Our perceptions about what we see and hear are influenced by the beliefs we hold. Sometimes feelings come up about what we think we know to be true that do not seem to match what is happening.
There is an incongruence between our rational thinking brain and our feelings. When this happens, we want to resolve the difference.
The tendency is for us to repress any feelings that do not logically fit the situation. Most of us have been conditioned to believe what we see and hear, over what we feel.
This conditioning is like a computer “program” that has been installed into us from an early age. Depending on your family, you may have been taught to keep your feelings to yourself if they do not match what others want you to feel.
Even what we see, and the meanings we attach to what we see, is influenced and interfered with by this programming. Many of the core beliefs you hold did not originate from your own mind.
Any feelings about yourself which are negative were programmed into you. Shame and feeling that you deserve to be blamed for things was programmed into you.
Not listening to your own feelings was programmed into you. People that perceive things very differently from the rest of their family are often forced to alter their perceptions.
Society tends to discourage allowing your feelings and intuition to guude you. If you were brought up in an emotionally abusive environment then you were trained that there are consequences for trying to have your feelings validated.
Highly sensitive people are scapegoated by abusive families. They are often criticized or mocked by society. The pain of being rejected can make highly sensitive people shut down emotionally.
Highly sensitive people, empaths and anyone who perceives the world differently than they are told to, are treated harshly by many others. The ones who like the status quo to remain in place, without being tampered with, highly dislike anyone pointing out faults in the system of thought that are being maintained by the group.
Many people are able to go along with the crowd, even if it involves a shared psychosis…meaning that someone created a narrative that is not true and told everone that is was true….and out of fear of rejection, everyone followed along. Over time peoplle who blindly follow others, begin to trust that their own perceptions are not real.
You cannot see anything that conflicts with your core beliefs, if those beliefs are firmly wired into your subconscious brain. You will only see, hear and perceive things in your environment that make sense with your beliefs.
It is not the conscious beliefs that really drive us, but it is the subconscious beliefs. Your subconscious holds certain things to be true and others to be either impossible or highly unlikely.
In emotionally abusive, and otherwise abusive households, the child that resists accepting the narratives that the abuser creates, is scapegoated and told they are “difficult” or that they are mentally disturbed. No one acknowledges your perspective or the fact that your feelings matter.
Maybe you grew up only to find yourself in situations with toxic people, that played out this scenario of you being invalidated and unheard over and over again.
You were programmed to see these things as proof that there is something wrong with you.
There isn’t anything innately wrong with you. Your heightened perceptions about the feelings and intentions of other people are a gift. A gift you may have cursed a time or two…..but a gift nonetheless.
The more you try to act like and be like other people, the more miserable you will be. Highly sensitive, empathic people have a strong need to be authentic.
You must embrace your authentic self without shame. You do not have to feel weird or out of place.
There is an impor purpose that only you can fill. You can learn to tell the difference between what you “are supposed to” perceive, and what you actually do perceive.
Listen to your feelings and let them guide you.
GentleKindness 