The Need to Share, an HSP Issue

OK, this one is a bit subtle; I got a huge insight last night about how easily we can attach to sharing what insights we have as HSP, as empaths, as intuitives with rich inner worlds and pictures.

So what's the issue, you may be wondering. Well, I think we have such a strong drive to share because often as children and in our earlier adult years, we are marginalized and people don't take what we have to say seriously in general, until we discover the HSP community. So as HSP, especially introverted ones, it's all too easy to withdraw, close up, not share. So when we get past this, it feels so freeing. To some extent this is a good thing.

The problem comes in when we feel the need to express so strongly, we stop listening; we don't pay attention to the subtler things. We give too freely and don't allow people to find their own solutions different from ours. After all we see a rich picture all too clearly and in many layers. People however need to go through the journey of learning on their own from experience, even painful ones. Our insights are valid, but we must remember this as guides and examples. We must relearn this lesson with each new level of growing and reframing we reach for that new view seems so vast, so right.

There is the flip side, the wish to hide and not share.
Share your thoughts on both here.

For me, this was not a problem on forums, but more live, in real time, interacting on an ongoing basis. I didn't care if they took the advice so much, it's more after awhile there was resentment that so much was given, they felt they couldn't learn on their own and the need was there to do so, mistakes, pain and all. It's a bit embarrassing because I learned long ago not to make this mistake.

Just sharing, even without attachment to how it's received is in itself the problem.

melodiccolor wrote:
Well, I think we have such a strong drive to share because often as children and in our earlier adult years, we are marginalized and people don't take what we have to say seriously in general, until we discover the HSP community. So as HSP, especially introverted ones, it's all too easy to withdraw, close up, not share.  So when we get past this, it feels so freeing.  To some extent this is a good thing.

I notice that HSP's share regardless if they want to, believe they are, or not. It can be the simplest thing. For example most recently, a thread is started in a youth-hsp group, where people are to tag people they want to date in the group. This causes a girl to write "Nobody has tagged me yet" three days later. And she herself hasn't tagged anyone. So I ask her why she doesn't tag anyone, and she says "Well, I don't want to date anyone." Yet-- she wants others to want to date her. I didn't keep calling her out on it, but she's written alot of stuff that just triggers me, because she's inconsistent and she's not aware of how she's using her HSP, how much she's revealing, and how she tries to hide it from others. It's interesting. I think the problem lies with her trying to hide, yet at the same time, feeling like she really must share. It becomes a form of half-hearted sharing, and it means she doesn't want to take responsibility for what she is sharing.

melodiccolor wrote:
The problem comes in when we feel the need to express so strongly, we stop listening;  we don't pay attention to the subtler things.

I notice I pour my heart out. And then I start to listen afterwards. And then I pour my heart out again. I see what you mean though.

melodiccolor wrote: We give too freely and don't allow people to find their own solutions different from ours.

Yeah. After a conflict in my group today, I told the other person "I see where you're at though. I'm not gonna push my way forward here, we both choose the response which feels best to us." The conflict was about me saying people should always challenge their teachers, question, and find their own ways of doing things. I mentioned how I learnt calculus by finding my own ways of counting, I didn't follow the rules, I made my own, and it was good for me. His argument was that we need to admit inferiority in some instances, and that it frustrates him to see others reinvent the wheel when it's already been made. We've had the argument many times before. Because I question literally everything and it can be frustrating for others to see me challenge basic truths. My pain with him is that he is much older than me, much more mature, and that he's also essentially saying I should bow down to him. (Which I refuse to)

melodiccolor wrote: After all we see a rich picture all too clearly and in many layers.  People however need to go through the journey of learning on their own from experience, even painful ones. Our insights are valid, but we must remember this as guides and examples.  We must relearn this lesson with each new level of growing and reframing we reach for that new view seems so vast, so right.

I also started a discussion today about how to deal with having a qualitative experience of ourselves. Because this experience should and needs to change as we grow older, outgrowing our old boxes, finding new aspects to explore, yet some people cling to their experiences, and then they start "sharing on repeat" mentioning the same basic struggle over and over. It never ends, they never come out of it, because they're attached to a culture within themselves that is starting to die. At the same time it's important to be comfortable about your qualitative experience and to stand up for it. Otherwise you're not even taking the challenge to test your worldview. So the question emerges from

Either you move away from learning through experience, hiding in your old protective shell until you one day feel ready to move out. (Those people usually grow in "safe patterns") or you move with challenges (learning a little as you go, but not everything at once) or you challenge yourself and others constantly, (learning everything at once, and then forgetting it, and learning it all over again.)

And yeah, I had a huge shift a month ago as you might remember. And that meant I had to learn alot of things all over again. But it's been a fun month, nontheless.

Ah, so there are two issues mentioned, Anarkandi; sharing to encourage someone to grow beyond the box and sharing to reaffirm the box.

Until you're ready to move out, as you put it, someone sharing outside of it can feel like pushing, I suppose.

Another insight I garnered from chatting is that there needs to be a balance between sharing our truths and listening. Too much of either and the picture becomes distorted. If we just share and don't listen, we get lost in our own visions. If we listen and discount our views, we don't find our own truth, what is right for us, getting lost in other people's visions. This balance is crucial. I felt this is important enough to highlight.

From what I've learned the need to share is a basic one as a person HSP or not.
HSP may be like lots of stuff, more sensitive to sharing and it's meanings to them and to others.
There's the times you need to share or you're going to bust at the seams and explode, and there's the times you do it without thinking and then there's the times you do it trying to help others with their path.
I guess you can also do all of those at once.
Attachments to things, including sharing to me seem to happen when you invest a piece of your self worth or joy onto something. Loosing it then feels like you've gotten a body part ripped off.

It's natural to be proud of yourself for being a good person or helping others when it's tough and it's hard to see that sometimes you need to listen equally--to trust the other person to solve their own problems.
Or you need to be able to listen to truly empathize with the other person and see how their experience is a mirror for you to learn from. Even if it is draining or they're annoying, if you listen hard enough and humbly enough you can understand what they have to offer you.
Anark I sense the girl you mentioned is kind of like that.

Denmark guy, yeah I think I did that as a child and teenager, and feeling ignored did hurt. There seems to be a bigger depth to this subject than that though.

It's almost like there's an ingrained obligation you, me, Mel and many HSP empaths or not may have about sharing and guiding. Passing on your knowledge to people who remind you of past selves perhaps. Informing them of HSP and the like in hopes somebody else doesn't have to go through the struggles you did.
People as a whole seem to feel this obligation (anybody who has had to parent anyone else for example) but especially we HSP empaths who feel these struggles repeating in others; it's impossible not to be moved or reminded of your values when hearing the story of another.
I'd argue it's the natural way of humanity to pass on one's knowledge as much as possible.

So I'm trying to figure out how we would balance sharing and insightful guiding with listening at that level. Trying to so far is shifting my interaction with the world, but it is quite difficult to see this attachment and not let it interfere.
Embracing your power to touch another person's life, or to influence the world around you is something that may be particularly hard for HSP to do--who are probably more than used to having to struggle for this power.

So I ask in this thread,
What does it mean to have power and how does it relate to your need to share?

Zen wrote:Embracing your power to touch another person's life, or to influence the world around you is something that may be particularly hard for HSP to do--who are probably more than used to having to struggle for this power.

So I ask in this thread,
What does it mean to have power and how does it relate to your need to share?

For me it simply means to have internal confidence. I noticed the more true trust, confidence and empowerment I felt inside, the more it reflected my influence on the outside world. I became a natural leader throughout life.

When we listen, it isn't enough to just listen to the surface words, what is being presented. When we share, it isn't enough either.

There are deeper levels and one that must be learned is what I call the assumption language. In any group, family, culture or belief, hidden just under the surface, there are assumptions of how things should be, what is expected, what is right. If you don't share them with whom you're communicating with, it may be hard to speak their language. You'll say one thing and they'll get a totally different meaning, and visa versa. So one thing you learn to listen for is that; find the assumptions in both yourself and the people you're speaking to. Most of us are not fully aware of the assumptions we operate under as we learned many when quite young and just assume them to be truth when in fact, they are only a truth within the group they came from.

Listening deeper allows both for us to hear the other better and to share better.

melodiccolor wrote:...
The problem comes in when we feel the need to express so strongly, we stop listening;  we don't pay attention to the subtler things.  We give too freely and don't allow people to find their own solutions different from ours.  After all we see a rich picture all too clearly and in many layers.  People however need to go through the journey of learning on their own from experience, even painful ones.  Our insights are valid, but we must remember this as guides and examples.  We must relearn this lesson with each new level of growing and reframing we reach for that new view seems so vast, so right....

This particularly struck me as a parent. It's so true with my grown children. In some ways they are still so young and immature, and I want to jump in and give them some advice, to keep them from making foolish mistakes, and to try to protect them, but mostly, I know they don't really appreciate the lectures, and somtimes just being available to listen is so much more important.

Oh yes, being a parent is definitely one of those roles where balance is ongoing...