Remember our recent Tip on intense pain? I just have to share with you something that Barbro Holström of Sweden wrote to me afterward.
"Last week my husband had what the doctor called trigeminusneuralgia (I think it is the same word in English). A really severe pain in the face, not even morphine helped. After a couple of days with this really hard pain he focused on the pain (I have nothing to lose, he said), and when he accepted and stayed with the pain it started to disappear!! And did not come back. What came instead was pain in a tooth and that was the root (in a double meaning) of the pain. So the body took away the pain that wasn’t needed to heal what was wrong and kept the pain that was necessary to make my husband aware of the need to go to a dentist. I think this is really wonderful!"
I do too!
Is There Such a Thing as a "Sensitive Person"?
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Ian writes: "I’ve been having regular conversations with various people lately about being a ‘sensitive’ person. This seems to have various meanings but in general is regarded as negative or an unfortunate trait. Since Focusing is all about sensing, I wondered again if it could be helpful for ‘sensitive’ people… if only in helping them cope with everyone’s negative perceptions about being ‘sensitive’!!"
Dear Ian:
I wonder if you are familiar with the work of Elaine Aron, who has written a whole series of books addressed to the "Highly Sensitive Person." Here is how the HSP is defined:
"Highly sensitive people (HSPs), who make up some 20 percent of the population, are individuals who both enjoy and suffer from a finely tuned neurological system. This condition can be a gift, but, until HSPs master their sensitive nervous systems, they operate in a constant state of overstimulation. Conditions that most of us ignore completely overwhelm the HSP: bright light, loud sounds, and strong smells. More importantly, HSPs are also very sensitive to their internal worlds. They tend to be deeply affected by pain, both emotional and physical. The emotional demands of relationships and inevitable consequences of change often leave them reeling."
People I know who have read Aron’s work have been greatly relieved to have this explained and spelled out. And she also provides some strategies to help. Of course you might not want to label yourself as a type of person… and at the same time, knowing that other people face similar issues can be comforting and empowering.
So if you are such a person, it’s not surprising that you would wonder if being more aware of feelings might be a mixed blessing. Focusing however is not just being more aware of feelings. It is being aware of them from a perspective of spacious equanimity, curiosity and openness. From there, something quite different can happen. There is a shift of identification. Rather than BEING the one in me who feels overwhelmed and overrun, I am BEING the space that can hold it all.
It’s not only feeling and sensing that matters here, it’s how and in what kind of inner space we do that feeling and sensing.
And I think you’re quite right that Focusing can be helpful for "sensitive" people. One way is what you said: to deal with other people’s negative judgments, and our reactions to them. Another: to discern and trust our own needs.
For example: for a "sensitive" person, a noisy party may be unbearably loud and confusing. You want to leave, but your friends say "Come on, don’t be silly!" Focusing a bit at that moment will let you find out "No, this really is too much for me."
Or, if you have to stay in the difficult situation–for example, an airport–really acknowledging your own feelings and reactions, instead of you saying "Don’t be silly" to yourself, can be greatly easing.
I love the way Focusing lets us respect what is so… and that makes it possible to be and do more than before, without effort or pushing.