Does Being More Sensitive Mean You’re More Spiritual?

There is an assumption I hear often. Sometimes it is said explicitly and sometimes it is implied: the more sensitive someone is, the more spiritually developed they must be.

Perhaps someone feels everyone else’s emotions and calls themselves an empath. Someone else becomes overwhelmed in crowded places and attributes it to being highly energetically sensitive. Another person might have strong intuitive impressions, feel dramatic shifts in different environments, or find certain people almost intolerable to be around because of their energy.

These experiences can be very real. But I think we make a mistake when we assume that the intensity of the experience tells us how spiritually developed someone is.

Sensitivity is a capacity. It is not necessarily an accomplishment.

Some people are naturally extraordinarily perceptive. They notice subtle changes in facial expression and tone. They register the emotional atmosphere of a room immediately. Their nervous systems respond strongly to stimulation. Some also experience what they understand as energetic or intuitive perception.

A person can have all of these capacities without having developed much ability to work with them or very much spiritual understanding at all.

Spiritual cultures sometimes treat increased sensitivity as though it were inherently desirable and a sign of spiritual progress in and of itself. We talk about opening intuition, becoming more receptive, increasing energetic awareness, developing psychic perception. The underlying assumption is that more perception means more spiritual development.

But if becoming increasingly sensitive also means becoming increasingly overwhelmed by other people, unable to tolerate ordinary environments, afraid of picking up negative energy, or dependent upon constantly protecting oneself from what is around them, it is worth questioning what is actually developing, or perhaps what is not developing.

 

Being affected is not the same as being aware

I think this is one of the places where we need a more sophisticated understanding of spiritual development.

Being deeply affected by something can certainly tell us that we are sensitive to it. It doesn’t necessarily tell us that we understand what we are perceiving, and it doesn’t tell us that we know how to work with it.

Someone else’s agitation may register immediately. A person might feel the atmosphere of a difficult room before knowing anything about what has happened there. They may notice that their own state changes significantly around particular people.

There can be useful information in these experiences. But if someone else’s agitation automatically becomes the sensitive person’s agitation, there are now two things happening: they perceived something, and they were affected by what they perceived.

This becomes particularly important when people begin organizing their understanding of themselves around being an empath or a highly sensitive person. An experience that initially helps explain something real can gradually become an identity: I absorb other people’s emotions. I can’t be around certain people. Crowds are too much for me. I have to be careful because I pick up everything.

Again, some of this may accurately describe someone’s experience. The problem is what happens when the explanation becomes the end of the process.

If a person believes their difficulty is simply the inevitable consequence of being unusually spiritually sensitive, there isn’t much room for development. The world is overwhelming because they are open, and their primary options become withdrawal, avoidance, or protection.

I don’t think that is where the conversation needs to end. Being more affected doesn’t necessarily mean being more aware. And being less affected doesn’t necessarily mean becoming less sensitive.

In fact, spiritual development may sometimes look like becoming less affected by things a person continues to perceive quite clearly.

 

What happens when capacity catches up with sensitivity?

A person may still notice immediately that someone is agitated without becoming agitated themselves. They may recognize that an environment feels chaotic and retain their own center while they are in it. They may experience a strong energetic or intuitive impression without having to act on it immediately.

The perception hasn’t disappeared. Something else has developed around it.

There is more stability, more ability to observe, and more choice about what happens next.

The aim isn’t to stop perceiving what is around us. Nor is it to convince ourselves that energetic sensitivity isn’t real.

The aim is to develop greater clarity so that sensitivity can remain while the capacity to work with it grows.

There are people and environments that affect us. Some situations are emotionally chaotic. Some interactions are genuinely depleting. Within spiritual traditions, there are also teachings about energetic influences and about the importance of knowing how to work with and protect one’s own energy.

But there is a significant difference between having practices that protect and strengthen a person and developing a worldview in which that person experiences themselves as perpetually vulnerable to everything around them.

If every difficult interaction becomes something a person has “picked up,” every uncomfortable environment is interpreted as being filled with negative energy, and every change in their internal state is attributed to an external energetic cause, sensitivity can actually begin to interfere with discernment.

We need to know how to consider more than one possibility.

What someone is feeling may have something to do with the person in front of them. That person may be triggering something that belongs to them. They may simply be tired, overstimulated, anxious, or having a perfectly ordinary emotional response. And sometimes there may be an energetic dimension to what they are experiencing.

Spiritual maturity, as I understand it, includes becoming increasingly capable of working with those distinctions.

 

Why I value the foundation of Empower Thyself

This is one of the reasons I value the training in Empower Thyself.

The emphasis isn’t simply on becoming more open.

People are given practices for working with their own energy: clearing it, strengthening it, protecting it, directing it, and becoming more conscious of their own energetic state. These are practices that are worked with consistently, rather than something someone reaches for only after an experience has already overwhelmed them.

When a person regularly works with their own energy, they become more familiar with themselves. They begin to recognize more quickly when their state has changed. And because they have something practical to do when it does, the experience doesn’t have to stop at I can’t handle this because I am sensitive.

Instead, there is the possibility of saying, I am sensitive. I have a better understanding of what I am perceiving, and I know how to work with it.

Sometimes a person clears themselves and the feeling disappears. Sometimes something remains and deserves further attention. Sometimes what becomes apparent is that the experience was connected to their own emotional material. Over time, they develop a much more informed relationship with their sensitivity because they aren’t simply interpreting what they feel. They are practicing, observing, and learning from what happens.

For someone who already experiences themselves as highly sensitive, this can be a game-changer and can open up a great deal of potential.

It changes what sensitivity can be used for.

Instead of primarily being something a person needs to manage or protect themselves from, sensitivity can become information. Something they notice. Something they can evaluate. Something they may choose to respond to without automatically being overtaken by it.

Spiritual development isn’t measured simply by how much someone can perceive. It also has to include what they are capable of doing with what they perceive.

For someone who is highly sensitive, the answer may not be to close that sensitivity down. And it may not be to keep trying to open further.

The next stage may be developing the strength, discernment, and skill to work with what is already there.

For people who have spent much of their lives feeling affected by other people’s energy or trying to protect themselves from what they pick up, Empower Thyself offers a different place to begin: learning to work more intentionally with their own energy and developing a stronger foundation for their spiritual life.

 

[Learn More About Empower Thyself]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those who have attained the highest initiation of Ipsissimus have demonstrated exceptional dedication, service, and spiritual mastery within the lineage. Appointed by the Third Order, they serve as master teachers, lineage leaders, and custodians of specialized areas of knowledge, helping to preserve, strengthen, and advance the work of the Modern Mystery School around the world.

The following Governing Ipsissimas and Ipsissimi anchor immense Light and provide leadership in service to the lineage of King Salomon.