We polled our community to learn more about the type of support they’re needing and wanting. It was abundantly clear that feeling understood and like you can be yourself are some of your biggest needs (which made me happy that “understood” was one of the most common words you used to describe us). That got me thinking about the support that does- and doesn’t- work for HSPs. After being an HSP therapist and coach for 16 years, I’ve gotten to hear a lot of people’s experiences with other helping professionals. And quite honestly, many of those experiences haven’t been great. I’ve seen ..read more

A few years after I heard about Highly Sensitive People, I heard the term “empath”. I immediately related to the description of people who can tune into others’ emotions and often feel them as if they were their own. In fact, this ability to feel others’ emotions was one of the hardest parts for me of being an HSP, and even years into being a therapist, I didn’t know what to do about it. No matter how hard I tried not to, I seemed to soak up others’ feelings. Sometimes I would leave a situation feeling heavy or angry or depressed with no idea why. I felt like I had no control over my life. Sim ..read more

It’s been longer than normal since I connected with you. It hasn’t been for lack of care; in fact, I’m considering ways to best support you all the time. I’ve been quiet because I’ve been walking through what feels like a sandstorm, and I’ve been waiting for my sense of clarity to return so that I could email you from a grounded, inspired place (my favorite place to be). But after waiting for a couple months, I’ve decided to write you regardless of how I’m feeling, knowing that you’ve probably been in “foggy” places before yourself. I’m usually someone with a lot of vision, but recently I ..read more

For many years, I hid my sensitivity because I thought it was shameful and embarrassing. I thought that letting people see my deep thoughts and feelings would invite criticism and rejection. When I started learning that sensitivity was a trait that I shared with a fifth of the population, not a character flaw unique to me, it blew my mind. I started rethinking all the ways I had judged myself in the past, and I started looking at my experience in terms of how my nervous system was reacting to my environment. Breaking free of that shame and judgement made room for me to start looking at my ..read more

Have you ever made a choice not to do something because you knew in your gut that it would overwhelm or exhaust you? Maybe you decided to stay home instead of traveling, going to see family, or going out with friends. Perhaps you chose to say “no thanks” to an invitation to a wedding or party. Maybe you declined an offer to work on a project that seemed really exciting. Or maybe you knew you shouldn’t accept that new job offer because its fast-paced nature would just be too much to handle. You were honoring your sensitivity Made intentionally, all of these decisions are examples of&n ..read more

This past week, we finally got our first real snowfall in Colorado! It can be so peaceful to take in a snowy scene when sparkling snowflakes are falling. And at the same time, snowfall harkens to the coming weeks of cold, dark, and more time spent inside. Some of us might cherish this time of year, looking forward to winter activities and chilly temps. But not everyone feels this way, and this can be especially true for highly sensitive people! So, do you tend to feel more melancholy in the fall season? Or perhaps a little more down during the winter?  HSPs are highly in tune with na ..read more

Last week on Instagram, one of our posts got more comments and likes than we’ve ever gotten. It struck me how much it resonated with so many people in our community, so I want to continue to bring attention to something that so many are clearly experiencing right now (and not talking about). Here’s what the post said: If you were in survival mode for the last 15 months, you might be feeling grief and other emotions now. Humans are amazingly resilient beings. One of the ways that we’re resilient is that we have the capacity to go into survival mode (fight/flight/freeze/fain ..read more

For most of my early life, I lived in my mind, very disconnected from my body. I worried a lot, thought about everything deeply, and did everything I could to not feel my emotions. This trauma response helped me live a “normal” life, disconnected from the place (my body) that held my feelings and memories of painful experiences. While this (sort of) worked for a while, it had huge consequences, like being disconnected from the real me, emotional numbness, and tons of anxiety. I spent a lot of years reconnecting with myself and healing my trauma. The result has been the ability to feel my feeli ..read more

Have you noticed that the modern world isn’t built for highly sensitive people? I’m thinking about loud, hectic coffee shops where people go to “focus and get work done,” jobs where “fast-paced multi-tasking” and being “capable of handling multiple priorities at once” are listed in job descriptions, and industries where “ASAP” is the timeline for every task, not something that’s reserved for emergencies. We live in a world where reading the news every single day and staying informed up to the minute feels like it’s required to be a good person. Tuning out, even for a day, feels like a cop-out ..read more

Have you ever felt like as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) you just aren’t cut out for physical exercise? It’s intense, exhausting, and draining, and you can’t seem to “make” yourself do it. Plus, trying to force yourself to fit something else into an already busy day just doesn’t seem possible, or even healthy. As HSPs, we are prone to overwhelm, due to our finely-tuned nervous systems that process everything more deeply than non-HSPs. Cramming in a 30-minute workout might seem like exactly the opposite of what our bodies and souls need when we’re already so stimulated.  And yet, we also ..read more