Why? What’s so important about high sensitivity that it warrants this much attention? The population of the earth is close to 8 billion people. It is estimated that 20% of the population are highly sensitive. That is 1,600,000,000 people… 1.6 BILLION!. I happen to think 20% is a low/conservative number and would estimate it closer to 25% but that’s simply my own observation. This number reflects humans only, a much higher percentage of animals are thought to be highly sensitive.
With high sensitivity, as with most things, there is a really wide range of manifestations, dimensions and degrees of sensitivity. One person may be sensitive to noise but has little issue with light or touch. Alternately, there are people who are extremely sensitive in all areas. Plus, I’ve included Aspergers or anyone on the spectrum, which brings a host of other challenges.
So again, why is this important? First, we live in an increasingly noisy world - both visually and auditorily, and if 20% of the population is sensitive, that is 1 in every 5 people, it’s a big chunk of the population. There is also a lack of knowledge around high sensitivity, although Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is being talked about in some circles.
But I have a theory… I have worked in the design field for longer than I’d care to admit, and there’s something different about artists. When I say ‘artists’, I don’t mean just painters or graphic designers or watercolourists, I mean artists of every type: musicians, actors, dancers, writers and so on. I’ve been teaching graphic design for well over 15 years and while design can be taught, it doesn’t make you a designer, per se. I can teach colour theory, I can teach you the elements of design and how to correctly apply the principles, but I can’t teach you that innate ‘thing’ that resides deep inside you. That thing that makes you swoon when you see colours, the thing that makes you just a teeny bit lightheaded when a painting touches your soul. The internal vibrations that every musician plays to or the natural movement that comes from deep within a dancer. These things are innate and I think they are what we call talent, inspired, brilliant and moving. I believe being highly sensitive is a superpower.
“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive…. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or building or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.” ~ Pearl S. Buck
As with anything in this world, there is balance - the yin and yang, opposing energies, the duality of life. For to live in this world as a highly sensitive, in order to see images that overpower you with their beauty, you must also see the dark, the ugly, the repugnant.
To live with such duality, we must find defenses, a way to cope with all the incoming data, a way to filter the information so we don’t drown - and it’s our very superpower that saves us. By creating, composing or performing, we are constructing a shield against the harshness of the world, a shield to protect our sensitivity, a shield to protect our superpower. A shield.
This is where my research begins, to discover if we do, indeed, create shields, what forms they take and how they protect our innate sensitivity.
Please note: what I describe here is my own experience and while many may experience the same or similar sensations, many of you may not. Everyone’s experience of being an HSP is unique and the more we can understand, the more we can support one another.