Sensitivity is a human trait. Every human being on this Earth is responsive to their environment and that includes all the people in our lives. As sensitives, we may perceive others as insensitive or less conscientious. I can’t count the times I’ve thought to myself, ‘Why in the world would someone say or do that?’ I’ve been intuitively and spiritually tuned-in since early childhood and I was fortunate to have a loving, supportive family. Yet, when I ventured out into the big, wide world, I often felt misunderstood and misperceived. I'm often enmeshed in other people’s energy, to the extent that I would go to any level to love them, care for them, and then be hurt myself thinking about why do people not react the same way, or why do people comment on me. Certainly, there are a small number of people who deliberately act in ways that hurt others. However, I’ve come to recognize most people are simply unconscious about the effect of their words or actions. We all do have a shadow sid
As human beings, we have a fundamental social need to “belong”; from an evolutionary perspective, we are dependent on belonging to a group for survival. Therefore an absence of expected social engagement is a threat to a fundamental need; it signals that we are socially worthless and a bad fit for that very community that we depend on. This creates a sense of ostracism in the mind of an indivy. As a “sin of omission,” ostracism is an act that someone didn’t do: they didn’t acknowledge you or reach out to you or invite you to something. Whether the act of one person or many, it can include being left off email threads, being looked over for a committee position, or being ignored when making suggestions. Often the person who is leaving you out may not mean any deliberate slight; they may be forgetful or distracted in the moment, or more generally socially insensitive or inept. And those who do realize they are doing it — often as a misguided way of avoiding handling conflict