the intuitively perceptive, multi-sensory body

The Experience of the Intuitively Perceptive Multi-Sensory Energy Body

If you relate to being multi-sensory, you know that you can intuitively sense, feel and perceive more than your own field and psychology. It's like you are a radio station picking up on a number of channels at the same time. This level of perceiving can include other people's emotions, thoughts, perceptions, patterns, sensations, symptoms and even illnesses. Your perception may also extend into sensing spiritual energies (however you define this) and other dimensions, including plants, animals, group/collective energy, solar system shifts, and perhaps even foreseeing upcoming events and changes. This can feel very overwhelming, exhausting and confusing without the tools to know how to accurately interpret the sensory data you are receiving. This blog is dedicated to sharing a tool to support you to learn how to read your own multi-sensory system so that you can a) take good care of it and b) understand the gift of its own unique intuitive language.

Before we go any further, let's define intuition. Intuition is our truthteller. And it simply means we know something without knowing how we know. And whilst everybody has intuition, it is a predominant faculty of highly attuned people that is too loud to ignore. As a consequence of our intuition being suppressed and illegitimised for centuries in our logic-focused Western culture, it currently requires our courage to resist the collective negative attitudes towards it, in order to rebuild a relationship with it. And as we grow our trust in our intuition, which naturally happens with the continued experience of matching our intuitive nudges with growth and evolution for ourselves and others, we will start to use our intuitive gift as a directional compass for our lives in balance with the logical, rational facts at hand.

Seeing life through the lens of the Tracker - A tool to help interpret your multi-sensory psychology

Imagine if we could see our lives the way fish in a fish tank see the outside world. Its impersonal. Life is coming and going, and changing moment by moment. In a similar way, we can use a technical, impersonal lens to collect data on ourselves and life as it unfolds around us. Using this technical lens, we can learn to observe our thoughts, sensations, emotions and urges as simply data/energy moving through our physical body. 

An example of this, as an intuitive temperament, could be 1) empathically feeling into the field of someone you care about who you know is suffering whilst simultaneously 2) noticing your urge to find ways to help them and  3) holding the intention to parent your children with love and care at the forefront. Additionally 4) you may also notice anger rising in you when having a seemingly neutral interaction with a friend on the phone, for which 5) your inner critic starts attacking you for. You may also be aware that 6) there is a distinct feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach for which you cannot identify its origin and with this 7) an urge to go source some chocolate asap to curb the discomfort of this uncertainty. As you can see, being multi-sensory can sometimes feel very overwhelming and exhausting, without the tools to help us read the multiple strands of information we are experiencing.

And the above example is a very simple one. Imagine walking into a mall or crowded space as a highly attuned person, especially if the chips are down and resilience low!

To witness, identify and name the different elements of our experience we can use what I will refer to here as your Tracker. Your Tracker simply collect data, in a grounded and technical way, taking note of the sensory information at hand without judgment. By naming what is true for you in any given moment is what we could call taking a read on the data. If you notice you are flooded with too much data, try taking a moment to write down the different components of your experience. This exercise, in and of itself, can help calm a physical body that has become information-flooded or empathically overwhelmed. And if that doesn't help, the 'instruction' from a body out of balance is always 'to ground and recenter'. Our body needs our help and our job is to assist it. Once it recenters, clarity of perception and directional 'next steps' naturally emerge.

Taking a read on the data

The accuracy of our intuitive perceptual skills will only ever be as good as the consciousness work we do on ourselves. Our consciousness work helps us to wipe clean our perceptual filters that have been muddied by our past conditioning and unrecovered trauma. We have a tendency, as humans, to project away what we have repressed in our psyches. The unconscious stores and manages our repression and our body keeps the score. For example, if we have been taught by culture to shut ourselves down emotionally, we may struggle to empathise with others' feelings, even as highly attuned people (and especially for males in a culture where masculine strength is expressed through the 'tough guy' persona). So we firstly need to identify, and then 'hug in', what has been banished to the unconscious part of our psyche, from our personal truth and unique gifts to our insecurities, fears, and shame. By locating these repressed parts of ourselves, and their recruited protective patterns and distorted perceptions, we will become better acquainted with what triggers us into reactive patterns, allowing us to change the trajectory of our life. 

This is an essential part of the 'know thyself' human healing journey and is ultimately a form of esteem work. When we are comfortable in ourselves, with the truth of ALL of who we are - the good, the bad and the ugly - reactivity tends to dissolve, we are more genuinely connected to others, and life simply doesn’t activate us in the same way anymore. This work requires commitment to regular self-reflection and self-connection. While it may feel like a confusing and messy process at first, this is how we begin to see through eyes of accuracy. This gives us better access to our intuitive sensory data, as it is no longer mixed up with, and skewed by the protective projections and patterns from our past.

In due course, I will be offering some information on some of the common patterns and filters that block our ability to see through a clean lens. But for now, I encourage you to start practicing using the neutral pattern of Tracker to identify your experience in this now moment, without judgment, attachment of stories, or making any part of yourself wrong.

Making sense of your sensory data - starting with the very basics

Towards and Away From Sensory Data: You can start to practice using the Tracker lens right now as you read this information. When I am sharing information, it is simply that; information. Not good or bad, nor right or wrong, but simply information that your physical body will either resonate with, or not. Knowing what resonates and what doesn't, through your subtle sensory system, is you discerning your personal truth in this moment. For example, notice when your ears prick up, something registers deep inside, you experience the 'full body divine tingles', a sense of 'connecting the dots', or a sentence or word gleaned that peaks your interest. We can pay attention to these often, but not always, gentle signs running through your sensory system to move you towards or away from something, be it information, interactions, situations or environments.

Outdated Conditioning or Unresolved Trauma Sensory Data: Equally, our Tracker can NOTICE when we are triggered by a wounded, unresolved part of ourselves that needs to be 'hugged in' and attended to. The difference here is that it won't be a moving towards or away from feeling, but more of a rattled, discombobulated feeling. You may feel emotional, irritable, unwell, flooded, overwhelmed, exhausted, angry, perhaps even disassociated. A reaction like this is your ally: a signpost to the fact that you are out of balance. If all things considered in your lifestyle, health, relationships and general wellbeing are at a reasonable baseline, it is likely to be a psychological imbalance pointing to old wounds that need healing or conditioning that needs updating. This will require our attention to delve into its origins, process what was not fully processed or considered at the time, and update our distorted filters. Once our psyche becomes a neutralised container we naturally find that we can hold different situations, beliefs, and points of views, with ease. 

Our Moral Compass: Keep in mind, however, there can be another type of triggering which may be entirely appropriate to a situation. We all have a conscience, an innate moral compass of sorts, which is connected to the core of who we are. The closer we are to our integrity and conscience, the more confidence we have to speak assertively into the topics that are truly important to us, but if culture has shamed us for doing so in the past, we may react out of character in the moment or suffer in silence. Because our innate moral code also speaks to us through our multi-sensory system, violation of it will cause an immediate response that could look and feel like a triggered reaction. A good way to check this, if you are rattled by your own reaction post-the-event, is to ask yourself, 'had I not reacted in that way, would I be haunted for not speaking or stepping up in that moment?'  Equally, if we are unable to respond in the moment, we can process our reaction (as I will outline below), allowing us to get to know this core part of who we are, and if necessary follow up with an action for closure. 

A personal example of processing using my Tracker

As an example of using my own Tracker to drill down on one aspect of my now moment experience, let me share with you some real-time processing of one of the bouts of reactivity I recently experienced. I felt overwhelming frustration when I was faced with a group of people holding a collective attitude, in what I believed to be lacking nuance and the 'fuller picture' leading to bias and prejudice. Scanning the data I can break it down to:  

1) In the moment of the trigger, I experienced ANGER (violation to my moral code), SELF CRITICISM from my Inner Critic (why can't you just be like everyone else - your life would be so much easier!), BLAME from my Victim  (why have I been given such a high-volume emotional and sensory system that never seems to fit with the greater collective? why can't I have an easier life?) Once I have acknowledged and held space for all the initial screaming in my psyche, it made space for:

2) I am experiencing SADNESS that parts of humanity are still so closed in their perception due to unchecked black and white conditioning, and...

3) the Idealist in me (connected to my value system and conscience) grieves that this hasn't changed yet. Tears are running down my cheeks as I write this as I...

4) release somatically the energy of SADNESS from my physical body, grief that we are not yet where I would prefer us to be as a human collective. Simultaneously, I am becoming aware, as I peel back all these layers is my inherent... 

5) FAITH-BASED BELIEF/INTUITIVE KNOWING that everything is exactly as it is meant to be at this point of time, and that change is not only possible but inevitable. This brings hope, peace and relief to my psyche, as I reconnect with my INTUITIVE TRUTH so that there is now room for me to move more fluidly throughout the rest of my day, without the added layer of stress that repressed grief brings. This unexpressed grief could have otherwise triggered a familiar Defeatist pattern in me creating a low mood, heavy energy, and a narrative that 'there is no hope'. Instead, by using my Tracker, my sensory data naturally led me back to a reconnection with myself and my personal truth, resetting my physical body and allowing me to be present again in the here and the now.

If I went through this reflective process and came to the conclusion I needed to take an action for closure (by speaking to the people who were involved, for example) I could have done that. BUT after peeling back and working through all of the data, including expressing my grief somatically, I have become intuitively aware that this is not necessary. In fact I know it could further entrench their black and white thinking. When we neutralise our psyche in this way, we have better access to our intuitive perception and a greater ability to let go of that which we cannot control. Once I had released my grief I could see clearly that it was not my responsibility to try and change this particular group's attitudes. This has returned me to a feeling of warmth and acceptance towards the WHOLE of who these people are, not just what I perceive to be negative.  

In Summary: 
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Change is constant and resistance to change causes suffering, as Buddha has wisely taught us. Our physical  body is changing moment by moment, so staying attuned to ourselves and our multiple senses, never making our multi-sensory system wrong and honouring the information it shares with us, we have an opportunity to get to know and heal ourselves at a deeper level. What needs to be cleared from our system, can be cleared. What needs to be taken heed of, can be honoured. What needs to be transmuted for the better, can be healed. What is your's and what is somebody else's emotional content can be identified and released. And as we get more skilled, with the helpful neutrality of our Tracker, our sensory data can be used discerningly and conscientiously to make wise and conscious decisions for the greater good. 

By befriending our many channels of information, we learn how our multiple senses are trying to communicate with us, enabling us to utilise their gift of communication to help ourselves and the greater collective along. Whilst this may seem like a challenge at first, as we learn to track our multi-sensory body for data, impersonally and without judgment, it is not only eye-opening but one of the most loving acts we can give ourselves. Moreover, it is a healing antidote to the shame-based messages we may have received growing up in a 5-sensory culture as multi-sensory beings. Such an act of self-connection enables us to see more clearly, honours our temperament and its gifts, and supports us to tap into experiences of transformation and healing that we may never have believed possible.