Living your yoga: Living with HYPERsensitivity...

It's like straining pasta, but with emotions sifted through layers of skin... like that.

Ouch, I read that one and felt it hit home pretty deeply.

Gaslighting, for me, only became applicable around USA 2016 elections, and I really needed some time to wrap my head around my own definition of feeling this phenomenon within my own life.

Perhaps this content is only relatable to a few readers.

Others, here to drop in and observe. Both welcomed.

A story….

Years ago when my children were younger, I developed an aversion to going to public places with them. It felt overwhelming to be around so many people as where I live is aligned to my own definition of “densely populated area”.

This was also aligned with experiences of attending social events, or any public outing, as no where felt comfortable unless I was at home or at work. 

I didn’t realise at the time what was happening inside my body that was causing me to shut down while in crowded places, only years later did I understand what a label of highly sensitive person meant for my own assignment. 

For a few years, I was operating in an active high functioning depressed mental state and had learned to adapt to this as my baseline normal mental state.

Living in a vacuum of a human shell, operating on a calm, relaxing auto pilot mode on my best days. Mostly medicated and desensitised which yielded on my worst days, a level of unconsciousness resulting in destructive patterns towards myself, or others.

The human desire to keep up with all of society’s demands on us, most of which are programmed with narratives of work harder and do more for others, is not sustainable for proper physical or mental health.

At some point, I realised I no longer wanted to be a human doing, but rather a human being.

I was driven on striving to reach a majority of what I said I would do by the time I was forty, though once I had obtained most of these things, my soul still felt empty and unfulfilled. 

My downfall, was accepting fate instead of living in destiny. I had rationally chosen logic over what my intuition wanted. Because… logic continued to present safe and stable options for me.

In the end, I was performing daily actions mindlessly in order to get by and continue to survive, instead of live life to its fullest. All because it seems like the rational decision to follow.

“Capitalism teaches us we won’t be happy until we have the next best thing. This condition teaches us to live in the future. We are consumed by looking outside of ourselves for happiness. We are taught to not be happy with what we already have.”  - Kathryn Budig

Continuing life this way for a long time caused my senses to first numb, then once untreated for a long period of time, my senses began to overtake my logical, rational thought process as my body entered a hyperactive state on a physical plane. It literally felt like all my emotions were seeping out of the pours of the skin on my physical body. 

A trip to Ikea for me, once painless and often inspiring, turned to managing a heavy task of navigating an abundance of noise, bright lights, stale air, exits that were hard to find, and too many PEOPLE.

Everywhere people, herded like cats through a pre-designed layout that encouraged following others blindlessly. And to top it off, I could smell every scent in the building from the cooked hot dogs to the excess of human skin and body odor. This smell made me physically ill within moments of entering the enclosed building.

Sure a trip to Ikea can be a hassle for anyone. One usually goes with a plan and makes an effort to be as productive as possible. At the time, I used this space as an outing. A visit to the free indoor playground. A cheap lunch that the kids will get excited about. I had a purpose to fill by checking off the shopping list as well as providing entertainment. I planned and made a purpose for the outing.

These trips were not meant to upset my nervous system, though in turn the external stimulation was too overwhelming to my already delicate mental state of pure exhaustion and caused me to feel like I was loosing control of my own surroundings. 

I felt lost, and disoriented. I could feel walls starting to close in by feeling sense of being trapped. I was sensitive to the sounds and visuals I was taking in. The florescent or LED lighting would cause my eyes to burn and water.

One day while being herded along, a voice on the intercom announced my children needed to be picked up from the playground only ten minutes after they were dropped off. They too had a hard time adjusting to the chaotic environment of the playground it seemed. This threw all sorts of kinks in my plan of completing the shopping list for that hour. And now with extra tiny hands to keep track of, plus my time spent on picking up the boxes from the warehouse, while also ensuring I had collected all the items in the shopping areas was limited, or at least now split in half in efficiency.  

Adding more fuel to an unnecessary fire, these feelings of discouragement and frustration compiled and while trying to roll with the punches, I felt my body loosing control. 

It started with my blood pressure dropping quickly, a common thing for me as I already have low blood pressure innately. Usually eating or drinking something quickly helps as I often have snacks and water on me.

Fortunately on this particular event, I was close to the bathroom and managed to make it to the nursing room that Ikea graciously offers mothers. With some simple breath control and cold water splashed on my face, I was able to restore myself back into the present moment.

I was lucky this time. As moving from a heightened state of awareness to dysphoria can happen quite quickly.

The onset is usually the same, starting with centralised chest breathing - a sure bet to an increased heart rate. Adrenaline kicks in and breathing rhythm becomes faster paced. The lightness of an air quality can quickly turn into experiencing stages of feeling hearing fade and/or seeing with blurred vision, or being tunnelled. At worst case, fainting occurs.

Learning to adjust to a hypersensitivity nature hasn’t been easy. For years, I relied on medicines. This served a purpose until it didn’t. Learning how to properly care for my nervous system through mindful based practices such as breath-work and yoga has been the biggest take away; though has taken years to practice and re(de)fine.

The take away for me that has been the most powerful, is practicing present moment awareness.

Perhaps this lesson I've hosted with fellow yoga teacher Stuart Landsee covering basic stretching techniques, accompanied with guided breath-work exercises will help to find your own moments of awareness?

Stuart Landsee, who normally is found soaring off mountain sides in Zion National Park USA, has his own unique style of teaching that is completely different than mine. I can appreciate his views, literally, based in nature. Enjoy his offering of restorative yoga fresh from the autumn Utah mountain side here.

Breathing and Flowing,

Audra