or consider Mona Delahooke’s work on understanding children’s behavior through the lens of sensory processing, which has transformed how I see young people. I could go on. New ideas are re-mixing our notions of sensitivity.
One idea in particular resonates with me, and is beautifully described by Philip Shepherd in his book Radical Wholeness. What if we saw sensitivity as a raw form of intelligence? And if it is, how could we refine our sensitivities into something more and more useful, perhaps even into our greatest talents?
Consider the sensitivity we refer to as empathy — the ability to feel what others feel. Empathy, in its raw form, is a blessing and a curse. It opens us to the experience of others, but at first there is no way to shut off the incoming feelings. Without tools to process what we sense, to make meaning of it and to contain it within our bodies, those with great empathy are headed for great struggle. I’ve seen it so often among friends, especially those caring for young people, and I’ve struggled with it intensely myself.
Could we spin this straw into gold, turning the gift-curse of empathy into its most useful form? I think so. And because it’s such a common sensitivity among the educators and parents I know, let’s dive into it for a moment. Here are three ways I’ve found so far to try refining raw empathy, though I still have far to go:
Body Work. Increasing our somatic awareness, meaning how we’re aware of signals from the body, can help us refine our empathy. Say you’re with someone in distress or profound anxiety. This may turn into a growing tension within you, building under your awareness until it bursts into your consciousness at a panic-inducing level. Not good. But what if with greater somatic awareness you noticed, for example, that your breathing was becoming short or a muscle was tightening? Great teachers and facilitators do this; it allows them to use their bodies as tuning forks for the well-being of students around them. Then they can respond wisely, before things reach a panic level. The response might be somatic — like deepening breathing or loosening posture —or cognitive, like the strategies below. Either way, your body knows first what’s going on. You can develop this body awareness, and so can your students or children.
Mental Tools: There’s a reason those with high empathy are drawn to learn about psychology. We need psychological tools to survive! And not coincidentally, we become skilled at using these tools for others. When we have trusted and familiar tools, we gain a sense of stability and confidence. For example, tools from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) offer a range of ways to self-soothe when emotions are flaring. Or, tools from the Compassionate Systems Framework guide us to see every behavior we notice as a symptom, with ways to begin looking for the patterns underneath. Mindfulness of course offers a range of options here. Regardless the source, the right tool is a structure strong enough to hold the emotions you sense.
Spiritual Work. Often, it’s our reaction to the feeling of empathy that causes a problem. We see someone suffering, maybe connect it to bad news we’ve read, and suddenly we’ve spun it into a bigger meaning — “the world is going to hell.” The initial jolt of sensing from the outside starts us on a downward spiral. Instead, what if we took the view that the world is perfectly broken, always has been and always will be? This doesn’t mean we become callous to others’ suffering — it lets us hold it wisely, not adding our own panic or fear to an already difficult situation.
The amazing Joanna Macy put it much more beautifully in her book World as Lover, World as Self: “[Compassion] can burn you out, so you need the other—you need insight into the dependent co-arising of all things. With that wisdom you know that it is not a battle between the good guys and the bad guys, for the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. And with that insight, you also know that each action undertaken with pure intent has repercussions throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern.”
These three approaches — body work, mental tools, and spiritual work — are just some of many ways that a highly empathic person might refine their sensitivity into a gift. You’ll know it when that empathy turns into a contribution to others without exhausting yourself. That’s the gold we’re spinning here. A raw sensitivity becoming a refined intelligence.
OK, you might ask, how exactly does this apply in guiding a young person, or with other sensitivities beyond empathy? Here are a few steps to consider:
Be a Mirror: The first step is simply an awareness that a sensitivity may exist. If you can be a gentle, kind mirror, you may be able to help a young person notice something in themselves. Like by saying, “I notice that whenever you’re with friends, you are really clued in to how everyone is feeling and what they may be thinking but not saying.” Or “I notice that it really bothers you when you walk into a messy room.”As you help them see this, speak with the cautious excitement that a sensitivity is not a weakness, far from it. It’s a mysterious clue to a perhaps-undeveloped talent.
Develop a Gift: Rather than trying to find ways to “be less sensitive”, help them find ways to develop their sensitivity. Along the way, this can add the structure needed to manage it with less stress. If they are highly sensitive to visual spaces, easily thrown off by a cluttered one, perhaps they would find it interesting to learn how to design beautiful spaces. And then what if they could redesign the furniture layout in the classroom or in your living room? You’re giving them better ways to understand what they’re noticing, or why certain environments might trigger them, and the chance to explore the insights they may have as a result.
Find the Pause Button: Someone with a sensitivity is someone getting a lot of information about one particular thing, like the smell of a space, or the social atmosphere of a group. That information can be turned into insight, as described above. But it carries an intensity that they need to learn how to manage, or even to pause. Take a kid who is highly introverted — in other words, highly sensitive to social experiences. They may come home from school and want to shut themselves into their room for a few hours. It would be tempting to interpret that as a bad sign (and it could be), but it’s also possible that they need that time to balance out an intensely social day. Their pause button. For each sensitivity, consider how you can help them find a way to “tune” how much stimulation they’re getting from it. Especially, to find ways to turn down the intensity when they need to.
So if these sensitivities could really be refined into gifts, and managed well — could we live in a world where “you’re very sensitive” is a compliment? I think so. We don’t need to be disappointed in ourselves or others for being sensitive. And the fact that we each tune to such different things makes life a lot more interesting. As Philip Shepherd again describes well:
Because each of us is born with a unique set of sensitivities, each of us is uniquely informed about the world. So three people walking into a cocktail party at the same time will experience it differently. One person might notice that the plant in the corner needs water. Another might observe that carnation red is the new trending color in fashion this season. The third might notice the way that Bob is looking at Alice and read into it a burgeoning relationship. None of these observations relies on abstract reasoning, but each displays intelligence in its way of reading the world.1
That’s a world I would like to live in. We are not trying to all be the same. We are gloriously different. So as we support young people, keep an eye out for these sensitivities, even welcome them when they arrive. They may be hints to finding our best contributions to the world.
In other news…
Do What You Love or Die Trying is the hard-to-miss title of a new book by Blake Boles, a fantastic education writer. The book just launched on Kickstarter, and will only be available in hard-copy through Kickstarter. Check it out here. Blake is a friend and frequent source of inspiration, and when he frames the question of the book as “How do you become an adult without sacrificing the spirit of youth?”, I’m sold.
Speaking of books, my book Finding the Magic in Middle School is just a few days away from its one-year anniversary of launch! To my amazement and despite my lack of marketing skill, people seem to be buying it and I’m hearing all the time from parents and teachers who have read it. If you have a middle schooler, check it out and let me know what you think. Here’s to changing the story of middle school!
Shepherd, Philip. Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being. Kindle Edition, Page 113.