Why is it that, always, ever since I was little, and now increasingly so, I feel I have no filter against the outside world? It is as if I absorb everything, as if everything hurts, even just the smoke from a neighbor’s cigarette which they aren’t even smoking right in front of me, yet I can smell it drifting up or a faint whiff of exhaust fumes, as if these chemical agents were devastating?

What makes “what you deem to be devastating” truly devastating is the conviction that it is so. Thus, you have mapped out your Path as a dividing line between right and wrong. The belief that chemical agents, smoke, or gases, or even (certain foods or drinks), can be harmful has caused your body and your System to register as a danger precisely what you had unconsciously chosen to view as a danger.
Is that clear to you?

Yes.

And so, as you have moved forward, your life has been an attempt to avoid danger—viewing it as something harmful coming from the outside. The message for you is an invitation to return to the encounter; for observing without judgment and making choices from within, not by fleeing from the fear of harm, but by moving toward the care and Love of Who You Really Are, will ensure that what you encounter is no longer a threat, but simply passes by without you becoming trapped by it. For the trap was built by you yourself, precisely for the sake of your Expansion.
Is that clear to you?

Not this last point.

Beliefs, convictions, and fears are not working against you; rather, they serve the purpose of allowing you to experience who you are not, so that you may rediscover Who You Are and choose to live in alignment with that. Therefore, what appears to be something negative, a difficulty or an external attack, is in Reality something you chose to experience for your greatest Expansion.

Excerpt of a Channeling from the Source session
of 10.11.2021