The Human Hoover: Why Sensitivity Isn’t the Problem — But Your Filter Might Be
Have you noticed that some people move through the world noticing everything?
They pick up on shifts in atmosphere, energy, tone, expression—sometimes even before a single word is spoken or a conscious thought is constructed.
For those individuals, sensitivity is a built-in detection system—finely tuned, high-functioning, often shaped by survival. Ever present, there without design, and often seen by many as a ‘flaw’.
In my work, I often describe this experience using the metaphor of people as Human Hoovers.
What Is a Human Hoover?
Imagine a vacuum cleaner. Some models are designed to pick up only large, obvious debris. Others are engineered to detect and collect the tiniest particles of dust.
It’s the same with humans.
Some of us have nervous systems built to register only the major stuff. Others—often those with complex histories or trauma—are wired to pick up everything.
This doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with us—even though the reactions we’ve received to our exquisite sensitivity may have convinced us otherwise.
It means our internal systems have been shaped by our experiences—both nature and nurture—to detect what others might miss. It’s not performance, it’s perception. It’s data gathering. It’s protection. It’s automatic, and it may have always been there.
And while we can learn that sensitivity can be a strength, it can also become overwhelming. Not because of what we notice, but because of what happens after.
The role of the Filter
Every hoover has a filter. So do we.
The filter is where everything we’ve picked up, every tiny particle of emotional dust, gets processed.
And if that filter hasn’t been cleaned—if it’s full of old residue, unresolved pain, or past storylines—then everything new that comes in gets contaminated.
We start reacting to now with the emotions of then.
We interpret today’s discomfort through yesterday’s grief.
We misread neutral moments because our filter is fogged with old anger, fear, sadness, pain or shame.
Like the detection system, the filter system isn’t a weakness, but it is a responsibility—and if we want to use our skill to its greatest potential, and if we want to thrive in healthy relationships—it’s a responsibility which needs attending to.
Knowing when the filter is full
The truth is, we may not know.
Not consciously.
What we might be ‘knowing’ instead is that we feel certain things which seem ‘too much’ for ourselves or the people around us.
- We might feel, or be accused of overreacting to small things that “shouldn’t” feel big.
- We might feel exhausted by daily interactions—feel that we’re out of sync and relating to others is a struggle.
- We might get told that we’re too sensitive, too intense, seeing things which aren’t there—we may feel enraged, or even start to believe that we’re the problem.
- We might second-guess ourselves or struggle to trust our responses.
- We might feel extremely sensitive in a raw, bruised kind of way.
The truth is, sensitivity isn’t the issue, but a clogged filter might be.
Let's meet Emily’s
Emily came to me because she was struggling in her relationships—resulting in arguments, feelings of anxiety and depression—and a real concern that she would lose friends and her partner Jamie.
In exploring Emily’s story, there were noticeable themes of Mind Reading and Catastrophising. One example Emily shared regarding a recent experience with her friends:
“When I walked back into the room after going to the toilet, they went silent. I know they’d been talking about me. I called them out on it but they both looked me in the face and lied. They both denied it but I knew, I just knew. I left then. I was so upset. How could they do this to me? I know they would’ve just laughed as soon as I’d walked out. That’s why I’ve blocked them. I’m so hurt. When I got home and told Jamie, he turned on me then too, told me I was “over-reacting and being too sensitive”. That I “should have asked them rather than accused them”. I couldn’t take any more attacks from people that are meant to love me so I left and went to mum’s for the night. I just don’t get it. How did it go wrong so quickly? What did I do? I just don’t understand and I’m so scared. I seem to be getting everything wrong and I don’t know why. I know I got defensive, I didn’t mean to. It just all happened so quickly and kept getting worse”
In sessions we revealed that when Emily returned from the bathroom, she was triggered by a shift she’d detected from her friends. This was her ‘hoover’ scanning the room and picking up the minutia micro communications—one friend putting her drink down, and one friend shifting her position. Neither of them talking. She noticed a flicker of a frown and eye contact between the two of them that lingered a fraction of a second too long.
Emily’s ‘hoover’ wasn’t malfunctioning. It was performing exceptionally well.
But…
That data (the trigger) hit the filter and got contaminated by past traumas (the source) of being bullied at school. The past wounds became the weapons of the present.
She was under threat all over again. Emotionally, she was in the company of her childhood tormentors—not in memory, but in sensation—that old pain overshadowing, and becoming, her current truth.
She then went to her ‘safe’ partner who didn’t support her in the way she believed she needed (trigger) just like she hadn’t been supported back then (source).
The stress response from when the ‘data’ hit the filter created a domino effect as she bounced from one trauma trigger to another.
In time, Emily was able to acknowledge the past contaminating the present.
The hoover metaphor helped her make sense of what was happening. It gave her clarity in the confusion. She developed a new, loving and compassionate relationship with her finely tuned detection skills.
Emily cleaned out her filter.
She processed her pain and developed tools to use whenever needed.
Cleaning the Filter
You don’t need to change your sensitivity.
You don’t need to stop picking things up.
What you need is a way to clean the filter.
That means:
- Making time for regular emotional processing
- Learning to tell the difference between present and past signals
- Journaling, therapy, movement, creative expression—whatever clears the system
- Creating safe, clean spaces where your system can rest and recalibrate
If you’re someone who feels deeply, someone who observes and reacts like a meerkat, someone who has often heard that you’re too sensitive or too much, then you too may be a finely tuned hoover.
You may not be responsible for how you got to be that way, but you are responsible for protecting your inner system.
And for those who truly commit to this work? Some go on to become the safe place for others. Therapists. Coaches. Supervisors. Fully operational, filter-checked human hoovers — using their sensitivity as skill, not burden.
Final Thoughts
Check your filter.
Clean it often.
It may not be exciting work. It likely won’t be a one and done. But, in my experience, it’ll be some of the most liberating and healing work you’ll ever do—for the past, present and future you.