Architecture of Meaning

Cultivating Meaningful Engagement for the Highly Sensitive Person

Imagine if we relabeled the hypochondriac.
Instead we could speak of the medical field that is blind to fields of energy and subtle awareness. We could speak about the highly sensitive nervous system of the patient.We could enroll these patients in training programs to learn to understand energy fields and ways to work with their subtle levels of awareness.

Hypochondria may be the state of worrying about minor health issues. It is also certain that many people who have been labeled hypochondriacal are highly aware individuals who are attuning to levels of information unavailable to most.

The chronic anxiety, self doubt and high level of inner criticism that claim the free will of many HSPs are all states that can be effectively addressed with therapy. Anyone who understands their HSP nature to mean that these traits are part of the given terrain, are misunderstanding the possibilities. While being an HSP may tend to tilt one in the direction of these experiences -these experiences are not indelible parts of the picture….

Deep work - transformative work - is limited when one is struggling with chronic anxiety. The anxiety indicates that the system is not feeling safe. Whether this is anxiety is a result of childhood trauma and/or a result of living with a highly sensitive nervous system, addressing the anxiety is one of the first steps to gaining greater freedom in one’s life. This is the work to be done with a skilled therapist.

The resources available on topics of healing continue to proliferate. Searching out topics on www.amazon.com, or browsing shelves in a bookstore to see what jumps out at you are great ways to find what you need at any time. Here is a short selection of resources that I consider to be a kind of backbone to reading on the topic of healing.

…Part of the healing work is to identify if something is not working in the interaction. Often, the anticipation of expressing some dysfunction to the practitioner evokes fear in the client. A client often fears that sharing what is not working will put the relationship at risk.

The client’s childhood trauma often involved splitting from oneself in order to get love. The predicament of deciding whether one continues to see an unconscious healer, (or a practitioner who is causing some harm), in order to “get help”, or if one will put that relationship at risk by stating one’s needs, is a repetition of the childhood dilemma….

In a time where externalities demand more and more attention, it can seem counter-intuitive to focus inside. However, if the future holds more instability in weather (not less), then the requirement to resolve ancient wounds so that we may be neutral in present and demanding circumstances seems more pressing than ever. When the internal landscape lacks alignment, then the external causes of disequilibrium and stress become exponentially overwhelming.