Why some people are spirit-sensitive – and what that means
Why spirit-sensitivity was our ancestors’ big evolutionary advantage
I woke up this morning feeling POSSESSED by the need to go to the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, IRE.
Two weeks ago, my spirit team had made it clear that I needed to leave the house every day, so I knew I would be going somewhere.
But I had no idea why Chester Beatty was THE place – five alternatives jumped to my mind.
Over the years, I've learned to absolutely trust my spirit team on where to go and when (In May of 2024, they said “Sit on this empty bench NOW!” 10 minutes later, a stranger walked up and offered me $125 worth of FREE tickets to the Scarborough Renaissance Festival!)
So I pushed past my aches and pains, got my umbrella, wandered through Dublin Castle, and plunked myself down in the library garden to dictate this draft.
50 minutes later, I received a clear direction to go into the library and look at the collection (no explanation of why…)
What I discovered was a huge display of sacred scripture texts…on exactly the subjects I needed to illustrate this article.
If I asked you where in your city you could go to take a picture of a bodhisattva figure, would you have any idea? Yeah, me neither. But somehow my spirit team directed me exactly to the right place...again.
In this article
What we evolved to hear
This explains a lot
A new category: Spirit-sensitive
What does it mean for those who are
For now, try this…
A special note for people who don't experience these things
The idea that there is upside to hearing voices runs counter to my society’s popular wisdom.
People have wondered whether I’d had a mental break, lost touch with reality, or become a threat to myself or others. My 8th therapist said that she'd never met someone who could evaluate the voices as objectively as I do. But I think that a lot more people could with the right training.
Because there are just as many positive voices as negative ones…if you know how to listen.
What we evolved to hear
I've written HERE about practical advantages of spirituality, how it enabled our early ancestors to notice hidden resources or changes in the environment.
But I conveniently omitted another belief I was scared to be honest about…
The idea that non-physical entities contact people with the sensitivity to perceive them…and that it happens more than you might think.
Ack, it's scary even to go public writing that!
I don’t think we are only perceiving natural energies (although some people do have spooky abilities to predict the weather better than the Met Office).
After years of experimenting, I’ve become convinced that both positive and negative entities, beings, energies – whatever you want to call them – communicate with humans.
I've seen the results, both good and bad. Positive ones convey information impossible to come up with any other way (for me, sustainable success, relationship guidance, and health information no doctor could uncover).
Negative ones cause a number of mental, emotional, and even physical maladies that don't respond to other types of treatment. Once my husband and I realized we needed to kick negative energies out of our relationship, we started to make progress that years of therapy hadn't enabled.
Learning to listen to positive spirits and cleanse negative ones would have been a huge evolutionary advantage for our ancestors.
Spiritual traditions around the world have bestowed names on them – angels, demons, jinn, bodhisattva, yoni. And I’ve spent years satisfying my skepticism that these aren’t just manifestations of our own selves the way modern Western psychology teaches (let me know if you want to hear why).
This explains a lot
Negative energies create many effects that don’t seem to make sense…
The current state of US politics, where violent crime is at an all-time low, yet fear is at an all-time high
The increase of isolation and FOMO caused by social media, a vehicle originally designed to help people connect and feel good
“Advancements” intended to improve our standard of living end up destroying the environment that supports us
In our own lives:
The harmful comment some impulse pushed us to make, but we've wished ever since we could take it back
The sudden swell of fear or doubt that caused us to step back from a big opportunity
The intrusive thought that we're not good enough even though, objectively, we have plenty of skills to qualify as experts
Imposter syndrome? Mostly negative energies. Would we really think anything so obviously untrue about another person? No? Then why do we believe that we would think this about ourselves?
But there are also many examples of positive energy effects: that impulse to call a loved one at just the right moment when they needed support, the gentle voice that whispers you will recover from your grief even if it feels like it's swamping you now, an incredible experience of being in the right place at the right time to receive a life-changing opportunity.
Positive ones can be your best allies if you learn to recognize them. (If you've heard me refer to my “spirit team,” this is what I'm talking about!) You can read more HERE about how to tell the difference between positive and negative energies.
A new category: Spirit-sensitive
I’m coining a new term.
“Spirit-sensitive” is different from “spiritually sensitive” because this isn't about having spiritual belifs or practice.
It's just about perceiving energies themselves, both good and bad.
As with other human gifts like physical strength, intellectual ability, artistic talent, or emotional skills, there’s a continuum,
Some people might hear actual voices – I think I've heard them since I was a child, but I only developed the ability to have conversations in my mid-40s.
Some might be sensitive to the energies of people or places – I recently discovered that I love old churches and libraries because the positive energy there tends to keep the negative energies away!
Some might have intrusive thoughts that consistently introduce negative or pessimistic content. (Note: modern psychology says these are our inner saboteurs, wounded inner children, or protectors, but I don't think that's always the case.) For a long time, I thought that my “there’s nothing to live for” monologue came from me. It wasn't until my spirit team was like, “Does that really sound like you, Robin?” that I realized it was a negative energy influence. (Read more HERE.)
Some might have a mindset that tends to be negative or unusually resilient – I’ve been both over the years.
Maybe believing in these energies seems like a big leap.
But having struggled with my own health and worked with thousands of clients, I can tell you it's just as much a part of life on this planet as the physical considerations of food, shelter, and human connection.
What does it mean for those who are spirit-sensitive
Michael Phelps is the most highly decorated Olympic athlete in history. Yet before he got training, he was a hyper little boy who couldn't focus. In fact, his kindergarten teacher said he would never amount to anything!
We’re quick to train people with athletic, artistic, or intellectual gifts, but many modern societies have decided that spirits don't exist.
That's a big problem for spirit-sensitive people because we don’t get any training.
If you say you're hearing disembodied voices, sensitive to energies, or have information you can't explain…you get labeled as weird, or worse: deceitful, deluded, or psychotic.
What you don’t get is help understanding or using your gifts.
And without correct training, it's easy for those labels to become true...
(Note: the best widely available training I've found is to learn to read Tarot cards, which at least channels your instincts.)
If you are spirit-sensitive, I believe you, and my heart goes out to you.
Because you have a gift which you may struggle to get help with.
Like Michael Phelps, whose incredible energy was out of control until he found a coach willing to go toe to toe with it and give him the training he needed, your gift might be giving more trouble than support…but it doesn’t have to stay that way.
For now, try this
What if we believed that the things we are experiencing were real?
Instead of pushing them away, we could catalogue them, write them down, talk to a trusted listener who won't automatically try to convince us we’re imagining things…
What if we accepted that some of those experiences were positive and others were negative?
What if we decided we would work hard to figure out the difference?
We could dive into the positive ones and start ignoring and casting out the negative ones.
There’s a PDF coming...let me know if you’re interested.
A special note for people who don't experience these things
After years of listening to people trying to talk me out of what I was experiencing, I came up with this analogy:
Insisting that spirits or energies don't exist just because you don't perceive them is like a person who is red-green colorblind insisting that all Christmas decorations look the same.
Just because you can't see the colors doesn't mean other people don't.
Some people think cilantro tastes like soap, but other people love it! It's okay to sense things differently.
You will get better results by believing people and asking more questions…even if you don't experience what they do. The last thing you want is to drive them into hiding their experience from you. I've seen disastrous results from that!
Ultimately, you'll help them far more by learning more about their world and supporting them to navigate it in a positive way.
Especially if they are members of your own family…
Wooooaaaah. This is soooo fascinating 🤓 ♥️
Quick question if you are able to speak on them.
Is your spirit team, intangible to reality, but actual enough inwhich you can form a form of communication with.?