The pioneering exploration into new areas of understanding compassion sponsored by the group "Compassionate Living" who responded to a test posted there.

Before I jump into a brief discussion of what this test was trying to explore I want to emphasize something I have been saying from the start: WE ALL UNDERSTAND COMPASSION IN OUR OWN WAY. And there are lots of different ways of understanding compassion. Part of the “voice” of this group is to share all those differing views and to grow from sharing and listening.

The “test” that was posted in the message “Learn Something About Yourself and Be a Pioneer” within the group “Compassionate Living” is a self report of your level of neurological sensitivity – or how sensitive your nervous system is to stimuli. There has never been any studies that I know of linking such sensitivity to empathy or compassion, but there is research showing that 15 -20% of the human population has a “highly sensitive” nervous system. This is information from Dr. Elaine Aron’s book, “The Highly Sensitive Person”. The test I posted is also from her book. In addition 20 to 30% of the human population has a moderately sensitive nervous system.

I posed this self test question because I thought there might be some relationship between people serious about compassion, members of the group “Compassionate Living”, and a sensitive nervous system. This IS NOT the same as saying that you HAVE TO have a sensitive nervous system to be compassionate - returning back to the basic fundamental premise that we each understand compassion in our own way.

We received 30 responses, about half of our group, which provides enough data to at least pose some interesting ideas. Dr. Aron says that any score above an 11 is highly sensitive. The average score for our 30 replies was about 13.5 – which says that AS A GROUP we are highly sensitive. There were 18 responses that were over 11 which is 18/30 or 60%. That is 3 to 4 times the average for the normal population. If we add in the moderately sensitive scores then that would be 24/30 or 80% which is still well above what is measured in the average population (40 to 50%).

So what could this possibly mean? It is interesting to note that this state of a “highly sensitive” nervous system is something that can be seen from birth and is not limited to humans. It is found in a wide variety of mammals that have a social or cooperative living structure. It may be likely that mammals living in social networks NEED some members to have highly sensitive nervous systems. Think of these sensitive members of the group as the ones who sound the alarm that says, “Hey one of the group members is not doing well, stop and help” or “I sense danger (bad smell, change in something) and we need to be alert”. Such group members can be considered important to the survival of the species.

It also may be that the proclivity to develop empathy to advanced levels could be tied to having a highly sensitive nervous system. The initial steps of empathy involve good listening skills, which I think anyone interested in compassion has already developed. Basic empathy is being able to imagine what it is like for the person and then imagining what that might be like for you. This does involve some sensitivity but it is also inner role playing. More advanced empathy involves actually feeling what the person is experiencing at that moment. And even more advanced empathy involves living that experience as if you were seeing it through their eyes, touching it, sensing it. This is why I am proposing that the proclivity to develop advanced empathy may be linked to having a highly sensitive nervous system, because such a sensitive system (when trained properly) could possibly help in deeply sensing another’s state of being, or having well developed empathy. There is some research on prodigy development that suggests neurological/genetic proclivity may be tied to those who become masters in any area.

There are some drawbacks to being highly sensitive. The first, you are in the minority, which means that how you sense things may not be understood by others. Second, most of the world is designed by the majority and doesn’t take into account the needs of the highly sensitive – referring to movies, foods, news, environments, etc. In addition, if you were exposed to very intense stimuli there is the possibility that your nervous system was “wounded” from the overload. This brings up the third issue, getting overloaded. This will happen and it is wise to become aware of how to take care of yourself. Being highly sensitive can mean that you also carry excessively strong defensives that can get in the way of developing compassion. Finally, being highly sensitive can mean that you are also sensitive to how people speak (or write on the internet) which could result in “withdrawing” and not engaging. Being highly sensitive does not guarantee compassion.

Before ending this there are a few extra interesting points from the test results. People were asked to pick out those stimuli that had significant impact. Most of the data on this was scattered between all the 23 different stimuli, but there were a couple of highlights. Number 9 had 14 responses (I am deeply moved by the arts and music) and number 20 had 10 (notice and enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art). It is interesting that we did not reach 50% consensus on any one of the self report stimuli questions – which again speaks to the diversity of our group and how they sense, interact with the world. But we almost reached 50% with sensitivity to art and music.

I hope that you found this to be stimulating and I greatly appreciated your input. Feel free to post a comment or send me a PM if you have any ideas or questions.