Maya's Veil Pt 1: Missing Your Best Friend's Wedding Over Sweatpants

Uncomfortable in My Own Skin Series - Hyperesthesia

December is about hyperesthesia, or hyper-sensitivity to touch. This kind of tactile sensitivity can be very physically uncomfortable. We sensitive souls are hyperaware of every sensation, every shift, every change in your body that most people don’t even notice, and it’s time we stop apologizing for it!

The Wedding She Missed

Maya walked into my office wearing her uniform. Gray sweatpants, black tank top, bare feet.

The energy around her crown chakra, muted purples and grays that wanted to be vibrant indigos and violets, was blocked by an invisible dome, reaching upward and just stopping.

She sat cross-legged on my couch and pulled a velvet throw pillow onto her lap, her fingers finding the texture immediately.

“I missed my best friend’s wedding last month.” Her voice went quiet. “She got married at a full moon gathering in the woods, and I couldn’t go because I couldn’t find anything to wear. I went shopping five times and always came home empty handed. I spent three hours in my closet trying on different things, and everything felt too tight, too scratchy, too constricting. I ended up sitting on the floor surrounded by clothes, crying, while my friend got married without me.”

I watched her stroke the velvet absently while she talked.

“I was supposed. . .” she sobbed, “to be her maid of honor!”

She tugged at the tassles on the pillow.

“I can only wear these,” she said, pulling at the waistband of her sweatpants. “They discontinued the style I like two years ago, so I bought twelve pairs on eBay.”

Maya collected crystals. She read tarot. She had an altar at home where she did daily rituals. She dreamed of wearing flowing skirts to farmer’s markets and layering scarves for women’s circles.

“I should be able to do this,” she said. “I work with energy. I understand the unseen world. But I can’t get my body to cooperate with something as basic as getting dressed.”

As her aura flickered, I could taste her shame, metallic and bitter, like old pennies left in the sun.

Can I Ask You Something Random?

“I’ve done therapy,” she said, looking me dead in the eye. “I’ve used up what my insurance will pay for, and nothing has changed. I’m so tired of talk-talk-talking about this.”

“Can I ask you something that’s gonna sound random?”

“Sure,” she said, and her guarded solar plexus chakra relaxed. The tension in her aura softened.

“What’s your relationship with movement?”

“With what?”

“Moving your body,” I said plainly.

“Oh.” She stopped and her aura went cold. “Do you mean exercise?”

“No. I’m not talking about fitness. I’m talking about your relationship with moving and using your body,” her aura softened a bit.

“I’m so glad you didn’t mean exercise, because that’s something I get in fights with my primary care doc about every year at my annual physical.”

“Yeah, docs are always either pushing pharmaceutical drugs or trying to get you to exercise and eat right.”

“I absolutely hate working out. I tried one of those introductory gym memberships with the free personal trainer session. I quit halfway through the first session.”

“I’m not concerned with fitness. I want to know about your relationship to moving your body, using your body, connecting with your body. Can you talk about that?”

“Well, I’ll tell you that I’m a complete klutz. I mean I walk into door frames and walls without even realizing it, and I always have about a half dozen bruises on my legs from bumps and bangs I don’t remember having.”

Various bruises lit up tender spots in her aura as she spoke about them.

“You’ve talked about not liking exercise and working out and being a klutz, which is all valid. I hear you. What I wonder, though, is there any time you actually enjoy being in your body?”

She paused for a moment, tugging more on the pillow tassles.

“Mostly no. I guess I kinda look at this meat-suit thing as just a necessary evil and hassle to maintain about being human.”

*this was the point in the session where I knew I was getting somewhere. She was completely dissociated from her body. She called her body a “meat-suit” and her aura darkened with disdain as she spoke about it. But I figured I could find a way in, a way that she actually enjoys her body.

“You mentioned the wedding was a full moon gathering, is there dancing at that kind of ritual?”

“OH YEAH! I LOVE dancing as part of community rituals, but I don’t do it very often. Maybe once a month or so,” she paused again, like she had something else to say, her aura reached toward me, and then retracted again.

“what is it?”

“I guess I am just wondering what that has to do with my wardrobe issue.”

And just like that, her aura reached toward me again, but this time it didn’t stop at a glass wall. It kept reaching. I’d found the opening.

All Spirit, No Body

“May I give you a chakra reading of what I’m seeing in you?”

And her aura flickered in a different way, rather than power-surges, it sparkled, and iridescence fluttered and shimmered. She was ready. Curiosity does it every time.

I went on to explain to her that she was living entirely in her upper chakras. Her crown and third eye were wide open, almost too open, processing intuitive information constantly. I explained this is quite natural for her and is part of her gifts and specialness. She could read energy, sense shifts in the room, pick up on things most people missed. This is common for sensitive souls.

But she had almost no grounding in her root chakra, and her sacral chakra (where we process physical sensations and pleasure) was completely offline.

She was all spirit, no body.

“I totally get that. Every time I get on a Reiki table, the practitioner tells me they can’t find my lower chakras, or they are overly blocked. But none of them could explain what that actually means in a way that made any sense to me, or tell me what to do about it.”

“Well, what I see is your lower chakras are deficient because your body is begging you to pay attention to it, in the form of klutziness, bruises, tactile sensitivity, and most significantly in the clothes you wear. This is very common for sensitive souls like you and me.”

“You deal with this too?”

“Yes, I have. There was a time when I could only wear a certain tank top and a certain pair of shorts. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever wear a real bra again. And, my legs used to have a dozen purple, blue, and yellowing bruises on them all the time.”

“Thank you for saying that. I thought I was really weird.”

I went on to explain to her that tactile sensitivity, or hyperesthesia, is a real condition, but not one that doctors, or most therapists know how to handle. I explained that her nervous system genuinely processes texture and pressure differently than most people.

I suggested that her lack of body awareness left her with no ability or tools to be able to manage her natural sensitivities.

“Maya, you need to make friends with your body.”

“Can you help me do that?”

“Yes.”

I know some of you reading this are thinking “holy shit, that’s me.” Maybe you have your own uniform. Maybe you’ve canceled plans because you couldn’t find anything to wear that didn’t make your skin crawl. If you’re willing to share, tell me about your experience with clothing sensitivity in the comments. This is a safe space, and you might be surprised how many of us get it.

About TeriLeigh

I’m a chakra reader and spiritual mentor who helps highly sensitive souls stop apologizing for feeling everything so intensely. For over 20 years, I’ve worked with people who’ve been told they’re “too much”—too sensitive, too emotional, too aware—and I help them understand that their sensitivity is actually spiritual intelligence trying to come online.

I created the MOZI Method, which is basically a way to get your brain, body, and energy field all talking to each other again. I’m also a Reiki Master, a yoga instructor, and a shaman elder, but honestly, the most important credential I have is this: I’m one of you. I’m a highly sensitive person who gets it. There was a time when I could only wear one specific tank top and pair of shorts because everything else made my nervous system want to crawl out of my skin. And I’m still not sure I’ll ever wear a real bra again (sorry, not sorry).

Most practitioners work either with your body OR your emotions OR your energy, but they don’t integrate all three. I do, because that’s the only thing that actually worked for me. I don’t fix people or try to make them “normal.” I help them make friends with their bodies and discover that their “too much” nature is exactly what the world needs.

Also, I look up word origins just for gits and shiggles, and I talk to dogs like they’re humans. 🐕

A note on privacy: Maya is a composite of several real clients. I’ve changed names and details, but this pattern of living entirely in upper chakras while being disconnected from the body is common in HSP, Empaths and sensitive souls, especially spiritually aware peeps.

Next week in Part 2, I’ll walk you through the chakra reading I gave Maya and explain why her body was screaming at her in the only language it had left—clothing sensitivity. I’ll detail why her efforts with doctors, therapists, and energy healers didn’t produce results, and why forcing her into “normal” clothes would’ve been just another form of trauma.